We now know the two opponents New York City FC will face in the group stage of the 2024 Leagues Cup, which is also getting reformatted for its second edition.
Liga MX’s Club Querétaro and familiar MLS foes FC Cincinnati will be the opposition for NYCFC during the tournament’s group stage, though still unknown are the specifics of the NYCFC Leagues Cup experience—like the match schedule and match locations.
The tournament’s 47 participating clubs, 18 from Liga MX and 29 from MLS, were today divided into 15 groups of three, with seven groups in the East region, and eight groups in the West region. Club América of Liga MX and Columbus Crew of MLS each given a bye into the Round of 32 on account of being Liga MX and MLS Cup winners, respectively.
One of the notable changes introduced for the 2024 Leagues Cup tournament: “hub privileges” for the very top clubs from Liga MX. According to the official release, this rewards the Liga MX Champion and the three other top-ranked Liga MX clubs by minimizing their travel and rewarding them by playing in pre-determined venues as the home team.
The hub privileges for top Liga MX sides are based on a new Leagues Cup Ranking that’s also now being introduced. This ranking puts all participating clubs into tiers, with MLS teams ranked based on the 2023 MLS Supporters’ Shield standings and Liga MX clubs ranked based on the cumulative 34 matches in the 2023 Clausura and Apertura tournaments.
NYCFC finished 22nd in the 2023 MLS Supporters Shield standings, while they’re joined in the East 1 group by a top-tier FC Cincinnati side that won the Supporters’ Shield in 2023, and a Club Querétaro side that has finished somewhere in between 10th and 18th in the last seven completed Clausura and Apertura tournaments.
The Liga MX privileges will go to Club América, who get the aforementioned bye to the Round of 32 as well as hosting priority through the semifinals, C.F. Monterrey who would host through Round of 16, Chivas Guadalajara who host through the Round of 32, and Tigres, who get to host throughout the group stage, rewarding the clubs according to their 2023 Apertura and Clausura performances.
It’s all a slightly complicated way for tournament co-organizers MLS and Liga MX to give an edge to teams who perform the best during each league’s normal non-Leagues Cup regular seasons, and to try to address some of the complaints about travel disparities that existed between Mexican and American teams in the 2023 tournament.
Leagues Cup is once again not playing any matches in Mexico, with the official MLS release about the groups confirming matches will be exclusive to the United States and Canada, so the Liga MX sides continue to not receive any true home field advantage, aside from their American-based fans turning up in numbers for their matches on U.S. soil.
The other big reward for performing well in Leagues Cup, aside from the substantial financial payouts to the most successful teams and eventual champions, remains places in the Concacaf Champions Cup, the renamed Concacaf Champions League—the top three finishers in Leagues Cup qualify for next year’s 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup.
The rules for Leagues Cup remain the same, it’s still a no-draws-allowed situation. Each team receives one point if a game is tied after 90 minutes, with an additional one point awarded to the winner of the penalty kick shootout that occurs in case of regular-time draw. After the field gets whittled down to 32 during the group stage, those teams will then be placed in a fixed bracket to compete in the single-game elimination knockouts until a champion gets crowned.
NYCFC lost its 2023 Leagues Cup group stage opener to Liga MX’s Atlas FC 0-1 at Citi Field, and in controversial fashion. They then rolled past Toronto FC to qualify for the knockout rounds, only to be eliminated in a 1-0 Hudson River Derby loss to the Red Bulls in Harrison, New Jersey.
