Major League Soccer
The Leagues Cup & US Open Cup can coexist
Fans are upset as Major League Soccer puts the two competitions up against each other.
Some fans around Major League Soccer are boycotting the Leagues Cup as the league itself continues to frame the competition against the US Open Cup. But why must they be at odds? Both the Leagues Cup and the US Open Cup should be able to exist.
The latest episode of Shades of Blue dives into the discussion about the benefits & problems with both competitions, and how they can coexist. (That conversation starts around the 24:00 mark.)
After the addition of the Leagues Cup into the schedule last season, MLS almost abandoned the historic US Open Cup in 2024. Thankfully it returned, sort of. Last week, Don Garber took the opportunity to hammer home Major League Soccer’s opinion of the Open Cup. It would appear the battle is far from over.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber speaks on the league’s approach to the @opencup moving forward. pic.twitter.com/jDOKtSo2ub
— Eli Lesser (@EliLesserTV) July 24, 2024
The public protests continue around the country from Supporters Groups like the Sons of Ben in Philadelphia and a number of St. Louis City groups.
From the Board Statement regarding the Sons of Ben involvement during Leagues Cup for 2024
Ad Finem Fidelis
Link for PDF: https://t.co/NI8L2bcjbz pic.twitter.com/UuOYIGnw1b
— Sons of Ben (@SonsofBen) July 23, 2024
Throwing away 100+ years of history for a quick buck is not something we will be silent about. The Open Cup means too much to soccer in America and soccer in St. Louis. We stand by our previous statements and will move forward with our boycott of Leagues Cup.#RespectOpenCup pic.twitter.com/vnrb6an9L7
— Fleur de Noise (@fleurdenoise) March 1, 2024
Perhaps the most obvious solution to the schedule congestion, is to change the strict roster rules for Major League Soccer. Increasing the size of a roster would allow managers to rotate players and ease the burden of too many matches.
Should the individual teams have the ability to decide to compete in the US Open Cup? Or maybe if MLS wants to create a new competition, they sacrifice two regular season matches to make it work.
Let us know what you think of the boycotts in the comments. Do you want to see both the Leagues Cup and the US Open Cup exist together?
Check out the full episode of Shades of Blue below.
Please subscribe, rate, & review the KC Soccer Journal feed wherever you get your podcasts! Feel free to yell at Cody @ThatCodyTho, Thad @TheBackpost, and Robert @SpKCLife.
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As I see it, the quest for more money, more revenue is what is driving the league. Well, both of these tournaments should be able to coexist, the question is why?
I am not a fan of the MLS playoffs and how the winner of the league is decided. To me the supporter shield is the Mark of the Real best team in the MLS.
what I don’t understand about the leagues cup is why are all the matches played in MLS stadiums? Why am I going to children’s Mercy Park to see sporting play as the await team the answer is simple, more money. I won’t be buying any tickets to playoffs or knockout games. Well I’m given is part of my season tickets is all that I’m spending. If they want the leagues cup so much let their teams play an empty stadiums. I’m done with all the fake competition that gets in the way of the real competition.
I think Supporters Shield has lost a lot of its shine in the past decade or so purely due to expansion of the league. I don’t think it can be a definitive reflection of the best team in MLS because the schedules are so unbalanced between the conferences, and even within the conferences. It’s still a great achievement but doesn’t mean as much as it once did.
Leagues cup, top 3 qualify for ccl, winner goes straight to round of 16. This is the one thing I like about the tourney. It offers multiple chances to qualify for ccl. It makes the third place game relevant. There are only a few spots already for US teams to qualify.
I love US open cup. The second longest running soccer tournament in the world. This is only for US teams to qualify for ccl with cup win. Very cool, winner take all. No Canadian or Mexican teams. I think it’s more important now than ever to draw the lines and protect this competition.
No other soccer league in tier 1 has a cap. Just get rid of it. What is the fear? LA galaxy and a few others would have EPL talent from front to back why others would continue to roll out 70 percent usl teams? We already see mls teams beating liga mx squads with half the payroll. Why not level the playing field so it’s not such a mountain?
A new commissioner is needed. You have a league wide problem when confusing rules lead everyone to nickname team money within the league Garber bucks. I’d like to stop supporting a European team. I can’t as long as we’re just a national league team who doesn’t strive to win continental tournaments. Change the roster rules to unlimited. Stop trying to be the nfl. Nfl has zero competition in the world. There are 32 teams. There are 14 thousand professional soccer teams in the world.
I think the Leagues Cup has potential but I would much rather see more opportunities for MLS teams to play in Mexico. This is what makes Champions League/Cup so fun. Right now it’s just kind of boring, especially with only two matches guaranteed. It should not come at the expense of the US Open Cup, which to me is a much more valuable competition with even more potential for growing the game.
I think the two competitions can coexist – like the pod brings up there is nothing from stopping a team from running out their reserves and hoping for a loss. I was so happy when Vermes did this a couple of years ago for that silly Leagues Cup predecessor. But I will always prefer the USOC.
Still a lot of things that can be done to improve both competitions. US Open Cup needs better platforms to be watched on and needs to stop having the same teams play every single year in MLS stadia. It’s a lot more fun when we go to play at Sacramento or at Omaha. Those are really fun.
I’ll also say the USOC holds a very special place in my heart due to SKC’s success in it. The 2012 Open Cup win was the second of the three steps in Kansas City soccer coming out of the wilderness (the stadium/rebranding being the first and MLS Cup in 2013 being the third), and that final was one of my favorite events I’ve been to live, and one of my formative memories as a teenage soccer fan. To see that great tournament thrown aside for something that doesn’t have any history and seems like a cash grab is really disappointing.
My big problem with League’s Cup (and the current playoff format) is that the regular season gets more and more devalued and more and more grueling with every change. There’s almost no point to the supporter’s shield anymore. The best team in the other conference gets the same thing as you and the next TWO teams in the shield race after those also get a CCC berth and slightly less money than the shield winner. If there’s no point to the shield and your playoff seed hardly matters at all (only 1 of the last 5 MLS cup winners was a 1 seed) and 2/3 of the league gets in to the playoffs AND the midseason tournament gets you MORE prizes than the MLS Cup why even try hard from February to May? If you can escape your first 10-11 games with even 9 points you can pretty easily make the playoffs. If you can get a top 3 finish in Leagues Cup you get almost as much as the MLS Cup winner anyway and more than the shield winner.
As for the Open Cup thing: I do like the idea of the competition. There’s something, I dunno, romantic maybe about the idea that an amateur team can compete with professionals and maybe make a run. I like that it tests the quality of your roster from top to bottom if you’re in the top tier and that it gives your team a chance to test their mettle against the next level up, even if it’s mostly reserves for most of the competition, if you’re not. And obviously the CCC berth is a great prize. But it IS mostly a competition for your backups and reserves if you’re an MLS team and the games ARE at inconvenient times and it IS a fair amount of extra wear and tear on your players so I can see why a lot of folks don’t care about it.