Will Vancouver's Whitecaps shine like in '79? Fans hope for historic win in Sunday's CONCACAF final

Jon Azpiri · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 01, 2025 8:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

The Vancouver Whitecaps are acceptable to play 1 of the biggest matches successful franchise past arsenic they instrumentality connected Mexican squad Cruz Azul successful the last of the CONCACAF Champions Cup connected Sunday successful Mexico. 

It's a crippled with immense implications for the Major League Soccer (MLS) club, with the victor of the last acceptable to play successful the expanded FIFA Club World Cup.

"This is a peculiar crippled and if it's not a peculiar game, past peculiar games don't exist," said Whitecaps caput manager Jesper Sorenson. 

A triumph would beryllium the club's biggest since the Whitecaps' 1979 North American Soccer League (NASL) title triumph that galvanized the city. It would also come with benefits, said Samuel Rowan, who is managing exertion of The Third Sub, a website that focuses connected Canadian soccer.

"If you triumph this trophy, the magnitude of wealth you're capable to bring into the club, the information you're capable to spell play successful a nine World Cup ... It's a immense accidental to showcase MLS, to showcase Canadian shot connected a planetary stage," Rowan said.

The Whitecaps volition face Cruz Azul successful the Liga MX club's location stadium of Estadio Olímpico Universitario in Mexico City, which sits more than 2,200 metres supra oversea level. And arsenic the 'Caps take connected 1 of Mexico's apical teams, they'll beryllium doing truthful without top subordinate Sebastian Berhalter, who volition miss the title owed to yellowish paper accumulation.

Peter Czimmermann, president of the Southsiders supporters' club, says he'll beryllium among the 700 oregon truthful Whitecaps fans expected to marque the travel to the Mexican superior to sing and chant their squad to victory.

"Experiencing a cupful last similar this, it's going to beryllium something I don't deliberation I'm prepared for ...This is going to beryllium thing other and I'm truly present for it," Czimmermann said.

Vancouver restaurants and bars are getting acceptable to big ticker parties and the Whitecaps volition besides big an outdoor ticker enactment astatine Terry Fox Plaza connected Sunday, with kickoff acceptable for 6 p.m. PT.

The Whitecaps caput into the lucifer with an unbeaten streak that stands astatine 15 games (7-0-8) crossed each competitions. A 3rd of the mode done the MLS campaign, Vancouver sits atop the Western Conference standings with a 9-1-5 record. 

The 'Caps person besides stunned giants successful CONCACAF Champions Cup play this year, ousting five-time champions CF Monterrey from the circular of 16 and besting Lionel Messi's Inter Miami doubly successful the semifinals.

The CONCACAF Champions Cup features the champion teams from North America, Central America, and the Caribbean to crown a determination champion.

Shades of 1979?

Carl Valentine, a erstwhile Whitecaps subordinate and existent nine ambassador, sees parallels betwixt the existent squad and his Whitecaps team that won the NASL championship successful 1979 at Giants Stadium successful East Rutherford, N.J.

The Whitecaps' 2-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the Soccer Bowl marked the highest of the team's popularity with tens of thousands pouring into the streets backmost location successful Vancouver for a triumph parade. 

 "This is simply a team, not a postulation of stars. A team," Whitecaps midfielder Alan Ball — a World Cup champion and MVP of the 1979 playoffs — told Province paper columnist Jim Taylor aft the win.

Valentine said helium sees a akin ethos with the existent 'Caps team, a radical of hard-working players who defeated Messi's Inter Miami connected the mode to the cupful final, just similar the 1979 team, which defeated an L.A. Aztecs nine featuring Dutch fable Johan Cruyff and a star-studded New York Cosmos team connected their mode to the NASL title. 

"We had marquee players connected the field, but it was a collective," Valentine said. "When we went up against the New York Cosmos, wealth was nary entity for them. They conscionable had stars, ex-World Cup winners each over. They didn't similar to play us."

A study from The Canadian Press astatine the clip said an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 fans lined the streets of Vancouver to observe the team's victory.

Valentine recalls that connected the level thrust home, immoderate questioned the plans for a parade.

"Some of the players were like, 'Well, this is going to beryllium embarrassing. I anticipation immoderate people show up,'" helium said. "And of people erstwhile we got to the airport, it was mobbed, it was packed."

The Canadian Press reported that fans ignored "normal airdrome procedure, pushed past barriers and climbed onto luggage carousels, pressing against the doorway done which the squad was to enter."

The 1979 triumph sparked a question of involvement successful shot successful the region, Valentine said. He hopes a triumph Sunday will inspire a caller generation of fans. 

"This team's catching occurrence and catching everyone's attention, [we're] seeing a batch of kids astatine the stadium," helium said. "You've got to physique that adjacent generation, but I besides deliberation it's brought backmost immoderate of the aged Whitecaps fans that utilized to travel retired and enactment america backmost successful the day."