Results in a strange tournament

The 2025 League Cup is happening, and I have been watching some of the matches in a strange tournament that officially is a "friendly" tournament, but the winner qualifies for the CONCACAF Champions Cup, also despite the fact that the tournament is not sponsored by CONCACAF.

The tournament started in 2019 as a confrontation between the MLS and the Liga MX. 18 teams from each league participate and only play teams from the other league, three matches, with three points for a win, two points for a win on penalty kicks (it goes straight to penalty kicks if it ends in a tie), and one point for a tie (so you keep it if you lose on penalty kicks). The top eight teams, four from each league, then progress to play-off quarterfinals.

Yesterday the league stage ended with two top teams, firstly the Mexican champions from Toluca, and secondly Seattle Sounders, who won three straight matches, one a 7-0 destruction of the CONCACAF Champions Cup winners Cruz Azul. Besides Toluca, Pachuca and Tigres the Mexican sides have appeared very weak indeed; mighty America only managed three ties against Real Salt Lake, Minnesota United and Portland Timbers, while other sides than Cruz Azul also suffered big defeats to MLS sides such as Necaxa, Atlas and Santo Laguna. Regarding the latter I watched their 0-4 defeat against an LA Galaxy side with the German veteran star Marco Reus in midfield, and frankly 0-4 was too little in a match where Santos Laguna looked more like a Danish 3rd division side, and on top of that got two well-deserved red cards.

What Santos Laguna showed was perhaps the worst side of Mexican football.

While MLS sides did well overall, there was not much difference between the top four teams, amongst which Messi's Inter Miami ended on second place. In their last match they also proved better than the Mexico City side Pumas UNAM, who may have gone ahead, but then were vastly outplayed by a Miami side with Luis Suarez and Rodrigo de Paul as goalscorers and architects of the goals. I must admit that I have had reserves against Miami, but this was one of the best matches I have seen them play, and are really worth following.

The quarterfinals are in a couple of weeks, and fully replace the league matches in both leagues. All this said, it is more a comparative tournament between two leagues, perhaps more valuable for MLS to show the significant advances that the league is going through. 

MLS-Liga MX semifinals

As expected, America defeated Tauro, and will be facing Toronto FC in the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions League. In the meantime, the other semifinal did not go well for the MLS side Seattle Sounders, who went out squarely to defend their 1-0 lead from the first match against Chivas Guadalajara. It was not nice to watch, but seemed to be working until five minutes into the second half when Oswaldo Alanis brought Chivas ahead. The US side had no response against their American counterparts who just continued attacking, and ended up winning a not too wide 3-0 victory. The 3-0 goal by the young Jose de Jesus Godinez muts be mentioned as an outstanding heal-goal.
Chivas will face New York Red Bulls, who are probably slight favourities, but should not lean back and defend as lazily as Seattle Sounders did.  I have not been impressed about Seattle who, if they really intend to be a big side, should be able to do better against a Chivas side that is in deep crisis in the Mexican league.
The final of the CONCACAF Champions league could potentially be an MLS-Liga MX final or a purely MLS final. Or, perhaps most interestingly, would be a Superclasico final between America and Chivas!

CONCACAF Champions League play-offs

The CONCACAF Champions League has reached the round of 16, and tonight the team from El Salvador, Santa Tecla, was hoping to make an upset against the MLS side Seattle Sounders after winning 2-1 in El Salvador. After a good first half, the Salvadoreans fell apart deep into the second half, and lost 4-0.
Very disappointing but at the same time it was a good show against an MLS side which, as all MLS sides, think they are much better than they are...
Seattle Sounders will face Chivas Guadalajara in the quarterfinals. Chivas are in a deep crisis in the Mexican League; they are unlikely to make the play-offs and in reality Champions League are their only hope for a title. While this could be the time for Sounders to be facing a Chivas side in crisis, one has to consider the absolute dominance by Mexican teams in the CONCACAF Champions League: of the four Mexican sides participating, all have made it to the quarterfinals. Since the tournament was introduced in 2008, it has been won by Mexican sides every single year. In fact, in all but two years (2010 and 2015) the final has been between Mexican sides. In 2016, all four semi-finalists were Mexican sides. This just illustrates that the Mexican League remains far superior to any league in the CONCACAF region, including the MLS, and when MLS sides compare themselves to other sides, they should look to smaller leagues than the Mexican, which is certainly the much stronger than the MLS.
The coming quarterfinals of the tournament will see the following clashes:

• Club America-Tauro
• Toronto FC-Tigres UANL
• Tijuana-New York Red Bulls
• Seattle Sounders-Guadalajara

I hope particularly Tigres UANL through, after the fantastic final I watched them play in December last year. I also hope Chivas destroy Seattle, avenging Santa Tecla, and saving their poor season.

MLS Western Conference final

The MLS Western conference second leg final yesterday saw the Seattle Sounders, in front of a great crowd in Seattle, win 2-1 over the LA Galaxy. However, this was not enough, as Galaxy had won a resounding 3-0 victory in the first leg that puts them in the National final to defend their title from last year against the same team as last year, Houston Dynamo.
LA Galaxy was nevertheless a disappointment in the match against Seattle. They came to Seattle to defend, which could make sense, but without Landon Donovan they seemed like a very ordinary team against Seattle, who in the first half came out to attack, knowing nothing else counted. In the first half they were leading on a goal by Eddie Johnson, who even had another goal erroneously annulled for off-side. When Zach Scott brought the Sounders ahead 2-0 they were dominating so much that everyone would be excused for expecting Seattle to make a third.
But two things happened. First, Coach Bruce Arena put the Brazilian Juninho in on midfield, and he suddenly gave LA Galaxy much more dynamism in the counterattack and more defensive depth.
The second thing was the referee...
It is sad that a referee takes center stage in such a game. He made a lot of small calls that favoured Galaxy, but in the end it was an absolutely scandalous penalty call for Galaxy, which Robbie Keane scored on (Galaxy's great player of this season also scored two goals in the first match). This took some air out of the Sounders while giving Galaxy renewed confidence. In spite of attacks by Sounders they were disappointed, and Galaxy should send flowers to the referee.