The Leagues Cup is still a slap in the face to those who care about MLS
A made up tournament that no one needs or wanted
Photo credit: Major League Soccer
Content is king, they say. Everybody wants more of it. Even if that content doesn’t really make sense, or if no one actually wants it.
Take MLS, Apple and the Leagues Cup. A tournament that is being forced upon MLS and LigaMX teams next season for, um, reasons?
What reasons, you may fairly ask? Well, it sure as hell isn’t sporting reasons, no matter how much league voices might want to tell us otherwise. There already is a competition that measures the relative strength of LigaMX vs MLS — the Concacaf Champions League.
A CCL that is going to be even more bloated starting this fall, by the way.
So, spare me the “we can finally test ourselves against Mexico” rhetoric. MLS teams play LigaMX teams all the time. There is nothing interesting or novel about this, unless you’ve always dreamed of watching the Chicago Fire play Puebla in a half-empty stadium on a Tuesday night in July.
Of course these will be “competitive” games, some will suggest.
Sure. Anyone can make up a tournament and say it’s competitive. It’s up to the clubs and players to make it so, however, and it seems unlikely that this thing is going to be played at 100% by everyone involved.
The thing about sport, is that you can’t snap your fingers and make something matter. There has to be a natural reason and desire for a competition to start. Otherwise, it’s artificial and it will play out as such.
Some teams will probably put a little more effort into it than others because it will fit their needs more. For instance, a team that is well out of things at the time, might view it as a fresh opportunity to make something out of nothing. It’s far more likely, though, that teams chasing actual MLS success will look to get in and out of it without hurting their chances at winning something actually important.
There are some CCL spots to win, but, again, the CCL is also being ruined by overstuffing it.
Bottom line: No team will publicly admit that they are going to punt…but some teams are going to punt on this thing.
As for the Mexican teams, it’s important to realize this is essentially their pre-season. I expect players wearing number 174 out there.
So, why are they doing this? Well, as stated, it’s more content for Apple TV. Importantly, it is content that will appeal to fans of the most popular soccer league in the United States. LigaMX.
This is a play for the wallets of Mexican-American fans, full stop. Nothing more complicated than that. MLS will hope that they might gain a little more respect and following from that group of fans by playing well in the competition, which is the same hope they’ve had for years. Spoiler: They probably won’t.
So, I’m not a fan, in case that wasn’t clear. Although, I’m spending 500+ words here to express that, I could summarize why in a paragraph: it’s disrespectful to the importance of the league. They are devaluing their core product for a dog and pony show with zero history. Why should I, or anyone, care? I care about MLS. Not…this.
Whatever the hell this is.
Also, spare the Grandpa Simpson meme here. I’m not just a grumpy old man yelling at the clouds. Lots of people have expressed similar misgivings.
It’s a Twitter poll, so grain of salt. However, that matches about what I would have expected, not that you will hear those concerns expressed by most MLS media. There it’s pom-poms and hyperbole.
I joked today that this tournament had one good thing about it — it would let me put all my focus on CanPL for a month. I suspect when the time comes that won’t really be a joke, but rather my reality. That said, as indicated, it will be pushed hard by MLS media, who will attempt to prescribe it meaning that it hasn’t earned.
It’s up to you whether you choose to care, catch up on local soccer, or just hang out at the beach for a month.
For what it’s worth, the draw is below. the top two teams from each group advance to the round of 32 where they are joined by LAFC and Pachuca (current league champions). Straight knock-out from there:
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When they put out the group lists last week and I really started thinking of the logistics of this tournament, I started to talk myself into the conclusion that this tournament could end up being very lopsided in favor of MLS in a way that makes it lose credibility. This tournament is asking Liga MX teams to spend at minimum weeks in and at the most a month away from home, constantly traveling to new grounds to play one-off away matches in the late-summer on short notice. Everything is stacked up against the Mexican sides here and I could see it turning out absolutely miserable for them despite the talent disparity their top sides hold against MLS's top sides, especially as fatigue builds over the latter portion of the tournament.
I do at least think some MLS sides will find benefit in it, the same way that teams on the rise, maybe with playoff ambitions might push harder for an Open Cup run than those with MLS Cup ambitions do. Teams like Nashville, Miami, and Vancouver have the chance to win a tournament, get a trophy and a CCL spot, and have some validation that they're making forward progress as clubs, and a Leagues Cup win for a team like Toronto or Columbus could prove that they're back on track as contenders. I also think we can look to Seattle's 2021 Leagues Cup run as something that helped them prove themselves against good LMX clubs, which they put into practice in the 2022 CCL run, so maybe that could provide something to get good MLS teams to try for.
I carry the mindset of philosopher and restauranteur J. Sheldon Plankton into everything with MLS -- "Do I find this entertaining? In a cosmic sort of way, yes" and I think there's a lot of entertainment that can come out of this first iteration of the tournament, cheap and unintentional as it could be, but no, I'm not really clamoring for it and I don't think we'll learn all that much about the participants nor the state of MLS versus Liga MX or MLS on a global scale from it.