MLS Cup is coming to Ohio, but who will host it?

One way or another, MLS Cup – the championship match of Major League Soccer – will be decided in Ohio.

FC Cincinnati and Columbus Crew will meet at TQL Stadium in Cincinnati on Saturday to determine the Eastern Conference final (6 p.m., MLS Season Pass on Apple TV).

Both of Ohio’s MLS franchises finished higher in the standings than the remaining teams in the Western Conference. That's why MLS Cup is coming here.

For soccer-rich Ohio – a place where high school soccer postseason award snubs make headlines – the return of MLS Cup is a tremendous point of pride and a major attraction.

Except for the loser of Saturday’s game. That party won’t be so happy for the state at-large.

Saturday’s Eastern Conference final is a high-stakes, zero-sum game for Cincinnati and Columbus. Not only is the game the latest edition of the Hell is Real rivalry series, so named for the infamous Mount Sterling billboard facing southbound Interstate-71, it’s the most important match we might ever see played in the state.

Here’s why.

The stakes of this Hell is Real

The profile of MLS Cup has never been bigger. An Apple TV broadcast streaming live in more than 100 countries will see images of either TQL Stadium or Lower.com Field beamed into homes and establishments across the globe.

An infusion of tourist dollars also is at stake. A free advertisement with a potential audience of millions is on the line. Will it be Over-the-Rhine or the Short North benefiting from those dollars and that exposure?

For Columbus, the ultimate threat to its decades of dominance over soccer in Ohio seems to have arrived. Will it cede more ground? Can it afford to, and what would the fallout look like?

As FC Cincinnati floundered upon arriving to MLS, Columbus was arguably the most effective foe at torturing the Orange and Blue. Cincinnati won just one of its first nine matches against the Crew in MLS. But now, with FCC finally proving itself to be a worthy adversary to the decades-old tradition of the Crew, can Cincy drive that point home with a win when the pressure is ratcheted all the way up?

Soccer identity and the makings of a rivalry

Ten years ago, if the MLS championship match was coming to Ohio, that inevitably meant it was coming to Columbus. That’s because Ohio only featured one MLS franchise – the Columbus Crew – from 1996 through 2018. The Crew was the league’s first-ever franchise and the organization had a monopoly on all things soccer in the Buckeye State for decades.

It’s not just that the Crew were first in MLS. They were first in-class, too. Crew Stadium was America’s first soccer-specific venue.

In addition to Crew games, Columbus could attract all-star games, international friendlies and big names. While the U.S. Soccer Federation utilized an array of stadiums across the country for its men’s and women’s national team matches, Crew Stadium was a preferred destination.

Each World Cup cycle, it Columbus – not Cleveland and certainly not Cincinnati – that hosted the fabled “USMNT”-Mexico encounter.

With the Crew frequently competing for the postseason and trophies throughout their existence, Central Ohio remained the state’s soccer hub, or at least its most visible one.

But then the state’s soccer landscape shifted. In the corner of Ohio where Bearcats are more beloved than Buckeyes, a burgeoning soccer force came onto the scene in FC Cincinnati in 2016. The Crew front office of that era scarcely acknowledged the Cincinnati’s club’s existence. Cincinnati, after all, was considered part of the vast Columbus soccer footprint and home to some of the Crew’s customers.

In a twist of fate, the clubs were drawn into battle for the first time in the 2017 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. There, on June 14, 2017, a team of mostly minor-league journeymen comprised the FC Cincinnati team that stunned a high-profile and star-studded Columbus club expected to dominate the game.

The Crew were shocked in defeat. Cincinnati would retain bragging rights for an indefinite period because no one knew when they’d meet again. But since FCC’s future remained undecided, the loss wasn’t seen an existential threat to Columbus soccer.

But Columbus soccer culture lost something on June 14, 2017.

FC Cincinnati's rise

The state’s soccer landscape continued shifting. From 2016 to 2018, FC Cincinnati built a formidable brand and a following MLS saw fit to join its ranks. By 2019, Columbus was no longer the lone dot on the MLS' Ohio map.

FC Cincinnati couldn’t measure up to the Crew on the field during its MLS infancy. FCC went 1-5-3 against its arch-rival in league play, and the one win occurred at a closed-door Nippert Stadium in 2020. The sense of FC Cincinnati as the rivalry's "little brother" was pervasive, and Cincy fans clamored for any kind of win over Columbus.

In the absence of on-field success, Cincinnati fans leaned on TQL Stadium when it opened in May 2021. The soccer-specific stadium compared favorably to some of the finest in the world. The team inside TQL Stadium was ineffective, but the venue itself became the draw. The combination of modern amenities and architecture, premium seating options made it a must-see attraction.

The Crew weren't far behind on the stadium front. They prepared to open Lower.com Field less than three months after TQL Stadium hosted its first match. But even with its own state-of-the-art venue to replace Crew Stadium and keep pace with modern tastes, the U.S. Soccer Federation saw fit to take its coveted USMNT-Mexico World Cup qualifier to TQL Stadium.

U.S. Soccer was hardly abandoning Columbus for good but it still felt that way to some. After America dominated its border rival on Crew Stadium soil for generations, removing the match and placing it in Cincinnati was an affront to some in the Columbus sports scene. Cincinnati was plenty happy to welcome the match to its city limits, of course.

Today, FC Cincinnati might not have as many trophies as the Crew, but it finally has its first in the Supporters’ Shield, awarded to the top finisher during the MLS regular season. And after splitting the two regular season meetings with one win apiece, FC Cincinnati might have caught up to Columbus in every soccer capacity.

Cincinnati can’t and won't match the history the Crew authored from 1996 to 2018, but it can now make history at the Crew’s expense.

It remains to be seen if Cincinnati's completely tipped the rivalry scale in its favor. Columbus is perfectly capable of winning on Saturday. Nothing like a win in this edition of Hell is Real would go as far in restoring the Crew as the big brother in this rivalry.

Sure, MLS Cup is going to pass through Ohio one way or the other. It's a point of pride for the entire state, minus the municipality that comes up short this weekend at TQL Stadium.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: MLS Cup is coming to Ohio – will it be Cincinnati or Columbus?