Sitting in his living room, watching the catastrophic match unfold on the TV, Neil Megson had a growing feeling this would be his last day as head coach of the Seattle Sounders.
This was his team being shredded, gutted and embarrassed before its biggest audience and on the greatest stage to date.
Megson’s father, a former coach himself, sat with him, staring at the screen in shock. Neil broke the silence.
“Holy s***. Holy s***,” he repeated. “I think I’m going to get fired in the morning.”
His father, Don Megson, went further, stating, “You deserve to get fired.”
If Sounders lore could bury a single score line from the past 44 years, certainly this selection would be weighted heavily. There are many reasons, the 11-nil beating being first and foremost. However, there’s more to it.
In some ways it was Exhibit A of where American professional soccer existed in the mid-Nineties; the scarce resources, skewed values and naiveté. It’s also a story of the Concacaf Champions League’s past and Seattle’s first encounters with Mexican powers and playing abroad. Stir it all together and it’s one hot mess, even if some failed to recognize it at the time.