Are the days of the West's MLS dominance over the East finished?

The Western Conference has won eight of the last 10 MLS Cups. But much of that has been to do with the power of the now declining LA Galaxy

Having just completed a 4-1 evisceration of the Seattle Sounders, the Chicago Fire – yes, that Chicago Fire – luxuriated in a little historical revisionism. Bastian Schweinsteiger’s midweek grousing about technical levels in MLS was recast as a suggestion that “forced [the Fire] to work on details.” This work, he claimed, had shown up in the match. Dax McCarty’s preseason criticism of a “culture of losing” had been a diagnosis that the incoming midfielder had promptly addressed.

Wins exist to be over-interpreted. In any league — especially one that fetishizes parity like Major League Soccer — upsets will happen. To wit, Seattle, the reigning MLS Cup champion, were indeed carved up like a stale roast at a banquet hall by one of the league’s perennial also-rans. But does it signal a shifting of power? The occasional win in league play cannot distract from the reality that only two of the last 10 MLS Cups have gone to an Eastern Conference team (one of those teams, Sporting Kansas City, now play in the West).

Related: LA Galaxy ditch their ageing stars – but can they still be successful?