Of the top five Liga MX teams from the 2023 calendar year, three (60%) failed to advance from the Leagues Cup group stage, Monterrey, Guadalajara (aka Chivas), and Leon. One group stage match remains to be played Tuesday night. Nashville at New England.

All three were eliminated by penalty kick shootouts.

• Monterrey lost on PKs to Pumas 3-0.
• Chivas lost to LA Galaxy 4-3.
• Leon, to Colorado also 4-3.

In all sports a knockout tournament’s mechanics demand creating advancement from a draw.

In soccer the PK shootout’s only virtue is that it is less bad than the alternatives – for example, the FA Cup’s full replay at the away team’s home pitch on a subsequent day. Television profit margins eschew such scheduling adaptability.

Cool rationality suggests equating PKs to drawing lots, almost. But sports fans are not noted for cool reason in face of defeat, … or victory, for that matter.

The four other group-stage eliminated Mexican sides are joined by eight MLS ones.

This year the top ten seeds in the tournament happened to divide equally between the two leagues. But too much should not be made of seeding since it reflects the previous season’s results.

Philadelphia was seeded seventh, Charlotte 25^th, and Cruz Azul 31^st. But Philadelphia’s most optimistic fan could not honestly have said after Sunday night that the Union were clearly best in the group. The Union punished a mistake against the run of play in each game and won its group.

Faster adaptation

The Clausera–Apertura structure of a Liga MX calendar year facilitates mid-year squad improvement in a way MLS’s single long season does not. And while the two leagues’ first-team roster sizes seem numerically comparable, their roster rules allow high quality depth to accumulate much differently.

Earlier this season after exiting the Concacaf Champions Cup (previously Concacaf Champions League) Inter Miami head coach Tata Martino attributed Miami’s lack of depth to those rule differences. (Click here .) He has coached as head in MLS with Atlanta before Miami and in Mexico with the full national team.

Of course, the elephant in the room is that soccer is Mexico’s men’s national sport, and at its most optimistic that cannot yet be said of the United States or Canada. Mexico’s quality is quantitatively deeper and broader.

When a Mexican powerhouse loans out a good young player because he cannot get developmental minutes at home, he frequently goes to a lesser Liga MX side and plays for it. When Philadelphia loans out its developmentally needy youngsters, it has almost always been to lesser leagues. The two exceptions are that Brandan Craig did go to Austin last summer but he literally never played. The other we remember was Zac MacMath being loaned to Colorado after Andre Blake had superseded him. But MacMath was no longer a developmental player.

At the national team levels U. S. youth development seems to have caught up with Mexico’s. But at the club professional ones it seems not to have done so yet. A future project for those who dreamed up Leagues Cup would be a similar path towards comparing Mexico’s second and third levels to those of the U. S. and Canada.

Appendix: 2024 Group Stage Seeds

For statistically valid comparison, seeding based on calendar year 2023 performance.