Lumen Field Breaks Attendance Record As Seattle Welcomes Messi’s Miami

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – JUNE 14: Lionel Messi of Argentina tries to control the ball during a group D match between Argentina and Bolivia at Century Link Field as part of Copa America Centenario US 2016 on June 14, 2016 in Seattle, Washington, US. (Photo by John Froschauer/LatinContent via Getty Images)

LatinContent via Getty Images

Seattle is preparing to host a showcase soccer championship on Sunday night as the Sounders welcome Lionel Messi and Inter Miami to Lumen Field for the final of the Leagues Cup.

The tournament has been running throughout the month of August, pitting the 18 teams of Mexico’s Liga MX against the 18 qualified teams from Major League Soccer.

Inter Miami is looking to win the tournament for a second time, having done so in stunning fashion just after Messi arrived in Fort Lauderdale towards the end of the 2023 season, despite Miami being one of the worst teams in MLS.

The match will put one of the most impressive stadiums in the U.S. in the spotlight ahead of its role as a World Cup venue in 2026, where it will likely become one of the host cities most loved by those travelling to the tournament and by those watching around the world.

Lumen Field Illuminated

As well as hosting Sounders and Seattle Reign matches, the stadium is also home to the Seattle Seahawks NFL team, but unlike some venues shared between the two sports, it adapts particularly well to soccer.

Its city center location and views of downtown, Puget Sound, and the Olympic Mountains, make it an attractive and convenient destination. This has further encouraged support for the sport in what was already a well-known soccer city, resulting in numerous attendance records being set over the years.

The current attendance record at Lumen Field is 69,274, set when Seattle hosted Toronto FC in the 2019 MLS Cup final.

It also holds the Concacaf Champions Cup (formerly Champions League) single-match attendance record, thanks to a crowd of 68,741 for the 2022 final against Mexican side Pumas UNAM. The Sounders won that game, becoming the first MLS team since the LA Galaxy in 2000 to win the tournament, and the first American team to win it in its modern format following years of Mexican dominance.

Over 60,000 tickets have already been sold for this Leagues Cup final, surpassing the previous Leagues Cup attendance record set last year when 50,675 fans watched San Jose Earthquakes versus Chivas de Guadalajara at Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara. The Sounders are expecting a sell-out.

The Sounders’ Championship Chance

Seattle has been on a good run following its participation in the Club World Cup this summer, having only lost once in its last 17 games.

It was the only one of the three MLS teams at that tournament to have done so thanks to winning a continental trophy (its aforementioned 2022 Champions League win) as Inter Miami qualified on the back of winning the 2024 Supporters’ Shield, and Los Angeles FC won a playoff against Club America to qualify, being in the mix thanks to finishing runner up in the 2023 Champions Cup.

The Sounders are now aiming to become the first team to win all of the championships on offer in North American soccer by adding the Leagues Cup to triumphs in the MLS Cup (2016, 2019), Supporters Shield (2014), U.S. Open Cup (2009, 2010, 2011, 2014), and Concacaf Champions League (2022).

Seattle will miss suspended striker Danny Musovski, who has some of the best underlying goal-getting numbers in MLS, so it will be looking to the likes of Osaze De Rosario and designated player Pedro de la Vega to make things happen. Key creator Albert Rusnák could see some game time later in the match, having returned from injury.

Transcending The Leagues Cup

The Leagues Cup tournament has attracted plenty of criticism. In an already packed calendar, introducing a World Cup-length tournament in the middle of the year was unnecessary.

The Concacaf Champions Cup already provides continental competition between teams from Mexico and the United States, and doesn’t exclude teams from other parts of the region, as the Leagues Cup’s exclusive MLS versus Liga MX format does.

The other issue is its encroachment on the historic domestic tournament in the United States, the U.S. Open Cup. Since the introduction of the expanded Leagues Cup in 2023, MLS has withdrawn numerous teams from the United States’ only country-wide and league-wide domestic cup. It has done so partly due to scheduling issues, but it has created those itself with the addition of the Leagues Cup. Somehow, the country’s soccer governing body, the USSF, has allowed this, too.

But regardless of the pros and cons of the Leagues Cup as a tournament in itself, this final will still be a showcase event, and the identity of the tournament almost doesn’t matter. It is a championship, and both of these teams are all about championships.

Some of the buzz around the game will be thanks to the presence of Inter Miami and Messi and the media hype that follows them around, not least from the tournament organisers themselves, but it is also thanks to Seattle’s established soccer support, which will turn out for their own team in moments like this.

While lots of the extra tickets sold at various stadiums around the country as a result of Messi’s presence can result in additional support for Inter Miami, even when it is the away team, it’s a good bet that most of the Seattle crowd will be wearing green and be fully behind the home team.

Seattle’s World Cup Preview

Lumen Field is due to host six games at the 2026 World Cup, including four group games and two in the knockout stages.

One of those group matches will be the United States’ second group game, and we will learn the opposition for that match at the World Cup draw in December.

The atmosphere within the stadium has been so loud for certain sporting events that it has registered as seismic activity on the seismometers of local earthquake monitoring networks.

The stadium’s final appearance at next year’s World Cup will be a last 16 match, but by that time, the World Cup organisers may wish they had kept it involved for longer as it will likely turn out to be one of the most popular venues with fans, and one of the best-looking stadiums on TV, thanks to its views of downtown Seattle.

But before then, Seattle is getting a showpiece final. It is not the most high-profile of tournaments and, it is safe to say, not the most well-loved, but a final is a final, and once it gets to this stage, the anticipation and excitement are ramped up.

Such a high-profile game will give Lumen Field and Seattle the chance to show what it can do ahead of the World Cup.