Columbus Crew will begin their Leagues Cup Ligaphase against Atlas Guadalajara on 5 August 2026, with Laurent Courtois’ side set to host the match at ScottsMiracle-Gro Field. The referee is still listed as unknown, but the matchup already has a shape: Columbus enter as the home favourite, while Atlas arrive trying to stop a run of recent losses in the competition.
That search interest makes sense because this is the first Leagues Cup matchday for both teams in the current edition, and Columbus are carrying the memory of a title run. They reached and won the 2024 Leagues Cup final, then followed that with mixed results in 2025, including a 2-4 away loss to Deportivo Toluca and wins over Puebla and Club León. Across their last five Leagues Cup matches, Columbus scored 12 goals, a rate that explains why they are being backed strongly again.
Atlas, under Hernán Crespo, bring a different kind of form. Their recent Leagues Cup outings have been low-scoring and usually ended in defeat, with five straight losses in their last five matches in the competition. They were beaten 2-1 by Real Salt Lake and CF América in 2024, then lost by the same margin to Inter Miami before falling 3-1 to Orlando City and 4-1 to Atlanta United in 2025. Even so, most of those defeats were narrow, which matters because it leaves Columbus facing a side that has not been blown away every time the game has slipped.
The contrast is clear enough without needing to dress it up. Columbus have been productive in Leagues Cup play and are expected to start fast at home, but Atlas have shown enough resistance to make the margin the real question, not the winner. There are no recent competitive meetings between the sides in the last five years, so the first whistle on 5 August is also the first real test of how those recent numbers translate when they meet head-on.
For Courtois, the job is to turn home advantage and recent scoring into an immediate statement. For Crespo, it is to keep Atlas compact long enough to make Columbus earn every chance. The answer arrives at ScottsMiracle-Gro Field, and the opening night of the current Leagues Cup edition will tell which recent run matters more.
