Vancouver Whitecaps ready for 'biggest game in club history.' Again. | OneFootball

Didn't expect to see the Vancouver Whitecaps in the Concacaf Champions Cup final, huh?

Well, they're right there wth you.

And partly because of that, the stakes of Sunday's title match against Cruz Azul in Mexico City's Estadio Universitario may not feel any more weighty than trying to knock off five-time champion CF Monterrey in the round of 16, Pumas UNAM in the quarterfinals or Lionel Messi and Inter Miami in the semis, says striker Brian White.

"I think every round we’ve gone through, everyone says, this is the biggest game In club history," White said during Saturday's official pre-match press conference. "We just continue to build off those good moments, those memories, and hopefully we can make another one tomorrow."

White has been one of the revelations of the tournament, scoring five goals to be second on the competition's scoring leaderboard behind Cruz Azul's Angel Sepulveda, who has seven.

You can't plan for this

First-year manager Jesper Sorensen has been another, taking charge of the team for the first time in the preseason and not only steering the Whitecaps to these continental heights but also maintaining strong enough league form to remain on top of the Western Conference standings.

Sorensen himself has gone far deeper than he ever envisioned. He also says that's OK because anyone who tries to plan an appearance in a match like Sunday's final is kidding themselves.

"You can hope, you can put all the work in and try to do the best you can, and try to evolve and become the best coach you can. But you can not plan for moments like this," Sorensen said. "Coming into Vancouver not that long a time ago, I did not expect to be here today. But now I’m here and we want to take advantage of it."

And whie the lights have shone brightest in Concacaf play, the reality is Vancouver have been damn near impossible to beat on all stages so far while playing an astounding 25 matches over the first three-plus months of the season.

No words for it

That was on display in the league over the last week as they roared from two goals down to a 3-2 victory at Real Salt Lake a week ago with most of Sorensen's first-choice XI on the field. They followed that with a strikingly strong performance with an almost entirely second-choice group on the field in a 0-0 draw at home to Minnesota United on Wednesday night.

And as Sorensen's surprising squad attempts to pull off one last triumph in this Cinderella run, White even suggests that the low expectations most had for the Whitecaps may be of benefit.

"It’s kind of tough to put into words what allows us to do that," White said of his team's resiliency. "I think we’ve had a very good season so far where we’ve won a lot of games, and I think having that confidence, especially when we go down in bad moments, or we’re not playing well, we know the quality we have.

"We have belief in the system, and we know if we do everything we can, if we play our best, we can pull ourselves out of bad moments. And I think we’ve done that a number of times. So we just continue to build that momentum and that confidence from every moment."