Union manager Jim Curtin played in the last MLS Cup final between No. 1 seeds, 19 years ago

On a sun-splashed autumn afternoon in southern California, the No. 1 teams in both of Major League Soccer’s conferences met in the championship game.

The participants included the newly-crowned goalkeeper and defender of the year; a notable Danish attacker; a hardworking Jamaican striker; a finalist for the league’s MVP award; and precocious young Americans who had earned some headlines.

Also included was a tall, lanky redhead from Oreland who sought his first MLS Cup after winning the Supporters’ Shield.

Union fans might not be able to fill in all those blanks off the bat: Pat Onstad, Carlos Bocanegra, Ronnie Ekelund, Damani Ralph, Ante Razov, Landon Donovan, and DaMarcus Beasley.

But you might be able to guess who the last person was.

In 2003, Jim Curtin played in the last MLS Cup final that included each conference’s No. 1 seed. His Chicago Fire squad included Thornton, Bocanegra, Ralph, Razov, Beasley, Jesse Marsch, Chris Armas, and future Union winger Justin Mapp. Across the field, the San Jose Earthquakes had Onstad, Ekelund, Donovan, Jeff Agoos, and Dwayne De Rosario.

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It was a neutral-site contest at the Los Angeles Galaxy’s stadium in Carson, just outside the city. Curtin’s side had won the Supporters’ Shield, with no tiebreaker needed — 53 points to San Jose’s 51 in a 30-game season.

The game was one of the more entertaining finals in league history. Ekelund scored five minutes in, then Donovan scored in the 38th to double San Jose’s lead. Beasley cut the deficit in half in the 49th, only for Richard Mulrooney to make it 3-1 a minute later, and a San Jose own goal in the 54th made it 3-2.

Then Donovan capped things off in the 71st to seal the Earthquakes’ second title in three years.

It was a bitter pill for the Fire. One of MLS’s original powerhouses was in the final for the third time in six years, and has not made it back since. Nor has Curtin individually, and he hasn’t forgotten.

In fact, he brought it up to his Union players on Tuesday morning before they flew to Los Angeles.

“I remember losing it, and thinking as a 23-year-old that I’d for sure be back here at some point — this is just what happens, you get to play in MLS Cup,” Curtin said as hundreds of fans gathered at the Union’s practice facility in Chester for an enthusiastic send-off. “And that wasn’t the case.”

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He recalled, too, how much bigger the spotlight was on that game than on any other his team played.

“The coverage in the media and the things that surround the game became maybe too big for us in that game, when I think back on it,” Curtin said. “You talk to the guys about not giving the wrong quote, because there’s going to be a lot of interviews and different things. You don’t want to get bulletin board material.”

The spotlight will be huge this weekend, too, when the Union face Los Angeles FC at Banc of California Stadium (4 p.m., Fox 29, Univision 65 and TUDN).

Start with the fact that the Union and LAFC will end that 19-year-wait with the highest combined points-per-game average (1.97) of any title-game matchup in MLS history.

The drought is a testament to the competitive balance in MLS — or call it parity if you want.

It might also be a testament to how long it took the league to find a structure that makes the regular season matter. MLS tried a variety of formats from its debut in 1996 until 2019, when it settled on the simple drama of one-game rounds and forced teams to earn home games instead of being given them.

(Naturally, the league reportedly is planning to blow up the format next year, in favor of something more complicated.)

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MLS craves marketable story lines, and this game will overflow with them. Global stars Gareth Bale, Giorgio Chiellini, Carlos Vela, and Cristian Tello against Ernst Tanner’s under-the-radar scouting. LAFC midfielder Kellyn Acosta’s charge toward the U.S. World Cup squad, and Union midfielder Jack McGlynn’s rising stardom on U.S. youth teams.

There could be a dazzling duel of defensive midfielders between L.A.’s Ilie Sanchez and the Union’s José Andrés Martínez. The Union’s Jakob Glesnes and Jack Elliott against Cristian Arango and Denis Bouanga at one end of the field; Mikael Uhre, Julián Carranza and Dániel Gazdag against Chiellini and Diego Palacios at the other.

It will likely be Kai Wagner’s last game with the Union before a big-money move to Europe — perhaps to Leeds United, where Marsch manages former Union star Brenden Aaronson. It will surely be another game for Andre Blake to show why he’s such a force.

And of course, there will be the two city names on the Banc of California Stadium marquee, across the street from the legendary Coliseum.

While some of MLS’s smaller-market teams have bigger fan bases than the biggest-city teams do, the league has long dreamed of a title game with Los Angeles vs. Philadelphia cachet. The last time both finalists came from top-10 media markets was 2014, when the Los Angeles Galaxy beat New England and Donovan won the last of his six MLS championships.

The Union will revel in being the underdog, and LAFC will revel in its Hollywood-star-studded stands. The atmosphere will be electric long before kickoff, and perhaps long afterward, too. As Curtin put it, the black-and-gold-clad masses are “not soccer moms and soccer dads out there — that’s a real fan base that’s screaming from minute one.”

He will push his players to win, but he will also encourage them to enjoy the moment.

“You can get lost in the craziness of it, the hecticness of it,” Curtin said. “But you have to take moments, like Andre Blake said so smartly before our last game, to stay calm, just do our jobs and play our game. So, a really good message there to kind of conclude with: It still has to be fun, you have to enjoy it.”

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