The 2025 edition of the Leaugues Cup tournament will return this summer with a modified format for the group phase and the KO, as well as more guaranteed matches between MLS and Liga MX, the competition announced on Thursday.
Beginning on July 29 with the 18 Liga MX teams and 18 MLS representatives, the tournament, led once again in the United States and Canada, now includes a group phase “of a phase one” which will have each club that participates in Three games against teams from teams from the opposite League teams.
The groups are decided through rankings which are set by the performance of the Liga MX and MLS teams in 2024 regular season games.
The San Diego FC will be ranked last in MLS, because the expansion team has not yet started playing in the League.
After playing three games each in phase one, the best four efficient teams in Liga MX and MLS will go to the quarter -final scene with a single elimination, where they will be placed in a fixed medium with pairs between the league .
According to the CUP leagues, guaranteeing MLS clashes against Liga MX in phase one and the quarter-finals will mean that a minimum of 58 of the 62 games in the competition will be inter-bone.
The championship match will be played on August 31, with the two finalists, as well as the winner of the third place match, winning a place during the CONCACAF 2026 Champions Cup.
Earlier in the week, MLS confirmed that only 18 teams would participate in the tournament, as opposed to the entire league involved in the two previous editions. MLS participants this year were decided by the nine best clubs of each conference last season.
The Whitecaps of Vancouver, which finished eighth from the Western Conference, were replaced by San Diego because of their involvement in the CONCACAF Champions Cup and the Canadian Championship in 2025.
According to MLS, the inclusion of San Diego allowed “the 30 MLS teams to compete in at least one, but not more than two, North American Cup competitions”.
No break will be done in the regular season for Liga MX or MLS during the tournament.
