There was nary a blowout to be found at eMLS League Series Two but despite all the close matches, a familiar face took home the trophy.
The Philadelphia Union‘s doolsta emerged victorious one again claiming back-to-back titles in the first two eMLS events of the year. He did it thanks to a 2-1 win in the final over Portland representative RCTID_Thiago, who faced an arduous road to the final after defeating 2018 eMLS Cup champ Kid M3mito and hometown hero AlanAvi. You can check out the highlights of doolsta’s thrilling final win here:
Long before he finished the evening, doolsta kicked off the elimination portion of the event with an early goal in his contest against FC Cincinnati’s FCC Fiddle. That first-half goal would be all he needed to take home the opening game:
The other Eastern Conference Semifinal of the day saw an eMLS edition of the Canadian Classique as Montreal’s LyesMTL squared off with Toronto’s PhilB94. The Toronto man took the win in thrilling fashion, netting an injury-time equalizer to go through:
Over in the West, 2018 eMLS Cup winner Kid M3mito of the Houston Dynamo had plenty of work to do. After seeing his 32-game win streak snapped by doolsta in the League Series One final, he faced RCTID_Thiago after sneaking through in the final spot in the West after Sunday’s round-robin portion of the event. However, it was more rough sailing for the Dynamo man in the knockout phase:
There was only going to be one crowd favorite in the final conference semifinal game of the evening, and AlanAvi kept his fans waiting before grabbing a thrilling victory over GGGodfather of the LA Galaxy in extra time:
Moving on to the semifinals, doolsta and PhilB94 played a high-level match that saw doolsta take an early lead, just like his previous game, only to be pegged back by the TFC man. However, doolsta would prevail on penalties to reach his second straight final:
On the other side of the bracket, RCTID_Thiago faced another stiff challenge from AlanAvi, as they played a scoreless first half and traded goals early in the second half. However, the Portland man took advantage of a breakaway opportunity to claim a late lead and send the hometown crowd home disappointed.
That set up a thrilling final between RCTID_Thiago and the defending League Series One champ. It looked as though there might be a new champ when Thiago opened the scoring, but doolsta quickly responded before cooly finishing a penalty to earn back-to-back titles.
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