Going into this tournament, I’m not sure any of us knew exactly what to expect from Leagues Cup 2023.
While there was certainly excitement in the lead up to new-fangled competition, it wasn’t without criticism and reservation right off the bat.
Via Goal.com
Was this just another money grab? Was stopping MLS and Liga MX league play going to be worth the trouble? And above all, would people even care about the trophy?
Personally, I think most of those questions were answered in a positive light for the competition. But, it certainly wasn’t a tournament without flaws.
So, below I’m laying out my positives and negatives from Leagues Cup 2023. Here's what made the competition so fun to watch, and what needs changing for this tournament to be even better next season.
Positives
1) Messi Messi Messi
I can’t believe I got this far without mentioning his name, because Lionel Messi put Leagues Cup on the map - full stop.
I’ve been saying that Messi is the best thing ever to happen to MLS, and unsurprisingly, he was by far the best thing to happen in the brief history of Leagues’ Cup as well. His arrival made the inaugural running of this tournament must see TV around the world.
Via Deadline
Thanks in part to Apple TV’s global streaming rights, this tournament was watched in households from Miami to Marbella, from Boca Raton to Buenos Aires, and from Tampa to Timbuktu. That’s what you get when Messi is involved: global viewership.
And Messi wasn’t just involved - he was dominant, bagging 10 goals and 1 assist in just seven matches played. But while statistically impressive, it was the manner in which he scored that grabbed eyeballs worldwide. His two stoppage time, match-winning free kicks were as jaw-dropping as they were weirdly predictable, and were complimented with stunners like the long-range strike vs Philadelphia and the top bins curler in the final.
Via CNN
If his individual displays weren’t enough, Inter Miami’s squad as a whole rose to the challenge along with him. Busquets looked unbelievable, Jordi Alba popped up with a goal, and guys like Robert Taylor, Benjamin Cremaschi, and Drake Callender briefly became household names as we all watched this Inter Miami side shake off dust they’ve been collecting at the bottom of the table all season, and emerge as exciting players in what was by far the best team in the tournament.
You would simply be remiss to ignore the profound impact Messi and Inter Miami as a whole had on this tournament. Because, as much as I enjoyed the competition in its own right, Messi’s Miami was the storyline - they were the reason the world was watching.
2) The Concept
While Messi rightfully stole the headlines, let’s not forget how fun this tournament was beyond the goat's contributions. Even in matches completely unrelated to the circus in South Beach, I had an absolute blast tuning into games that were as random as they were entertaining.
Matches like Leon beating Vancouver Whitecaps in the longest shootout of all time (16-15), Monterrey coming back from two goals down to win 3-2 over LAFC, and Nashville’s controversial shootout win over Club America serve as great examples of what we were all hoping for going into this tournament: great games between MLS and Liga MX sides.
MLS vs Liga MX was the very crux of the tournament as a whole for me. There’s been all this back and forth for years now on “who’s the better league?” or “if MLS has finally caught up to Liga MX?” And, outside of the few clubs from each league that can participate in CCL, this was the first attempt at settling that age-old debate from top to bottom.
Via Território MLS
While we’re on the topic of the concept, I have to say the format in particular was super fun as well. I was skeptical about the 3-team group stages, but it actually made them way more entertaining in my eyes while reducing the number of minutes on players’ legs. And from there, knockout football is knockout football - it’s always a fun watch.
And ultimately, the “does this tournament actually matter” questions seemed to be answered by Messi’s reaction to the hardware alone. If the goat cared about winning, who are you to say it’s not a valid trophy?
The ceremony was legit, from pyrotechnics to confetti, and Inter Miami got to celebrate their first trophy in club history. That’s as authentic as it gets in my book. And whether it’s Messi gunning for the repeat next year, or another challenger looking to take the title, I’m confident players, coaches and fans have this competition circled as something they want to win now, even if they weren't fully convinced going into this year.
3) Weekday Matches
This, admittedly, feels like a strange thing to put as a reason for liking the tournament as a whole, but I truly think it was integral for my consumption of this competition. With MLS moving nearly all of their matches to 7:30EST on Saturday nights to try to accommodate Apple TV’s desire for primetime eyeballs, I’ve found myself missing a ton of MLS games that I otherwise would’ve watched.
First of all, when every team plays at the same time, you can really only catch one. If you want to watch Apple TV’s “MLS 360” with as much studio banter, player interviews and commercials as actual football, that’s totally fine. But as an NYCFC fan, I’m watching my team play the full 90. When I do that, I miss the entire rest of the league on certain match weeks.
Via Nation World News
Plus, I’ve had my complaints about the 7:30 Saturday kickoff since its inception. Why would you schedule your entire league around the time of week people are by far the most likely to have existing plans? I’m about as big of an MLS fan as they come, but I have to say it’s a big ask from Apple to have me give up my entire Saturday night to stay in and watch TV.
So, I was jacked up when I could flip on the TV after work on any given weekday and have a full slate of Leagues Cup to look forward to. I didn’t have to plan my life around it - it was just there. It was the ultimate “throw the game on” content usually reserved for NBA or MLB in my household, and that allowed me to watch far more soccer than I would otherwise.
Negatives
1) No Home Matches for Liga MX Clubs
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this simple fact undermined the validity of the entire tournament. Having Liga MX sides play entirely on the road when American and Canadian sides got to sleep in their own beds and play in their own stadiums is more than unfair.
Thankfully however, many Liga MX sides have such good traveling support, and so many existing fans in the American cities in which they played, that in-stadium support for these sides was very strong in some cases. That made it feel perhaps a bit more palatable.
Via The Columbus Dispatch
But the travel alone experienced by some of these sides was staggering. This is probably best exemplified by Leon, who had to travel all the way from their home in central Mexico, to Vancouver, where they were stranded in the airport for 24 hours before jetting down to Los Angelas, and finally shipping out to Salt Lake City Utah. All told, it was just shy of 4,000 miles of travel in just two weeks for those poor players and staff.
Now compare that to my aforementioned NYCFC, who got two home games in the group stage, and played their knockout match just across the Hudson River at Red Bull Arena. Same number of matches, same number of days, but an absolute fraction of the travel. It’s just not fair at all, is it?
And that simple fact really damages the whole essence of the tournament. If this competition is to determine who’s the best in Concacaf, how can you honestly say this is a fair determining factor when Liga MX teams are at such a distinct disadvantage?
Via El Economista
Plus, have league planners considered how much more fun this tournament would be with games in Mexico? While I wouldn’t fancy our chances there, the idea of my NYCFC playing away at Club America at the Azteca sounds truly unbelievable.
So while I appreciate the difficulties associated with planning such an endeavor given the travel, MLS and Liga MX have to figure out a way for Mexico to get home games, or else this tournament looses validity very quickly.
2) The Refereeing
It’s never a good look to be the guy moaning on social media about refereeing decisions, but my god were there some tough days at the office for these Leagues Cup referees.
I’ll start by acknowledging that these officials are human beings like the rest of us. Mistakes happen, and I understand that. But, when the mistakes are as consistent and significant as we saw in Leagues Cup, it reeks of a top-down, systemic issue rather than an individual referee being human.
In particular, many of these high profile errors were as the result of VAR, and the overuse of the tool in my opinion. It just seemed like too many times, referees went to the monitor in search of something they could overturn, rather than allowing the call on the field to reign supreme bar any “clear and obvious error”.
Via AS USA
We saw this in the NYCFC vs Atlas match, where Justin Haak’s late equalizer was taken off the board following a video review. A new angle found after the match proved this to be the wrong decision, confirming that the on-field call was correct in the first place.
We saw this “re-refereeing” again in the Nashville match vs Monterrey, in which Hany Mukhtar’s stunning opener was, again, overruled by VAR. The video assistant claimed that a Nashville player obstructed the goalkeeper from an offside position, when there was no clear evidence to suggest that was the case in my opinion.
And, most notably, VAR dubiously intervened in the Nashville vs Club America shootout, in a match that had already ended. Roughly five minutes after what we all thought was the winning save from Club America’s keeper, Luis Malagon, the video assistant referee determined the keeper was off his line, and that the spot kick would need to be re-taken.
The call in its own right appeared to be accurate, but the execution of the decision could not have been more inept. Players had already shaken hands, the broadcast had cut the feed, social media teams had already posted the final score, and fans had turned off their TV’s. This match was OVER ... until it wasn’t.
Via Marca
In the end, Nashville went on to convert this re-taken penalty and ultimately win the shootout, leaving Club America players, coaches and fans in utter disbelief. So much so, Liga MX officials went on to make public complaints into the tournament’s handling of the situation, and of the tournament’s refereeing in general.
So I get it, referees make are human and make human errors all the time. But, when it starts to have this much of an impact on the outcome of matches and on the tournament itself, something must be done to address the situation moving forward.
3) Matches going straight to PK’s
The last thing that I thought took away from the validity of the tournament was how the organizers addressed penalty shootouts.
The rule was pretty simple - if any watch was still level after 90 minutes, it would go straight to penalties.
In the group stages, I was totally on board with this. Given there were 3-team groups, a winner would need to be decided in every contest to ensure differentiation in final points totals. And, cleverly, the organizers decided to change up the point system in the event of PK’s, in which the winning side in the shootout would be awarded 2 points, and the loser would be awarded 1.
Via Chattanooga Free Press
This meant sides finished with varying points totals at the end of the two-match group stages, but it didn’t put any extra minutes onto these tired players’ legs in the way 30 minutes of additional time would have.
But, I think this approach should have stopped after the group stage. Or at the very least, should have been adjusted for the semi-final and for the final.
Having the final of this tournament go straight to penalties felt more reminiscent of the Audi Cup than a major tournament. I understand this is done with player welfare in mind, but if you can’t even justify that the additional 30 minutes of play is “worth it” for these players dealing with fixture congestion, then how can you justify to the fans that this tournament is worth their money and time to watch?
Via Marca
I get it, these players are playing entirely too many matches in too short a window, and player welfare should be a paramount. But, having this many matches end in PKs really hurt the quality of the competition in my book.
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