FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Oct. 19 (UPI) -- For the first time in its six-year history, the MLS Cup is an all-California affair.
The Los Angeles Galaxy will take on the San Jose Earthquakes at 12:30 p.m. EDT at Columbus, Ohio's Crew Stadium on Sunday.
The Galaxy are making their third appearance in the finals -- a game they have never won. Despite a legacy of solid play in MLS, the Galaxy hold but one title, the CONCACAF Champions Cup, which they won this season over D.C. United.
The Quakes have never made it to the finals. However, their star defender, Jeff Agoos, has been in five of six finals, winning three times.
"Both teams are hungry for legitimacy," Los Angeles coach Sigi Schmid said. "From the organizational standpoint, Los Angeles is a place where you have excellence in athletics whether it's professional athletics like the Lakers or the run that the Los Angeles Kings made last season in hockey, or whether its college athletics with the run that UCLA football is having now.
"To be considered on that landscape and get your due you do need to win the ultimate goal. If you finish second all the time you're ignored. From our standpoint as an organization, it's important to put ourselves on the same level as those other highly successful sports franchises."
Los Angeles' Cobi Jones is confident in his team.
"Everyone doubted us and said we can't win the big games but we've shown we have character and the ability to do it," Jones said. "We just have to do it one more game."
For San Jose, the season started with considerably lower expectations and has ended on an unexpected high.
"From the day I got the job you could feel the organization was on the downer," said Quakers coach Frank Yallop. "It was four years without any success and that's tough for fans and people who work with the club to deal with. You need to see some light at the end of the tunnel.
"This organization has a chance to try to win a cup here. What's to stop us doing that? That's what we have to look at. Los Angeles has done it since Day One. This organization needs to get somewhere on L.A.'s stature where we can be competing for trophies every season."
The two teams are fairly evenly matched. The Quakes boast star attacking power in young Landon Donovan, the occasionally hotheaded but speedy forward who has contributed four goals in the playoffs and sparked his team to the Cup.
Los Angeles has a solid defense as well, anchored by the underrated keeper Kevin Hartmann and former national team players Paul Caligiuri and Greg Vanney, but it is a team primarily known for offensive brilliance. Mauricio Cienfuegos and Jones have combined since Year One to be one of the league's most feared scoring teams.
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