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Lovers of our region’s specific, homegrown, supporters-developed soccer trophy rejoice; the Cascadia Cup will return in 2021.
In a blog post at 107ist.org, the Cascadia Cup Council announced that the Cascadia Cup will have a champion at the end of the 2021 season. Due to fan restrictions that were in place for all three Cascadia Clubs during the 2020 season, the trophy went unawarded last year. This year, now that those restrictions are relaxed and a balanced schedule can be created, the Cup will once again grace the trophy cabinet of one of the Pacific Northwest’s MLS sides by season’s end.
The Cascadia Cup Council, made up of representatives from the Timbers Army, the Emerald City Supporters, and the Vancouver Southsiders, made the decision in the summer of 2020 that MLS matches played behind closed doors would not count towards the Cascadia Cup standings. Since none of the 2020 editions of Cascadia matchups featured fans in the stands, the cup competition was null and no champion was named last year.
This year, now that fans have returned to MLS matches, the competition will resume. Both the Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders have returned to full capacity for home games at Providence Park and Lumen Field, respectively. The Vancouver Whitecaps who had been using Sandy, Utah as their U.S. base, playing “home” matches at Rio Tinto Stadium while the United States-Canada border remained closed, are set to return to Canada and BC Place with fans by the end of the month.
The schedule will feature the six remaining regular season matches between the three teams, four for each team. Each team will have the opportunity to host each of the others once, with the team that wins the most cumulative points between their four games will be crowned the champions of Cascadia for 2021.
Here’s the full breakdown and dates of the schedule:
- 8/15 Seattle @ Portland
- 8/29 Portland @ Seattle
- 9/10 Portland @ Vancouver
- 10/9 Vancouver @ Seattle
- 10/20 Vancouver @ Portland
- 11/7 Sounders @ Vancouver
As the schedule above suggests, the earlier bout between the Timbers and Sounders which ended in a 2-1 Sounders victory back in May will not count towards the Cascadia Cup standings. The competition will officially commence with this Sunday’s rivalry clash at Providence Park.
You can read the 107ist full blog post here.