Atlanta United President Darren Eales said MLS needs to be innovative in terms of salary structures and roster makeups to improve the probability that it will be competitive with teams from Mexico in the expanded Leagues Cup and Champions League tournaments.
The Leagues Cup will feature every team from LIGA MX and MLS. It starts in 2023. The expanded Champions League will start in 2024.
“We know it’s coming, we know it’s there,” Eales said. “And I’ve got full confidence in the league that we’ll find ways to help get more depth of response help to be more competitive because it’s in our interest as a league to make sure our clubs are competitive.”
Eales said that within the new collective bargaining agreement there are mechanisms to help. The full CBA, agreed to before this season, has yet to be released to the public by the Major League Soccer Players Association or MLS. Highlights of the agreement have been reached.
A team from MLS has yet to win the Champions League in its current format. The L.A. Galaxy was the last MLS club to win the tournament in any format, in 2000. The Leagues Cup, played only twice, was won by teams from LIGA MX. Another competition, the Campeones Cup, which matches the MLS champ against the LIGA MX champ, has been played three times, won twice by MLS clubs, Atlanta United and Columbus, and another by Mexican club Tigres.
A difference between those tournaments is the Champions League is a marathon of games. The expanded Leagues Cup will be the same. The Campeones Cup is a one-off game.
Eales said he thinks that when looking at the quality of a healthy MLS team’s starters and a healthy LIGA MX team’s starters there isn’t that much of a difference. It’s when teams start to dip into their benches that separation can occur.
As an example, when Atlanta United played at Monterrey in the Champions League in 2019, Atlanta United was forced to start one bench player, Mikey Ambrose, out of position because of injuries. Monterrey was deep enough that it didn’t include Rodolfo Pizarro, a sometimes starter for Mexico’s national team, in its starting 11. Atlanta United held on until Rayados scored two goals in the final 10 minutes to win 3-0. Atlanta United won the second leg at home 1-0 but was eliminated because of the aggregate score.
A deeper bench also will help teams with the possible congestion of games that are going to occur when the tournaments that are going to be added to a league schedule of 34 games, the U.S. Open Cup and league playoffs, Eales said.
