Santo Laguna started 5 players who have started every game in the Liga MX Apertura, 3 players who are regular subs (appeared in every game, 0 to 1 starts), and 3 players who have not appeared in league play.
He doesn't watch the games. Just complains that this tournament exist. He sounds like all those Euro stans that were complaining about the CWC bringing up excuses as to why it wasn't fair, claiming the Euro clubs didn't even take it serious, were forced to be there, didn't want to be there,, no one watches, stadiums are empty, viewership is bad etc.
I’ll answer, if you can give a sincere answer as to what a FEASIBLE, REALISTIC format for this would look like and that you’d approve of.
I like the idea of a quadrennial tournament, played in even years that don’t overlap with the World Cup. Fully decoupled from the CCC. Also works well with the upcoming MLS calendar shift and Liga MX won’t have to interrupt its season if you move it forward to June. You can maintain the Swiss-system format but either add games or increase the number of advancing teams. And yes, keeping playing all the games in the US.
Fair enough. I’m not sure eliminating 75% of the income fits feasible and realistic though. I wish sports were pure but I know they aren’t. We have different expectations there. My preferred formst(s) I liked how they did it the last two years. But my real preference is 1. Replace the CCL with this. Move it to a time of the year that’s better for more leagues. 2. Add top teams from the rest of the region to get to 96 teams. Have some of the group hosts be from Jamaica, Costa Rica, etc. that gets us to 64 teams. 3. After group play, just take 2 more weeks to get down to 4 teams (I think you could make the math work) and then set aside another week later for the semis and the finals, at a dedicated site. Make it a showpiece event.
Ooch a ma gooch, all creatures great and small! What a goal call from Max OMG PEDRO DE LA VEGA #LeaguesCup2025 pic.twitter.com/T3iow4fAu7— Major League Soccer (@MLS) August 1, 2025
23-16-15 is 1.63 ppg. The top 18 MLS teams are 125-51-50 at home in league play so far this season which is 1.80 ppg. But, as pointed out, there were 6 games played on neutral fields in the Leagues Cup. MLS teams went 0-4-2 in those games. That makes the real home record 23-12-13 which is 1.69 PPG. So MLS teams at home in Leagues Cup did slightly less well than in home league games. 2 more wins would have been more in line with the normal home winning percentage.
Uhhh.. What? Aside from the fact that its a single competition and not enough data points to make that determination, the fact that MLS teams can almost have the same home record as the MLS regular season would tend to indicate the leagues are relatively close in quality...
A bigger factor is that 12 MLS teams weren’t in this, and they were the weaker teams, not the stronger ones.
I don't know about that....... Current Shield leaders weren't participating, nor werte the second place team in the west.
Yea, the weaker teams from last year maybe. This year, like every other in MLS, everything changes. For example LA Galaxy being dead last all season long.
I think this is likely explained almost entirely by depth. With the extra game in the league stage, both MLS and Liga MX teams did much more squad rotation this year than in the previous two editions of the Leagues Cup, and Liga MX reserves are noticeably better than MLS reserves.
Which translates to: MLS Win 42.6%; Draw 29.6%; Liga MX Win 27.8% From the below article last year: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianqui...leagues-cup-flop-on-home-field-and-penalties/ So statistically, about as expected? (Too lazy to take out the six neutral venue games)
Fotmob has LMX playing an uneven number of home games in the last complete season, but here are the records: As a home record within LMX, MLS's record here would have put you between 10 and 11. Just below mid-table. Not great, but not terrible. If you were taking your league comparison from this, you'd conclude that LMX was around 0.1ppg better than MLS.
So Leagues Cup has made MLS and Liga MX better? MLS realized it had to improve to be competitive with LMX and the top LMX teams spent more to stay ahead of MLS.
One thing the LC has done is increase transfers between the two leagues. So by definition, money going to a league from the other league, with a player going in the reverse direction, is better for both leagues than a sale to Belgium or Holland.
Issue is that you can’t compare away records. MLS has 4 away wins in 59 games against Liga MX in the knockouts of CCL since 2008. The score in those games is Liga MX 150, MLS 52. The format of Leagues Cup is so heavily tilted in MLS’s favor that it’s absurd to use it as a point of comparison for league quality.