Although it may seem like the Colorado Rapids and Toronto FC return home for the second leg of their conference championships in decent shape, history says otherwise.
In fact, if either Colorado and Toronto or advance, they will be the first team to ever come back from a loss to win a two-leg series in MLS Conference Championship history since the two-leg format began in 2012.
Last season, Columbus Crew SC and the Portland Timbers both opened with two-goal victories over the New York Red Bulls and FC Dallas, respectively — which was enough of a cushion to advance to the MLS Cup.
In 2014, both the New England Revolution and LA Galaxy held on to one-goal leads going into the final leg with the Revs playing the Red Bulls to a tie and the Galaxy falling to the Sounders but advancing due to the away-goal tiebreaker.
And of the three other teams to lead going into the second leg of a conference championship — Real Salt Lake in 2013, the Houston Dynamo in 2012 and the LA Galaxy in 2012 — all of them ended up winning their series by multiple goals.
Meanwhile, in the multi-leg conference championship era, only the 2001 MLS Cup champion San Jose Earthquakes lost the first leg but ended up winning their best-of-three series. (From 2003 to 2011, the conference championships were single elimination.)
So it’s clear history is in the way of Colorado and Toronto advancing as they prepare to face Seattle Sounders FC and the Montreal Impact, respectively, in this week's conference championships, even though both only trail their series by one goal and now get to play at home. The question now is whether or not they can buck the trend.
