What should NYCFC fans know about the 2025 Leagues Cup? | OneFootball

In case one missed it, New York City FC announced the other day that the club will participate in both the Leagues Cup and the U.S. Open Cup in 2025. This was great news since most Major League Soccer fans prefer their teams to play in the U.S. Open Cup. Not everyone will, but at least 16 teams will play in the tournament compared to last year's eight.

Then, the Leagues Cup has also changed. The 2025 tournament will not feature all of the MLS teams like the last two years. Instead, the top nine teams in each conference will participate, evening out the number of sides from MLS to equal Liga MX. Additionally, MLS will not pause for a month like they have previously.

There are more changes too, which were announced on Thursday. The Leagues Cup will have two rounds. The first round is called Phase One, and three games will be played from July 29 through August 7. NYCFC does not have any MLS fixtures during this time, with their next MLS game taking place on August 9. Still, the tournament is considered to occur during the regular season.

Leagues Cup details for NYCFC and MLS

As such, Phase One will have teams break up into sets, and each set will feature teams from each tier in the two leagues. In other words, teams will be broken up into tiers based on their standings for the 2024 season. So for MLS, those who finished first to third will be in the first tier, fourth through sixth will be in the second, and seventh through ninth the third. Hence, NYCFC will be in the second tier. Then, the sets will be broken up based on location in the East and West, with three for each region.

Then, a major change is that each team will play three games against those in the other league. So, it will be a true MLS vs Liga MX battle in the first round. Moreover, the Leagues Cup is using a point system. So, rather than trying to get out of one's group, or in this year's case, set, they will try to earn the most points as possible against sides from their own league. As a result, the first round requires NYCFC and the rest of MLS to play against Liga MX teams, but they will want to win to try and get as many points as possible compared to the other 17 MLS teams.

Afterward, only the top four teams from each table will proceed to the second round, the knockout rounds. This makes the tournament more competitive than the top two teams from each group making the knockout stages as they did in the last two years. That means NYCFC cannot exit in the Round of 32 as they did in 2023 since that no longer exists. But that also means only eight of 36 sides move on.

Per newyorkcityfc.com, the knockout rounds will place the remaining teams in a fixed bracket. The quarterfinals will continue to have MLS face off against Liga MX, but after that, MLS teams could face one another.

Similar to last year's tournament, if NYCFC were to finish in third place or make the finals, then they would qualify for the CONCACAF Champions Cup. Plus, the point system is still the same, with there being no draws. Any game that is tied at the end of the 90 minutes of play will result in a penalty kick shootout. The winner would earn two points and the losing side would earn one.

NYCFC supporters and the rest of MLS should like this format more than in previous years. It makes the Leagues Cup more competitive and gives coaches incentives to start their best teams.