The schism that divides Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber’s vision for the league (and the sport in general) and the sport’s too-often-forgotten-by-design history was on full display on September 25, 2024 thanks to a cup trophy double-header in the USA.
The day began with Club América of Liga MX lifting the Campeones Cup trophy after defeating the Columbus Crew of MLS. Hours later, Los Angeles FC lifted the US Open Cup title at home in an overtime thriller against Sporting Kansas City.
The former is one of the tournaments invented by long-running MLS commissioner Don Garber. The Campeones Cup pits the winner of Liga MX’s Copa de Campeones Cup and the MLS league winner. This one-off game spawned the separate, month-long Leagues Cup, which is an all MLS vs all Liga MX affair and the latest in big ideas of Garber’s lifelong escapades in US and CONCACAF (and soon-to-be global?!) soccer.
The antithesis to these ideas is the US Open Cup. Founded in 1913, the tournament has hosted US teams from every division and continues to do so today…and that’s in spite of Garber’s attempted meddling in all facets of US soccer.
It was around this time last year that MLS announced that it would not field any teams in the US Open Cup and would instead send in the MLS reserve sides to the tournament. The pushback was swift, but only eight of 29 MLS teams decided to continue competing as normal. The others were replaced by their MLS Next Pro counterparts.
The decision to ditch the Open Cup came months after Lionel Messi and Inter Miami CF won the Leagues Cup near the end of summer. The annual season was too congested for MLS teams, explained Garber, and something had to give.
Of course, the season would not be congested if not for Garber’s additional cup tournament, of which plenty of others have already rightfully criticized as useless money-grabs (the Campeones Cup, for example, isn’t an officially sanctioned tournament, but a friendly with a trophy and prize money attached to it) and invite-only monopolistic competition.
The Leagues Cup is certainly a money-grab (and a flailing one at that; no one wants to watch the two worst teams in Liga MX play in the middle of Texas) and, arguably, was created as part of Garber’s attempt to woo Apple TV into a contract with MLS. It clearly worked and now millions of people across the globe have access to watching MLS and the Leagues Cup, featuring Messi, without which none of this could have happened, as I wrote in LA Taco last year.
As I wrote then:
Messi’s arrival to Los Angeles as a member of Beckham’s Miami MLS team completed a full circle that encompassed all of MLS’ history, its present, and its ambitions for its future.
- Ivan Fernandez
The timing of the Leagues Cup coincides not only with Messi’s arrival to the US but also with long-awaited start to the 2026 World Cup to be hosted in three countries. It’s the largest, most bloated the World Cup has been and I can’t help but wonder how long this new format will hold until we return to the 32-team format established in 1998 (itself an expansion on the 24-team format of 1982 and the 16-team format before that).
The Leagues Cup is also quite the aberration that I don’t see existing after 2026. It occurs in August, thereby interrupting the MLS season by a full month. Liga MX starts in July, pauses for the Leagues Cup, and resumes after it ends; this year, the league was smart enough to accommodate those teams who had been disqualified early in play and allowed them to resume league play earlier than the end of the Leagues Cup.
For those who don’t habla español, the text in the image above is a quote from the Tijuana Xolos starting goalkeeper who claims that they cannot criticize the Leagues Cup or speak negatively of it because they’ll be fined. That rule most likely occurred this year after there were unofficial, off-the-record grumblings made by players in both leagues about the tournament last year. The Leagues Cup is clearly Garber’s golden egg and must be protected.
The summer of 2025 will be a chaotic one. The US will host the Gold Cup, the annual CONCACAF federation international tournament, in June. The US will then host the expanded and currently troubled edition of the FIFA Club World Cup (a jump from eight teams to 32 teams!) in July…if it still occurs!
Finally, the Leagues Cup will return in August, but even that is now suddenly in contention, as evidenced below:
Back to the night of September 25, the Liga MX side celebrated after winning on penalties. Shortly after, LAFC celebrated its appearance at the Open Cup final before kickoff with a special trophy presentation ceremony. Lothar Pospich, Manfred Norstadt and Eberhard Herz walked out onto the field with to present the Open Cup trophy. The last time these three men stood this close to the trophy was in 1958 when they and their teammates on the Los Angeles Kickers soccer team won the title.
The US Open Cup has survived longer than any other soccer-related entity or tournament. Leagues and teams have appeared and disappeared while the Open Cup continued along. The upcoming 2025 tournament is testament to its strength and popularity especially among lower division soccer: a record 114 teams will partake in the tournament’s qualifying rounds.
The US Open Cup will survive Don Garber too…though I’m not sure I can say the same about his cockamamie tournaments.
Afroxander (aka Iván Fernández) 