Leagues Cup is a World Cup-style competition that meshes together LIGA MX and MLS. Maybe you’re an MLS fan who doesn’t know your Puebla from Pachuca, your Tigres from your León.
You don’t need to change your stripes and become a LIGA MX hardcore, but here’s a guide that will help you start to understand one of the region’s most fascinating leagues.
How it works
LIGA MX is played on an Apertura (opening) and Clausura (closing) schedule. After a 17-game season in which each team plays every other team in the league once, the postseason begins.
The team that wins the playoffs, called the Liguilla, is the champion. Club América is currently the reigning champion and became just the fourth team to go back-to-back joining Pumas, León and Atlas as bicampeones.
Just before the Leagues Cup, the Apertura began, with every team coming into the summer showcase having played four matches in the regular season. Cruz Azul, Pumas, Tigres, Toluca and Atlas are currently undefeated.
What’s the history?
While organized soccer in Mexico dates back even farther, the league was organized as the Primera División in the 1940s, which many long-time fans of the league may remember since the LIGA MX name was instituted in 2012.
The league has four ‘grandes,’ historically the biggest and most successful teams. Three of them are from Mexico City: América, Cruz Azul and Pumas, while Chivas de Guadalajara rounds out the quartet.
In recent seasons, the two rivals based in the northern state of Nuevo León have spent big to eclipse those squads, with both Monterrey and Tigres breaking through. Monterrey, known as “Rayados” because of their striped shirts, was the LIGA MX team that made the deepest run in the 2023 Leagues Cup, knocking out rival Tigres along the way in a quarterfinal that took place in a sold-out Shell Energy Stadium in Houston.
Other clubs that often have been successful are Toluca, which has 10 titles — though the last came in 2010 — and Club León, which has eight Liga MX trophies.
What’s the vibe?
Like MLS and other leagues around the world, teams’ traditions depend heavily on their location, their history and the supporters’ culture. Fans in Tijuana, just across the border from San Diego, tailgate before matches like you’d see at an American football game, while in Puebla in central Mexico they may enjoy a cemita, a sandwich on sesame-seed covered bread, after the match at a stand. Having carne asada (grilled meat, mostly steak) while getting together to watch Tigres and Rayados in the north is another custom.
While the food differs by region, one delivery method stays the same: It may be shrimp in Tijuana, beef in Monterrey and pork in the capital, it’s going to be delivered inside a tortilla. Outside or inside the stadium, there will be tacos.
There are non-traditional pieces of stadium scran, too. It’s common to spot vendors at the Estadio Azteca offering donuts or a ramen noodle ’sopa’ — bringing a different association to the quick dish than most Americans’ perception of it as a budget option in college.
Similarly, the sights and sounds vary depending on the region the team is from. Last year, Mazatlan FC found itself accompanied by a banda group, playing songs in the parking lot in support of the Kraken that sound like those bands roving on the beach playing for tips in Sinaloa.
The vibrant music does carry an undercurrent common to every Mexican team: Fans want to have a good time. Rarely is a LIGA MX match not a party in some way. While the forms change, it’s food + drink + music + soccer = Fun.
That’s true no matter where the game is played or even which border it crosses. LIGA MX fans should help bring the party to Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto as well as the MLS cities in the U.S. hosting Leagues Cup matches.
And now, hopefully, you better understand a bit about what has made Liga MX a must-watch league for so many years, elements that will be on display throughout the entire Leagues Cup tournament.
