MLS Cup 2002 was the seventh edition of the MLS Cup, the championship match of Major League Soccer (MLS), which took place on October 20, 2002. It was hosted at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, and contested by the New England Revolution and the Los Angeles Galaxy to decide the champion of the 2002 season. The Revolution, who were named hosts before the season, were playing in their first MLS Cup; Los Angeles had lost in all three of their previous cup appearances. Los Angeles won their first championship 1–0 in the second overtime on a sudden-death goal scored by Carlos Ruiz. The match was attended by 61,316 spectators, the largest figure for any MLS Cup until 2018. It was also the last MLS final to end with a golden goal. Venue CMGI Field in Foxborough, Massachusetts, home of the New England Revolution and the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL), was announced as the neutral-site venue of the MLS Cup on February 13, 2002. The new stadium was built to replace the former Foxboro Stadium, which had hosted the inaugural MLS Cup in 1996 and the 1999 edition. CMGI Field was later renamed Gillette Stadium in August after the naming rights were sold to Gillette. Approximately 20,000 tickets were sold by October 10, but sales reached 55,000 after the Revolution advanced from the Conference Finals, and were on pace to match or surpass the MLS Cup attendance record of 57,431 set in 1997. The stadium's capacity was restricted to 60,000 seats, excluding the box and club seats, and the field itself measured , wider than the configuration used in 1999 at Foxboro Stadium. Road to the final The MLS Cup is the post-season championship of Major League Soccer (MLS), a professional club soccer league based in the United States. The 2002 season was the seventh in the league's history and was contested by ten teams in two conferences following the folding of two teams in Florida and the reorganization of the Central Division. Each team played a total of 28 matches in the regular season, which ran from March to September, facing teams within their conference four times and outside of their conference two times. The playoffs ran from late September to October and was contested by the top eight teams overall, with the top two teams in each conference given a higher seed regardless of