Monterrey, America, Toluca and Leon Reach the Semifinals as Liga MX Shuts Out MLS in the Leagues Cup Quarterfinals

Four quarterfinal matchups, four Mexican wins. Not a single upset, not a single scare for Liga MX. Monterrey, America, Toluca and Leon advanced to the semifinals of the 2026 Leagues Cup, eliminating Chicago Fire, Columbus Crew, Austin FC and Real Salt Lake along the way, and the message behind that result is more uncomfortable than it looks at first glance.

Not long ago, right after the World Cup, MLS rolled out an ad campaign with a pretty bold slogan: "Thank you, world. We'll take it from here." The idea was to sell the league as the natural destination for anyone who wanted to follow soccer up close. Well, reality answered with a symbolic 4-0 sweep in the round of 16 that sounds a lot like: "No, no, no. We'll take it from here."

It stings, sure, but it's not an anomaly. Mexican clubs have won 20 of the last 21 editions of the Concacaf Champions Cup, with the lone exception being the Seattle Sounders in 2022. The usual excuse is that the calendars don't line up and that MLS is barely getting its season started by the time this competition rolls around. Nice theory, but this week's results expose it pretty clearly: there was no real scheduling mismatch to blame here, just a gap in quality.

The 2025 Mirage

MLS could push back by pointing out that in 2025 the result went the other way: its four representatives won their quarterfinal matchups. But it's worth reading the fine print. Those four games were all played on the home turf of the American clubs, with every home field advantage in their favor, and even then two of them were decided on penalty kicks. Had luck broken differently that afternoon, the story would look very different today.

In 2026, that home field edge held up through the group stage, too: only four matches were played in Mexico or at a neutral site. MLS clubs finished that stretch with a record of 28 wins, 19 losses and 7 draws. Positive, sure, but far from dominant. And once the quarterfinals arrived, three of the four matchups were staged at neutral venues. The exception was Chicago Fire, who didn't even get to play at Soldier Field: they hosted Monterrey at SeatGeek Stadium, out in the suburbs, and ended up losing 2-1. The moment conditions were leveled, Liga MX reasserted control.

That's probably the most honest explanation available: strip away the home field advantage from MLS and the quality gap is laid bare.

Half Empty Stadiums and a Format That Isn't Working

If the results on the field are already worrisome, the crowd response is even more so. The matchups between Toluca and Austin FC in Harrison, New Jersey, and between Real Salt Lake and Leon in Commerce City, Colorado, each drew fewer than 10,000 fans. The America versus Columbus Crew game in Carson, California, announced a crowd of 20,637, but much of the upper deck sat empty, a striking sight for an America match in Southern California, a market where selling out a stadium should be nearly automatic.

The format itself has a deeper problem: during the group stage, MLS clubs sit in one table and Liga MX clubs sit in another, but they never actually face teams from their own table. They only play opponents from the other league. That injects a huge amount of variance and explains why, of the four MLS quarterfinalists, only Chicago sat in the upper half of its conference; Real Salt Lake was eighth, Austin was last in the West and Columbus was nearly last in the East. Reaching the quarterfinals with numbers like that, and on the road to boot, made the outcome fairly predictable.

It doesn't help either that the U.S. versus Mexico soccer rivalry, the commercial engine behind this tournament, is starting to show signs of wear at the club level. The national team matchup on October 3 near Phoenix will likely sell out, but that doesn't automatically translate into passion for every single Leagues Cup fixture. The thin crowds in Harrison and Commerce City were a hard image to spin.

The 2024 edition landed at the perfect moment, with Lionel Messi freshly arrived at Inter Miami and half the continent wanting to see him play live. But that novelty fades, and without Messi in the mix, the tournament risks turning into a low profile event, lacking the storyline or the David versus Goliath appeal that, for example, the U.S. Open Cup still has.

Can the Leagues Cup be fixed? A different format and better venues would certainly help. The real question is whether there's genuine will to change it, in an already overcrowded calendar where some clubs prioritize the tournament and others simply try to dodge it. The MLS shift to a spring-summer format could shake things up if the tournament ends up landing at the start of the season, when starting strong still matters. Until then, without any real adjustments, the competition risks continuing to lose relevance.