🇺🇸🇲🇽 You won't like Leagues Cup until you do
PLUS: A quick preview of tonight's Liga MX playoff games!
Getting CONCACAFed is a newsletter sharing stories and analysis from the Concacaf region.
I write and report on stories others overlook, whether they be happening in Bonaire, the United States or somewhere in between.
The two strongest men’s leagues in the Concacaf region made a big announcement last week, unveiling the details of the expanded Leagues Cup.
Every team in MLS and Liga MX will take part. For a month, other league games will take place. Three tickets to the Concacaf Champions League are on the line.
The reaction? Meh.
At least, that’s what I saw in my circles, which really should be the circles most vigorously celebrating and devouring news about the collaboration between Liga MX and MLS. And, less than a week later, the news isn’t promoted on the front page of MLS’ or Liga MX’s official website.
Why the muted response? We all knew this was coming and wrapping your head around the format, billed as “World Cup style” seemingly just because it involves a group stage, requires a bit more mental energy than anyone wants to spend eight months before it actually takes place
Plus, the first edition of the expanded tournament runs at the same time as next year’s Women’s World Cup. Time differences mean it shouldn’t compete directly, but soccer fans in the U.S. and Canada may have their attention fixed elsewhere.
Here’s the thing: You won’t like Leagues Cup until you do.
Maybe your team gets hot and it’s the best way to get into the new-look CCL. Suddenly, you’re hyped up for FC Juarez’s visit to Toronto FC.
Maybe you’re a Pumas fan and, you know what, it would be kinda fun to get revenge against the Seattle Sounders team that denied you the CCL title last time.
Maybe you’re a Seattle Sounders fan and you want to get revenge on the León team that denied you Leagues Cup.
The point is as we have more matchups between teams, there won’t be true rivalries forming, but there will be those games that do have a bit of spice or an additional outside factor making them fun.
The leagues are betting you’re going to watch these games. Apple thinks it will work, the marketing people around MLS do too. They usually aren’t wrong.
I get it if you’re not enthused. Fan bases on both sides of the border have reason for skepticism.
Liga MX backers want to return to the Copa Libertadores, an understandable if unlikely desire.
From the Liga MX fan point of view, MLS teams have done little to make it worth paying attention. More games against these teams has limited value - especially if a Liga MX club wins the next CCL and makes it seem like the Sounders’ continential title was just a blip in a long stretch of Mexican club hegemony.
MLS fans see their club season interrupted by a new tournament, further befuddling potential converts and potentially disrupting the rhythm a team has gotten into depending on the number of games the team actually plays.
Plus, doesn’t the whole thing seem pretty corporate?
Well, yeah. It is.
But the Libertadores wasn’t special simply by virtue of existing. Trophies have the value we as fans collectively assign them, and that assignment typically happens over time with there’s history to reflect on.
We sort of laugh at proto-Leagues Cup the Superliga, partly because it was absolutely bonkers, but mostly because it happened four times and then disappeared into the same locked drawer where they put the Miami Fusion and José Clash.
Leagues Cup absolutely can take a few easy steps to make it feel more legitimate.
First, there needs to be a clear plan for when this tournament will have games hosted in Mexico.
I get the math. You’ll have more fans in U.S. stadiums and be able to charge them higher prices per ticket. But if you’re claiming to exist for fans in both countries, you have to play in front of fans in both countries.
That’s especially true for future editions of the competition. As we’ve talked about before in this newsletter, the incentives are clear for the leagues: MLS gets legitimacy, Liga MX gets U.S. dollars.
But there are benefits that go far beyond those two we see at first blush. One of the biggest potential gains for Liga MX is a better understanding of how to manage a gameday experience that often relies on fans turning up simply because they’re the biggest game in town - a strategy increasingly ineffective as fans are able to access other forms of soccer and other types of entertainment (and targeted by other sports and leagues as potential consumers who should be marketed to).
Leagues Cup also needs to understand what it is. Play up the CCL qualifiers, of course, but organizers need to understand legitimacy won’t come overnight. Don’t beat hardcore fans over the head with how important and historic this tournament is. They know better. Have fun. Establish your own (ugh) *brand*. Be different than CCL - or any other existing club tournament. The format sort of guarantees that. Lean in. Get weird.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe no matter what happens you’ll always think of this as a sham tournament existing only to fatten the wallets of already-flush club owners. Maybe the whole thing will go the way of past mash-up tournaments and our kids and grandkids will be looking at whatever replaces Wikipedia saying “Santos Laguna played the New York Red Bulls? Pachuca played the Colorado Rapids? What the hell were they thinking in the 2020s?”
But my hunch is this thing is going to work, and eventually we’ll all be getting Apple TV set up to catch all the action each summer.
Liguilla starts tonight!
The top two regular-season finishers in Liga MX head on the road tonight to kick off the quarterfinals of the Liguilla, the Liga MX playoffs.
América is the overwhelming favorite not only to beat Puebla but to lift the title. Las Aguilas’ last loss came back on July 31 with a 3-2 defeat in León. Since then, a 3-3 draw with Santos Laguna last month (which Getting CONCACAFed attended) is the only time they’ve dropped points.
With a diverse list of potential scorers, out-of-this-world two-way midfielder Alvaro Fidalgo running the show in the middle and a defense bolstered by center back Nestor Araujo and goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa rounding into World Cup form, do not bet against América.
Puebla manager Nicolas Larcamon has earned a reputation for drawing up match plans that eliminate a team’s biggest strength, but he knows only a win at the Estadio Cuauhtémoc will do in the first leg.
“América was the most competitive team in the tournament, and I have to stick with what we are,” the manager said. “I know it will be an extremely high level, but we’re capable of competing.”
Rayados were the second most-competitive team in the tournament, entering tonight’s contest with Cruz Azul at the Azteca on a six-match unbeaten run. With Rogelio Funes Mori still not at 100% the German Berterame-Rodrigo Aguirre forward duo will once again start things off for Victor Manuel Vucetich.
“We’ve got to ratify and, at the right time, improve given what we’ve done,” Vucetich said. “We know a mistake in this type of competition is fatal.”
The Mexico national team battle between Uriel Antuna on the Cruz Azul wing and Jesus Gallardo at left back for Monterrey is a matchup to keep an eye on as well.
Tomorrow night has Toluca and Santos Laguna in the hipster’s choice game as Mexican managers Nacho Ambriz and Eduardo Fentanes square off, while the night closes with Andre-Pierre Gignac and Tigres visiting a Pachuca side that will look to keep things tight before returning to the Estadio Hidalgo, where it is undefeated since an August loss to América.
I never know what to write between games of two-legged series. When I worked at Goal, page views were through the roof on Liguilla coverage, so editors always wanted reaction. But the situation after the first game is one of two stories:
Welp, a big win from (team A) means this series sure feels over!
Everything is still in the balance after a tight one!
The luxury of this newsletter is I can be back in your inbox chatting about something wild and different or I can just poke back in when the time comes.
I can promise you premium subscribers will get the full rundown of the first round PLUS the Conca-catch-up featuring news on the Concacaf League, the playoffs in Costa Rica, a friendly series of dreams scheduled in the Caribbean and much much more.
I feel like the compressed schedule of Leagues Cup will help it grow a following quickly.