Leagues Cup has a new look in 2025, with the tournament's organizers Major League Soccer and Liga MX yesterday announcing the tournament's new format.
Gone is the lengthy month-long break in league play to fit in the whole tournament, and in its place is a new setup that guarantees all matches through the Quarterfinals will feature a Liga MX team facing a side from MLS.
The new setup also does away with the Group Stage used in the first two versions of Leagues Cup, replacing it with Phase One, a slightly complicated new way the tournament will whittle the field of participants from 36 down to eight teams who advance to the knockout rounds, beginning with the Quarterfinals.
There's a lot to understand about the new setup for Leagues Cup 2025 and how it will affect New York City FC, so let's run through a list of all the things you need to know about the new Leagues Cup format.
• New York City FC will face three teams from Liga MX during Phase One, which is essentially a group stage even if it's not called a group stage.
• The knockout stage will feature the Top 4 MLS and Top 4 Liga MX clubs who picked up the most points across their three Phase One matches.
• In other words, NYCFC will be facing clubs from Mexico in Phase One but they will be in competition against the other 17 MLS clubs in a league-specific table to determine who advances to the knockout stage.
• All 54 of the Phase One matches will pit MLS vs Liga MX clubs, and they will all be played between July 29 and August 7.
• NYCFC plays away to FC Dallas on July 25, then returns to MLS league play two weeks later on August 9 when Columbus Crew visits Citi Field. They'll now fit three matches against Liga MX sides into that two-week window between games.
• The first round of knockouts, the Quarterfinals, will also feature four guaranteed MLS vs Liga MX matchups. Some of the knockout games will take place at midweek around the existing August portion of the MLS schedule.
• The knockout bracket will be set by team performance during Phase One: The fourth-best MLS side will face the top-of-the-table Liga MX side in one Quarterfinal, for example, with the match-ups continuing to be set from there.
• Still to be announced: NYCFC's trio of Phase One opponents from Liga MX, and where those fixtures will take place.
• The tournament's organizers, though, have announced how they'll determine who plays who: The 2025 Leagues Cup Club Rankings, which seeds all 36 teams based on their 2024 performance in their MLS and Liga MX seasons.
• New York City is the 19th ranked club out of the 36 participants in 2025 and is grouped in the Eastern side of the competition.
• The ranking has NYCFC as a Tier 2 club in the Eastern section, ranked 10th out of the 18 clubs in their regionalized group.
• The Liga MX teams grouped with NYCFC in the Eastern side of the tournament who they might face during Phase One are: Toluca FC, CF Monterrey, and Pumas UNAM in Tier 1; Chivas de Guadalajara, Club León, and Club Necaxa in Tier 2; and Atlas FC, FC Juárez, and Club Puebla in Tier 3.
• Some things about Leagues Cup remain unchanged: There are no draws. Every Phase One match that ends even after 90 minutes nets each team one point, with an additional point handed out following a penalty kick shootout. During the knockout rounds, a 90-minute tie will go straight to penalties to determine who advances.
• The tournament's top three teams still earn automatic berths in the 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup. The Third Place game has always been one of significance in Leagues Cup.
• All the 2025 Leagues Cup matches will again be broadcast on AppleTV, but there will be linear broadcasts for select matches on TelevisaUnivision (across their various television networks), FOX Sports, TSN, and RDS, according to the tournament's organizers.
• For the third straight year, spanning the tournament's entire existence, the matches will exclusively be played in the United States and Canada. Domé Torrent, former NYCFC and current Atletico San Luis head coach, will not be happy about that.
