A few thoughts on the favorable group for FC Dallas in the 2024 Leagues Cup
This may be more doable than last year's group.
On Wednesday, MLS and Liga MX revealed all of the new groups for the 2024 Leagues Cup tournament that will take place from July 26 to August 25, 2024. FC Dallas learned that they will square off against fellow Western Conference foe St. Louis CITY SC and Liga MX side FC Juárez.
The format of the tournament is still very much like the one we witnessed in 2023. There are still 15 three-team groups in the group stage, with the MLS and Liga MX champions (the Columbus Crew and Club América) joining each group’s first and second-place teams to create a 32-team knockout stage.
The one new element this year is the way the groups were built. The tournament is debuting a new seeding system to determine which teams are in what group. How the tournament drew the teams for each group from the three tiers is still a bit of a mystery. You can’t really point to the top-seeded team and see down the line that they are joined by a specific team from Tier 2 or Tier 3, as one might expect. It was definitely random in some cases.
Still, four Liga MX sides will earn ‘hub’ privileges to help crack down on the large amount of travel they might have to do since the event will still take place in the US and Canada this summer. For instance, you won’t see Monterrey go from Los Angeles to Kansas City and then up to Seattle. We could also see a Liga MX team based in Dallas, given the facilities and stadiums available (yes, the Cotton Bowl could actually be in play for this year’s tournament, I’m told).
Just like with how the Knockout Round bracket will look, the hubs aren’t public knowledge as of this writing and will be revealed at a later date.
And that leads me to my thoughts on the group that FC Dallas was placed in on Wednesday.
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