MLS beware – Liga MX starts strong in 2025 Leagues Cup

TROY HULL | THE CHARLOTTE POST

Charlotte FC's Brandt Bronico celebrates after scoring against Necaxa in a 2024 Leagues Cup match at Bank of America Stadium.

MLS is two-thirds through its season, while Liga MX is only a few games into the first half of its campaign. This can only mean that it’s time for the cross-pollination of the Leagues Cup. 

Charlotte FC opens the tournament against FC Juarez on July 31 at Bank of America Stadium. Kickoff is 7:30 p.m. CLTFC coach Dean Smith has noted repeatedly in recent weeks that he takes all competitions seriously and Charlotte will play to win.

Why does it matter? Well, there’s a trophy, and Charlotte hasn’t won one yet. Better yet, three Concacaf Champions Cup places will be awarded to the top three finishers. CCC is a path to the FIFA Club World Cup, and this summer showed the financial reward and glory that can bring.

“You always want to win a trophy,” said associate head coach Miles Joseph, who sat in for Smith, who is in England on a personal matter. Smith will be on the sideline for the Juarez match. “So, I feel like the form that we're in now puts us in a good place. We have a lot of players coming back from injury. Now, we'll have basically a full squad, so I think it's a pretty exciting opportunity for us.”

Rivalry games

Club or country, Mexico vs. the United States is always a rivalry game, perhaps more so for some in the current political climate. If the first night of competition is a barometer of what to expect, Charlotte and MLS will need to step up as the south of the border teams swept the six games on July 29, with first place in the West, San Diego, and defending Cup champions Columbus, fourth in the East, being humbled, as were LAFC, NYCFC, Montreal and Houston. Three matches were decided on penalty kick shootouts.

There is six games July 30. CLTFC-Juarez is one of the final six first-phase matches on July 31. You can follow the competition at: https://www.leaguescup.com/ 

Mixed results for Crown 

Launched in 2019, this is the fifth edition of the tournament. The pandemic canceled the 2020 competition, while fixture congestion limited the 2022 version to exhibition matches between the leagues.
Charlotte has done well and flamed out in two previous Leagues Cup, which has been reformatted in ways that will minimize the previous impact it had on the MLS regular season. 

The 2023 Leagues Cup was the first edition in which all MLS (29) and Liga MX (18) teams participated, which commanded a month-long break for both leagues. Charlotte made an extended run with first-round wins against FC Dallas (2-2, 4-1 on PKs) and Necaxa (4-1), and three knockout games. The playoff matches were all away, even those that should have been in Charlotte because the stadium wasn’t available. The Crown downed Cruz Azul on penalty kicks (4-3) after a 0-0 draw in Frisco, Texas, then beat Houston Dynamo (2-1) in the Round of 16 and lost 4-0 to Inter Miami in Fort Lauderdale in the quarterfinal. 

Two weeks later, Charlotte went 4-3-5, winning their last match against Messi and Miami, to close the MLS season in ninth place, and their first postseason game against New York Red Bulls. 

Last year, the six-week-long break for the Leagues Cup included just the two first-round games for the Crown, a 1-0 loss to Philadelphia Union, and a PK (4-2) win after a 0-0 draw against Cruz Azul on the last day of July. They did not play another competitive game until August and didn’t win in their first four times out. After a draw (1-1) against NYRB, they lost three straight: to Atlanta (0-1), Montreal (2-1), and Orlando (2-0), a stretch with a direct impact on the postseason. 

The Crown finished strong with four wins and a draw to finish fifth in the Eastern Conference, a point behind Orlando, which earned home advantage against Charlotte in the first round of the playoffs. After each won at home, Charlotte lost game three at Orlando in a penalty kick shootout.

No big break this time

The minimum break will be just 15 days between Charlotte’s win against Toronto on July 26 and their match at Cincinnati on Aug. 10. 

That’s one of the good changes to this year’s format, which will include all 18 Liga MX clubs and an equal number of MLS sides. There are no groups. Every first-round game – three for each team - will pit MLS against Liga MX. 

Only the top four MLS and LIGA MX teams, compared only to their own league participants, will advance to the knockout round, with matchups based inversely on performance (e.g., MLS1 v LMX4). From that point, it’s whoever wins, with either league having a chance to shine.

“It's a difficult tournament to win with the format,” Joseph said. “You can't leave any points on the table, so you have to fight for everything. And the opponents that we have are very difficult.” 

If Charlotte is one of the four MLS teams moving forward, the ensuing Cup matches will be midweek games that should not interfere with the regular season schedule, as Charlotte has no further midweek MLS games.

Though playing Mexican teams, Charlotte is in reality competing against the other 17 MLS sides in the first round, with the prime directive to win three games in regulation and nine points. Draws will be settled by a penalty kick shootout that gives the winner two points. 

If teams are still level on points after Phase One, the greater number of wins in regular time is the first tiebreaker, with goal differential second, goals scored third, and goals conceded next. If that doesn’t solve things, behavior will be with yellow and red cards, more accurately, the lack of such, tipping the scales.

¿Quién es Juárez?

While there are no pushovers in professional competition, the first match for the Crown comes against the 17th-ranked club in the current Apertura. But don’t let that fool you. 

Perhaps it is no surprise that Tigres (2-0-0, third in the Liga MX table) beat Houston 4-1 with three goals in the last 20 minutes, but one would have expected more from NYCFC (eighth in MLS East, 11-8-5) at home against 14th-ranked Puebla, who blanked New York 3-0. 

Liga MX operates on a split-season format: the Apertura and the Clausura, each with its own regular season and playoffs (Liguilla). The Apertura (meaning "opening" in Spanish) begins in July and ends in December, while the Clausura ("closing") runs from January to May, with a champion crowned for each.

“They've had a not great start to their season,” noted Joseph, “but they've played some good opponents, and I think they're going to show up like they have (in those games) and they're going to be ready. They like to put a lot of pressure on you, so we're going to be ready for that. I think we've been fortunate where our past couple of opponents have had some similar characteristics in the way they play, so our players will be familiar with that.”

Three games in, FC Juarez have drawn two and lost one. Their last outing was July 25 against Club Tijuana, where it took an 82nd-minute goal by Angel Zaldivar to claim a point.

They lost to Tigres 1-0 on July 19, and shared points with Club America, 1-1 in their opener on July 11, also needing a late goal (80th minute) to equalize.

Fútbol Club Juárez is a relatively new club in Liga MX, founded in 2015 by a bi-national group from both sides of the bordering cities of Juárez and El Paso, Texas, making it one of the few clubs with foreign investors in Mexican football. 

Charlotte’s other first-phase games are against Chivas de Guadalajara on August 3, and CF Monterrey, who recently competed in the FIFA Club World Cup, on Aug. 7. 

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