August 23 – Leagues Cup finalists Los Angeles FC and Columbus Crew have qualified for the 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup.
It marks a surge in the performance levels of MLS clubs internationally against their traditionally dominating club neighbours from Mexico’s LigaMX. Since 2002, LigaMX clubs have won 20 Champions League title (now rebranded as the Champions Cup) while only the Seattle Sounders have notched a win for the MLS, in 2022.
The Leagues Cup, now in its second iteration and played between all of the clubs in the MLS and LigaMX over a month in July-August, has ignited a greater interest in international club competition in the US and particularly within the MLS clubs.
Qualification for Concacaf’s Champions Cup is a clear incentive as that also give clubs a shot at qualification for future editions of the expanded 32-team Club World Cup, though the four Concacaf clubs for the 2025 event in the US in 2025 have already been qualified.
Concacaf’s Champions Cup in 2025 now has eight of the 27 participating teams confirmed. LAFC and Columbus Crew join six Liga MX clubs – CD Guadalajara, CF Monterrey, Club America, Cruz Azul, Pumas UNAM, and Tigres UANL.
To be played between February and June 2025, this will be the 60th edition of Concacaf’s showpiece club competition which was won in 2024 by Pachuca who beat Columbus Crew 3-0.
Of the 27 participating clubs, 22 will begin play in Round One, and five will receive a bye to the Round of 16. Pachuca, by winning the 2024 edition, have joined Club Leon (2023), Seattle Sounders FC (2022), and CF Monterrey (2021) as Concacaf’s four representatives in next summer’s FIFA Club World Cup.
The remaining 19 slots will be filled by five more MLS clubs and the winner of the US Open Cup, three Canadian clubs, three from the 2024 Caribbean Cup, six from the 2024 Central America Cup and third placed club in the current Leagues Cup – either Colorado Rapids or Philadelphia Union.
Ultimately that will see nine US clubs qualified for the 2025 edition, one more than their noisy neighbours from the south.
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