Leagues Cup 2023

A Summer Tournament involving MLS and Liga MX clubs in a serious home and away structure is ideal. Certainly for us in Houston that recall Super Liga and those incredible battles versus Calero, Chaco Jimenez and Co. back at the Rob. Remember when it went to penalties and our original Black Panther tried to chip Calero and he caught it with ease. They go on to play L.A. Galaxy in the Final. That Pachuca team of that era won Copa Sud Americana and Liga MX championships plus of course CONCACAF. Glad to have a bigger tournament back moving forward.

 

Maybe they can call it . . . “SuperLiga”?

 

It strikes me as SuperLiga writ large, yes. You would have approximately 50 teams if MX adds 2 and MLS adds 3. 48 if we expand (planned) and they don't. Depending whether 48 or 50 you'd have either 4 teams or some/all 5 team groups. 5 teams and/or the fact we'd be 60% of the field would mean some groups might be even (2 each, like superliga) and some would be 3 MLS teams of 4 or 5.

They've been talking up some sort of a linkup for years, it's kind of an under-radar European Super League type thing -- which they get away with by leaving the primary leagues intact and making this a tournament alongside CCL instead of a replacement. It's also a way of opening up international play to lousy non CCL teams, and freshening somewhat the schedules.

I think the sheer FA/Open Cup abundance of teams makes it more globally interesting in a way it wouldn't be if it was an annual intramurals between, say, Seattle, Tigres, the usual suspects. I think "we" enjoyed Pachuca games. But I find the 20th Barca v Chelsea UCL type repeat matchup between usual suspects I don't root for, to be boring. The sheer bulk gets you varied draws where someone besides your own fans might care.

 

I find the inclusion of CPL teams in CCL interesting. Forge FC of Hamilton has gone fairly far in Concacaf League a couple years running, beat FAS and Tauro that we've had to play in CCL before. We're kind of reviving the 2000s era question of whether a minor league team from North America or PR is better than a lot of the average teams in a CCL field. Not so much the Chivas type teams that decide it, but the Esteli type teams that fill the groups out.

I mean, the other day, I watched a little Honduran league as I waited for dinner to cook, and I was like, this is "ok." Fast but technically sloppy, soft defense. We moan about ourselves, but that's a competitiveness thing within our own league. We looked better than that.

That should, if you are thinking about it, have transfer "shopping" implications.

 

Before it sounds like I am fanboying their CCL allocations too much, it kind of looks like over time what happened is they went from a growing field with diverse international representation -- like every country had someone eg Belize's Hankook Verdes -- to shrinking the field down to a tiny knockout and making non-North American participation regionally-contested ie Caribbean and Cent America had tournaments to get in -- to blowing the field back up but handing most of it to North America this time, and leaving the rest playing tournaments for crumb slots. I mean, it had been 4 US 4 Mexican 1 Canadian, but now they also get a bunch of tournament teams in plus CPL. As many teams from Canada as the whole Caribbean. Roughly as many MLS as Central America.

Personally I think "Champions" is a misnomer if national champions don't even get a qualifier slot that they try and lose before hitting the second tier. I think something is lost -- and upset opportunities missed -- if we don't see W Connection play the Revolution, so to speak.

 

Worst....PK....ever........the look on Calero's face was of amazement and surprise at the gift he had been given.

On top of that the owner of Pachuca was sitting behind me cheering. It totally sucked.

 

As an old coach for many years and all the pro games I have been able to take in over the decades, I have witnessed some very bad PK's in my time, but for sure, Ngwenya's was by far the worst I have ever seen!

 

I think he like chested it away in slo-motion

 

my guess on 47 with 3 team groups is 15 groups of everybody plays each other once, top 2 advance each group, preference to first place, and 1 group of 2 teams plays "home and away" -- even if it's neutral site. both teams advance but the 2 games decide who wins and who finishes second in group, and ensure everyone has equal minutes on their legs.

if it's 2 game group rounds then they need to spend some time on the tiebreakers. easy to predict some 1 win 1 loss or 2 tie pileup groups.

it is an interesting coin-kee-dink that we suddenly get interested in playing hard as a tournament like this with mexican fan appeal arrives.

i don't buy a game a week and MLS keeps going. that would take 2 months of midweek games -- 2 weeks of group, then 5 rounds to knock out 32 teams. 7 weeks. that would also be in the heart of peak USOC season and where would that go. makes more sense to me you might have a month long schedule break which would potentially cover both.

and that's just working at the "empty summer" layer. odd years are usually gold cup years. ie 2023 would usually be a gold cup year. but i am curious how gold cup and nations league get sorted. kind of redundant. now in theory if the snobs had their way and gold cup moved up to june to mimic the euros. but then you'd have potential schedule carnage for months. regional NT tourney atop MLS. this new tournament, USOC, and MLS. busy busy busy. or maybe we further mimic euros and move gold cup to the even "middle" year ie 2024.

 

I really wish I could imagine the train of thought that this cellar dweller team, with no GM and outside of a transfer window, got the juice to win a few games two years out from a tournament format no one knew until a few days ago.

 

Are they making the 4 Liga MX and 4 MLS CCL qualifiers play in SuperLiga Part Deux? If not that’s 47 - 8 = 39 (13 groups of 3). Group toppers and the 3 best 2nd places advance to the round of 16.

 

July 21st to August 19th. Sounds good.
It would be wise imho to bump this Cup tournament up a week and start July 14th to August 12th. In this way this tournament can take a stranglehold over that long standing dead of Summer hole in the American sports calendar. The dog days of the long MLB season after returning from it's all Star game each second Tuesday in July. And the WNBA season really. What else, perhaps MLL nowadays but y'all get the picture. This tournament might take some form of interest among Liga MX fans at that time of year but sure could make headway with MLS fans and courts the soccer casual fan as the rivalry aspect and games all held in the U.S. can sell to new fans to the sport.
I would call the trophy the North American Super Cup. League Cup can be for something domestic to MLS alone.