MLS Cup Final Preview: Whitecaps vs Inter Miami – Messi Faces Vancouver’s Rising Stars

For Lionel Messi and Inter Miami, Saturday’s MLS Cup final provides the chance to finally secure a major title in a season long on strong performances but short on silverware.

For Thomas Müller and the Vancouver Whitecaps, it brings the chance to not become totally forgotten.

That’s the harsh reality for any opponent that strives for sunlight amid the enormous shadow cast by Messi and his star-studded Herons squad.

So while the rest of the soccer world tries to anticipate just what a Messi title victory would mean for the profile of MLS, let’s take a moment to give the Whitecaps their due as one of the exceptional sides in league history.

Just how exceptional are the Whitecaps?

They’re only the eighth team in MLS history to reach the final in the modern era of the Concacaf Champions Cup. And in the process, they dominated Inter Miami in a 5-1, aggregate-goals semifinal victory.

They’re only the third team to reach that final and also earn another major domestic honor, in their case the 2025 Canadian Championship title.

With an upset over Miami on Saturday, they could become the only team in league history to reach the modern Concacaf final and win MLS Cup in the same season.

They accomplished all this with a roughly $15.7 million payroll after Müller joined from Bayern Munich in the summer. That was still squarely in the middle of the road for MLS teams and about 40% of Inter Miami’s league leading figure of $37.0 million.

They’ve done this under the direction of a first-year manager in Jesper Sorensen, who had never previously taken charge of any team that makes its home in the Western Hemisphere.

They’ve done this during a season in which Brian White and Ryan Gauld, the most important attacking players in recent Whitecaps seasons past, both missed considerable time with injuries.

They’ve done it amid a backdrop of uncertainty about their future in the Pacific Northwest, with MLS commissioner Don Garber repeatedly declaring the club’s current lease at BC Place unworkable long term.

And forget narratives, even the daw numbers flatter the Whitecaps.

Sorensen’s group posted an MLS-best +25.7 margin in expected goal difference over the course of the regular season. They’ve consistently lived up to those prediction models, posting an MLS-best +28 actual goal differential.

The best compliment you might pay is this: The Whitecaps are about to face the game’s greatest living player and several of his former FC Barcelona teammates. And if they win, it may not feel like that much of an upset.

Even if Vancouver does win, it will be hard to focus on their accomplishments amid speculation of what Messi and Miami falling short means for the Herons’ future. But at least their name will be engraved on the trophy and inscribed into the record books.

A loss, and they would still deserve to be held in the same esteem as other great MLS sides who fell just short: 1998 D.C. United, the 2005-07 New England Revolution, 2016 Toronto FC.

Instead, they may simply be recalled by most as the last team Messi and Miami defeated on their title run.