Report: MLS, Liga MX set to announce new eight-team tournament
Major League Soccer and Liga MX will soon announce a new eight-team tournament between MLS — the top soccer circuit in the United States and Canada — and its more powerful counterpart in Mexico, according to a new report.
Per The Athletic’s Sam Stejskal, four clubs from each league will compete in the event: MLS sides Chicago Fire, Houston Dynamo, LA Galaxy and Real Salt Lake, and Liga MX sides Club America, Cruz Azul, Tigres and Tijuana. The single-elimination competition, which will be played entirely in the U.S., will kick off in late July and conclude in mid-September, Stejskal reported on Tuesday.
The quarterfinals will pit the Fire and Cruz Azul against one another, along with matchups between the Dynamo and Club America, the Galaxy and Tijuana, and Tigres and RSL. Las Vegas is in contention to host what could be a neutral-site final, the report said.
The format is reminiscent of the SuperLiga tournament that ran from 2007-10. The New England Revolution was the only MLS side to win that competition, and American clubs have not been competitive at all against richer Mexican teams in the CONCACAF Champions League.
Not only has no MLS team ever won the Champions League in its current format, only RSL, Toronto FC and the Montreal Impact have reached the final since the format was adopted in 2008. Earlier this year, Mexican champ Monterrey recorded a humiliating 10-2 aggregate victory over Sporting Kansas City in their two-game, home-and-home semifinal.
The new as-yet unnamed tournament is the second event to feature teams from MLS and Liga MX since the two organizations announced a strategic partnership last summer. Tigres won the inaugural 2018 Campeones Cup, an annual match between the MLS and Liga MX champs hosted by the former. Atlanta will welcome Monterrey in the second edition in August.
How seriously MLS teams take the latest tourney remains to be seen. It falls during the business end of the regular season, which will finish almost a month earlier than usual this year. The American teams don’t have the depth of their Liga MX foes, making squad rotation impossible without a severe drop-off in quality. That’s especially true for clubs like Houston and Salt Lake, whose payrolls are in the bottom third of the 24-team league.
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