MLS teams will not be competing in the 2024 the United States Open Cup; instead, developing clubs will.
The 2024 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup will not have any Major League Soccer teams in it, the league said Friday.
Instead, MLS’s development teams, that compete in the third-level MLS Next Pro, will take part in the oldest ongoing event in the country, which has been going since 1914.
After the 2024 season, the league will look at how involved its first teams are again to see if this change will serve as the new bar for participation.
Dan Courtemanche, the chief relations officer for Major League Soccer, says that the league and U.S. Soccer have been talking about this possible change “for several months, probably going into August.”
MLS’s EVP of Sports Products and Competition, Nelson Rodríguez, has been in charge of those talks.
One of the main reasons for this choice was the desire to clear up the schedule after 2023, when Los Angeles FC played an all-time high 53 competitive games.
After this change, the first teams of the MLS teams based in the United States will play anywhere from one to six fewer games.
MLS will not say anything else in public about its position until it has talked in U.S. Soccer and its owners.
This year, the Leagues Cup started over again. Every MLS team played at least two games and up to seven during the month-long event with Liga MX.
In any case, there are no plans to take the first teams from Montréal, Toronto, and Vancouver out of the Canadian Championship.
Officials from the USL said in a statement Friday that the MLS’s news about the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup came as a surprise and went against what they had been saying recently.
The single-elimination tournament has been around since 1914 and is open to all US clubs. However, since the start of the MLS in 1996, MLS teams have won most of the tournaments.
In September, Inter Miami lost the US Open Cup final 2-1 at home against the Houston Dynamo. Star Argentine player Lionel Messi was out with an injury.
After much thought, Major League Soccer teams will not be entering the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup over the time being. Beginning in 2024, the MLS will instead have its growth teams play in the games.
The oldest tournament in the country has been going on since 1914, and teams from the MLS Next Pro division, which is the third level of US soccer, will be playing.
If you remember back to September, the Houston Dynamo beat Inter Miami without Lionel Messi and won the last US Open Cup.
The Athletic says that the move is an attempt by MLS officials to ease up on the schedule after Los Angeles FC play a record 53 games in 2023.
Officials from the USL said in a statement Friday that the MLS’s news about the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup came as a surprise and went against what they had been saying recently.
MLS will not say anything else in public about its position until it has talked in U.S. Soccer and its owners.
The MLS commissioner, Don Garber, said at a May meeting of the U.S. Soccer board of governors that the U.S. Open Cup was “a very poor reflection of what it is we’re trying to do in soccer at the highest level.”
Speaking from the stage at his “state of the league” news conference within Columbus, Ohio, last week, he did so in a way that brought everyone in domestic soccer together.
“Those comments were made because I believe that if we’re going to have our professional teams compete in the oldest tournament of its kind, then we all need to embrace it—from our association to our leagues—and give it the attention and support it needs,” Garber said in May. “If that doesn’t work, we should all get together and decide on a new plan.”
I’m glad that our rival group and U.S. Soccer have continued working together since the last U.S. Soccer board meeting to make the U.S. Open Cup better for everyone. That process is still going on.”