Leagues Cup returns Tuesday with 18 MLS clubs and 18 LIGA MX clubs in its fourth season, opening another cross-league run that will end with a Sept. 6 final and a place in the 2027 Concacaf Champions Cup for the top three finishers. The competition once again puts 36 clubs into the same bracket, with every result feeding into a race that now carries both bragging rights and a longer road into Concacaf’s top club event.
For Maxime Crépeau, the appeal is simple. Players want to show the quality of their league and prove that it is growing, he said, because competition strips away the talk and leaves only the performance. That is part of why the tournament has become a search target whenever it starts: Leagues Cup is not just another summer event, but the latest measure of where MLS and LIGA MX stand against each other now.
The field has more name power this year than before, with Son Heung-Min, Antoine Griezmann, Robert Lewandowski, Casemiro and Thomas Müller all new to the competition. Müller arrived at Vancouver Whitecaps FC last summer from Bayern Munich, adding another familiar face to a tournament that keeps trying to raise its level by pulling in proven players from outside the usual rivalry.
The results so far, though, still point one way. MLS has won all three editions since Leagues Cup expanded in 2023, with Inter Miami CF taking the first title, Columbus Crew following in 2024 and Seattle Sounders FC winning in 2025. Only one LIGA MX club, CF Monterrey in 2023, has reached the semifinals in that span, which makes this return feel less like a fresh start than another chance for LIGA MX to interrupt a pattern that has become hard to ignore.
That is where the competition gets interesting. MLS also beat LIGA MX 4-3 in the MLS All-Star Game presented by Chime, and it has won four of five all-time meetings in that setting, yet LIGA MX has historically held the upper hand in the Concacaf Champions Cup. Crépeau and Tim Ream both described the rivalry as something that runs through the leagues, the teams, the players and even the families, and that is why this tournament lands differently from a routine tournament date. The next hard marker is the Sept. 6 final, but the bigger question is whether the added star power and bigger field finally make the balance look less settled.
