Editor's Note: SoundersFC.com is counting down the Top 10 Stories of the Year in December, recognizing the top storylines on and off the field in 2015. In the latest installment, we look back at Seattle's knockout round win over postseason rival, the LA Galaxy.
Every other year for four seasons running, the LA Galaxy had made it their business to finish off Sounders FC in the postseason. Mercifully, the cycle was broken in 2015.
In 2010, the Galaxy buried Seattle 3-1 over two legs in the Western Conference Semifinals. In 2012, the Sounders busted out 4-2 over two legs to the Galaxy in the Western Conference Final. In 2014, the Galaxy benefited from the recently-installed away goals rule to squeeze past Seattle 2-2 thanks to a late Juninho away goal in the second leg.
If the Galaxy once seemed like an unconquerable hurdle, they certainly don’t anymore.
For the first time, Seattle met the Galaxy in a one-off playoff match this season, and LA could not withstand the withering barrage of firepower the Sounders laid down in their meeting in the Knockout Round on Oct. 28. The Sounders led on three separate occasions, first at 1-0, then at 2-1 and finally at 3-2 after an Erik Friberg wonder goal off a volley in the 77th minute. It was probably the goal of the Sounders’ season, all things considered.
- READ: Top Stories of 2015
Seattle has been dogged by postseason woes of its own over the breadth of its tenure in MLS, and the Galaxy were probably the biggest hurdle, mental or otherwise, to overcome. They made their dynastic rise just as Seattle was establishing itself as an annual playoff contender after 2009, and the two teams had their share of postseason run-ins while the Galaxy were benefiting from the supernova of Landon Donovan’s career and the final days of David Beckham’s.
Seattle, though, finally turned the tables on a Galaxy team it has not had the same trouble beating in the regular season. LA went through a spurt of impassioned dominance late in the 2015 season, and for a time it looked as though the Robbie Keane/Giovani Dos Santos/Steven Gerrard tetrarchy would win the Supporters' Shield.
Instead, the Sounders put an abrupt end to all that and started a new era between two of the league’s most prestigious clubs.
