The tournament that pits MLS clubs against rivals from Mexico’s Liga MX is back on the calendar. This week, FC Dallas will begin play in the Leagues Cup for the third time in club history.
This is the kind of tournament that will force fans to pick a lane. On one hand, you aren’t in the preferred US Open Cup this year, because you did well enough in 2025 to avoid qualification in that competition. On the other hand, it is still a fairly pointless summer cash grab that if you do take it seriously enough, it can lead to the Concacaf Champions Cup berth next year.
The truth, as usual, lies in the uncomfortable middle. Let’s weigh it all out.
The Pros
Exposure to the Mexican market is a genuine business win, not a talking point.
Let’s get the money side of things out of the way first.
We know why MLS is bullish on this tournament. Sure, there is a monetary value to winning this tournament for the clubs involved. But the real money is really in the exposure to the Mexican fanbase.
This is where you can actually pick up some fans from other teams. Games against teams like Chivas and Toluca are a cheat code of sorts. It isn’t every day that we’ll see FC Dallas face off against those two clubs.
You want casual Liga MX viewers in North Texas to associate FC Dallas with the team they already love. It is a damn shame for FC Dallas that the Chivas game isn’t at Toyota Stadium. Their fans show up, buy merch, drink beer and supports their club no matter the environment.
The youth minutes could actually shape the season’s back half.
Here is where the rotation question gets interesting for FC Dallas. Eric Quill’s club has a very congested August, which means depth will have to be leaned on in order to keep everyone from turning into dust.
If Quill does take this chance to play guys on the backend of the roster get minutes, we’re talking the academy guys and fringe roster pieces that are spending more time with North Texas SC this season. That means something.
Think about guys on the NTSC side of things who could benefit from real, tangible first-team minutes. We’re talking guys like Ricky Louis, Nicholas Simmonds, Josh Torquato, Caleb Swann, maybe even an Enzo Newman, Slade Starnes or Edu Nys (if they can ‘loan’ him up’), all getting solid minutes because the moment calls for it. (Editor's note: Newman and Starnes are on the official roster for FCD, Nys is not, but maybe there is still a chance down the road?)
Games like this give you a chance to see how well a player is actually developing against Liga MX players. You learn quickly about a young player’s ceiling against teams like Toluca and Chivas.
If anything, it could also show who is ready for more first team minutes in the second half of the season when the team is in the middle of a playoff push. But you have to lean into the depth to find that out, rotating in one or two guys isn’t going to do it.
The path to a Champions Cup berth is real, and Dallas could’ve skipped this entirely.
Yeah, this is the carrot on the end of the stick. Survive Phase One and become one of the top four MLS clubs, it puts you a couple of knockout round games away from a potential Concacaf Champions Cup berth.
That is a trophy path. That is continental relevance. That’s extra GAM in the bank for the roster in 2027.
With the US Open Cup not on the table (rip) this season, you may actually look at the Leagues Cup as your viable trophy option. Dallas got put into this tournament because of how they played in 2025, maybe you build off of that and go for it.
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The Cons
Not one of these three “group games” is a real home game.
On paper, Dallas has two home games to open the tournament. The Queretaro match on August 5 in Mansfield, the new home of North Texas SC. While it is in the DFW-area, it isn’t Toyota Stadium. It doesn’t carry whatever home-field juice Dallas normally banks on in Frisco. It is a home game with an asterisk and a smaller footprint.
Then it gets worse. The Chivas match on August 8 is in San Jose, California. Not North Texas. Hell, not even in Texas. We’re talking about a home game that is really pretending to be a road game. It is going to be a wildly different experience.
Dallas doesn’t control venue selection for this tournament, that power sat with the Organizing Committee, so the Cotton Bowl in downtown Dallas and every other sensible local option was off the table. Understandable, sure. But still absolutely brutal.
You’re asking a team to play a “home” game fixture against one of the most popular clubs in Mexico in a stadium two time zones away. Yeah, let’s not call it a home game. It is a neutral site, at best.
Then there’s Toluca: the best team in the region, at altitude, on the road.
The first phase of the tournament closes for FC Dallas on August 12, when they travel south to Mexico to play Toluca at Estadio Nemesio Diez.
This is not a favorable draw; it is the opposite of one. Toluca is arguably the strongest side in all of North and Central America right now. They’re playing in their own building, and they’re getting the benefit of a tired Dallas team playing in altitude.
There is a reason road teams dread that venue. Dallas gets it as the capstone of an already-punishing month. Best-case, this is a measuring-stick kind of game. Worse-case, it’s a beating in thin air.
The travel load is genuinely absurd, and it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
In all honesty, I probably would have nearly as much against the Leagues Cup this year had it not been for where it landed on the schedule for FC Dallas. The three Phase One games don’t happen in isolation, instead, they’re all stacked on top of a road-heavy August in league play. By our own count, the club is going to rack up some serious airline miles. Like up to 10k. In a full month.
Drew Epperley
Eight matches crammed into a single month, with seven of them coming outside of North Texas. When you factor in the cross-country flights, capped by a trip to one of the hardest environments in Liga MX at elevation, you have to think this month is going to be brutal.
Had these games come before the World Cup break, when the schedule was a tad lighter, we probably wouldn’t have been stressing over it as much.
The Verdict
The upside of this tournament is real, but the downside may be painful.
No matter how you tackle it, the squad rotation has to be a big part of how Quill handles this month. I would not fault him for going all in and rotating the roster once league play resumes. But I also would not fault him for saying, let’s get some other guys some minutes and see what we’re working with.
If you overextend the main core of the team, it could turn a tough month into a very bad one both in the Leagues Cup and in the regular season play. You could go from a solid playoff position at the start of the month, to below the playoff line if you don’t play your cards right.
The Leagues Cup for FC Dallas this year can come with a high reward, but the higher degree of difficulty is also there.
