The Leagues Cup 2025 quarterfinals are officially here.
Eight teams. Three wins. One trophy. And three golden tickets to next year’s Concacaf Champions Cup – the kind of opportunity that can change a club’s trajectory, or at least burnish its legacy.
Some sides have blitzed their way to this stage and imposed their style, while others have mostly just survived by grinding out results and winning on the margins. But from this point forward, there’s no coasting. Every match is a knockout with rivalry stakes, including four MLS and LIGA MX showdowns to kick things off on Aug. 20. Every mistake will be magnified, as will every moment of brilliance.
There are a lot of familiar faces in the final eight, teams that know a thing or two about silverware (there is somehow also Puebla). Let’s rank them in terms of how likely they are to win this thing.
Quarterfinal
- When: Aug. 20 at Inter Miami (8 pm ET)
- Watch: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+; FS1, UniMás
Yes, after two years of MLS dominance, I’m predicting it’s time for a LIGA MX side to win Leagues Cup. In this case, it’s the LIGA MX team that’s largely defined Mexican club soccer over the past 15 years, but has been somewhat sidelined over the past two.
No longer. They operated with a scalpel in the summer transfer window, making one big signing in getting Ángel Correa from Atlético Madrid. The Argentine attacker dominated Phase One with four goals in three games (two of which were wins), and while he hasn’t gotten off the mark yet in the Apertura, he hasn’t had to – Tigres have three wins in three outings, including a massive, 4-3 result at Toluca and a 7-0 demolition of Puebla.
How they play
Bigger than signing Correa, perhaps, was the early retirement of legendary d-mid Guido Pizarro, who has taken some rapid steps towards becoming legendary manager Guido Pizarro. The 35-year-old Argentine, who is younger than a handful of the players in the XI, has not reinvented the wheel, but has instead simplified things. Tigres play a 4-4-2 and generally don’t care much about having the ball. Instead, they release Correa and whoever is starting up top next to him (mostly Nicolás Ibáñez these days) into space.
And that’s been more than enough.
Quarterfinal
- When: Aug. 20 vs. Orlando City (9 pm ET)
- Watch: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+
The Toluca side Tigres beat are the reigning LIGA MX champions, having dethroned tri-campeones Club América back in the spring. It was a landmark moment for a once-proud club that had fallen on hard times – Tigres’ rise over the past 15 years had coincided with a fallow period for los Diablos Rojos.
They have pulled themselves out of that rut with the power of the purse, spending nearly $100 million in the transfer market on players from the likes of Sporting CP (the big Sporting, in Lisbon), Palmeiras, Monterrey and even, yes, Tigres.
The glory days aren’t fully back. But with three titles in quick succession – the Apertura, Campeón de Campeones and maybe Leagues Cup – it feels like they’d be well on their way.
How they play
Like Tigres, Toluca aren’t religious about getting on the ball to control the game. They will do it when they’re chasing a result – as we saw in their final game of Phase One, when they conceded early to New York City FC – but under head coach Antonio Mohamed (a legendary figure in Mexican soccer who’s won titles with four different clubs), they are pragmatic and flexible.
That applies to their team shape as well. We’ve already seen Toluca come out in three different formations in league play this year, as Mohamed will liberally mix-and-match depending on what he perceives as his opponent’s weakness.
Quarterfinal
- When: Aug. 20 vs. Club Puebla (11 pm ET)
- Watch: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+; FS1, UniMás
The only team to go perfect in Phase One, with three wins from three outings, the Sounders are now unbeaten in 10 games across all competitions since their impressive FIFA Club World Cup showing.
And some of these wins… man. They smoked Cruz Azul – the reigning Concacaf Champions Cup champions! – 7-0 in their first Leagues Cup game, which is a record win for an MLS team over a LIGA MX side. And this past weekend, they went down to Carson and crushed the LA Galaxy with a 4-0 result. And while the Galaxy aren’t Cruz Azul, they’re not the meme team they were three months ago. I mean, they’re in the Leagues Cup quarterfinals as well!
They are playing the best soccer in MLS, and maybe even on the continent right now. The issue is, they will be without their No. 10, Albert Rusnák, over the next month (and their DP No. 9 is already sidelined). If he were healthy, I’d probably have them atop this list.
How they play
It’s almost always a 4-2-3-1 for the Sounders, and they tend to want the ball, as they’re up around 54% possession on the season. A lot of that possession is in the final third, as their field tilt is fourth-highest in MLS at 56.4%, something that held firm in Phase One as well.
But without Rusnák, things might be slightly different. During the win at LA, in which Jesús Ferreira started at the 10, we saw a team that played a little bit deeper and a little more direct, and therefore had a little bit less of the ball. We also saw Ferreira play less as an orchestrator and almost, at times, as a second forward. He’s going to combine around the box rather than thread runners through.
It’s a subtle but meaningful shift.
Quarterfinal
- When: Aug. 20 vs. Tigres UANL (8 pm ET)
- Watch: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+; FS1, UniMás
If you convince me Lionel Messi is healthy, I will probably be convinced to change my mind over who belongs in the top spot on this list. We’ve already seen Miami win this trophy in 2023, for one. And for two, we’ve already seen this Miami team – with a healthy Messi, of course – pull off a historic upset of FC Porto in the Club World Cup en route to the knockout round of that global tournament.
So we know they’re excellent. And with the addition of Rodrigo De Paul this summer, they have gotten better and deeper in a crucial part of the field, and done so by adding someone who has very obvious chemistry with the guy who wears No. 10.
If Messi’s not healthy, though? I don’t think they have enough firepower given how sporadic Luis Suárez has been in front of net, and how reliant Tadeo Allende has been on Messi’s service to be dangerous.
Plus, they would have to advance past Tigres and then Toluca, who I just talked about above – or maybe even Orlando City, who just absolutely destroyed the Herons with a 4-1 result this past weekend.
And that’s just to get to the final.
How they play
They’ve primarily played out of what I’ll call a 4-4-1-1 when both Messi and Suárez have been available. Messi is nominally a forward in that shape – they’ll usually defend with a front two and banks of four behind him, so it looks like a 4-4-2 without the ball. But he’s also free to drop in and become a playmaker, flare wide to become a winger, or even do forward things like running off Suárez’s movement and hold-up play.
With De Paul, it’ll probably be more of a 4-3-3, though the shape will be roughly the same as the 4-4-1-1 in many ways. Honestly, head coach Javier Mascherano has done a good job of keeping principles of play in place even while he’s had to mix-and-match some pieces and formations.
Quarterfinal
- When: Aug. 20 at LA Galaxy (11:45 pm ET)
- Watch: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+
This might be too low!
Pachuca don’t sit at the big boys’ table when it comes to transfer dealings, but they haven’t had to for most of the past 30 years. They’re just so good at 1) developing talent internally, 2) finding underappreciated talent on cut prices, and 3) integrating all of it into a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Since 1999, that’s meant seven LIGA MX titles, six CCC (née League) titles, a Copa Sudamericana (making them the only Concacaf team ever to win a Conmebol tournament) and even an old North American SuperLiga. They’ve also featured at five Club World Cups, including this summer’s edition.
Nobody should be surprised if they win Leagues Cup on the way to another LIGA MX crown.
How they play
It’s largely a 4-2-3-1 under new head coach Jaime Lozano, who took over at the end of May after the club’s unsuccessful Clausura showing.
This team can get on the ball and put it to good use – that’s exactly what they’ve done in their past two outings in LIGA MX. But they’ve also shown the ability to counter teams to death, which is what they did against San Diego FC to open their Leagues Cup run. Los Tuzos simply dropped their lines deep in that way, trading possession and field position for space to run into, and were up 3-0 just past the hour mark.
Again: this might be too low. They’re really good.
Quarterfinal
- When: Aug. 20 vs. Toluca FC (9 pm ET)
- Watch: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+
Orlando City are also really good, so this might also be too low. It certainly is if they have 270 more minutes like the 90 they just played against Inter Miami this past weekend. They can beat anybody in this field, and look good while doing it.
Martín Ojeda is one of the best attackers on the continent right now. At the very least, he was probably the best attacker in Phase One with three goals and three assists in three games. The defense was mostly good enough, and I still love the deep midfield pairing of César Araújo and Eduard Atuesta. They are perfectly balanced and capable of dominating games against the best either league has to offer.
Orlando have been awesome over the past month after a rough start to the summer.
How they play
It’s a back four that morphs into a back three with a stay-at-home left back, which allows right back Alex Freeman to maraud forward at will. That’s one crucial ingredient.
Another is that Ojeda is a No. 10, but he’s a No. 10 who doesn’t really do much orchestration – that’s mostly left to Atuesta – and instead flares out left to create combos at pace through that left channel. It’s been unstoppable.
And with all that, the key is probably mercurial veteran No. 9 Luis Muriel. He disappeared for two months (goalless in 14 games across all competitions), then came back to life in the past two games: 5g/1a with a hat-trick against Necaxa to punch Orlando’s ticket to the quarterfinals, and then 2g/1a against Miami on the weekend.
If that version of Muriel shows up, Orlando can win this thing.
Quarterfinal
- When: Aug. 20 vs. CF Pachuca (11:45 pm ET)
- Watch: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+
I do not believe the LA Galaxy can win this thing.
Considering how poor their start to the season was, though, that’s ok. Just getting to the knockout rounds – big wins over Club Tijuana and Santos Laguna, and a credible draw (lost via PK shootout, but still) against Cruz Azul – can be taken as a level of proof that what happened from February to the end of May was some sort of mass hallucination.
That doesn't mean it wasn’t partially real, though. The Galaxy have been decent since then (5W-3L-4D, +6 goal differential), but not great. Even at home, in Carson, they will be underdogs against Pachuca.
How they play
It’s a pretty standard 4-2-3-1 from head coach Greg Vanney, with two overlapping wingbacks and Marco Reus as a mobile No. 10.
The wrinkle comes from how the wingers are used, as left-footed Gabriel Pec and right-footed Joseph Paintsil both prefer to be on the right. So what often happens is they take turns in that spot throughout the game, which has been very useful of late.
Quarterfinal
- When: Aug. 20 at Seattle Sounders (11 pm ET)
- Watch: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+; FS1, UniMás
I’m still not quite sure how they managed this. Puebla are a traditional club – they go back more than 120 years – but a small club, and one that’s in the midst of, uh, some struggles. Here are their finishing spots in the past three LIGA MX campaigns:
- 2024 Clausura: 18th
- 2024 Apertura: 15th
- 2025 Clausura: 17th
And they are currently 16th in the 2025 Apertura, with three losses (including that 7-0 to Tigres last weekend) in four games.
But they caught NYCFC napping in their Leagues Cup opener, then managed not to lose too badly to Columbus before edging past 10-man Montréal with a 2-1 win to sneak into the quarterfinals. So here they are.
If they beat Seattle, it would be a monumental upset.
How they play
Head coach Pablo Guede has mostly trotted his team out in a 5-4-1 and – to his credit – tried to get on the ball. They haven’t been half-bad with it, either, as they’ve got a positive expected goal differential in the league (which is thanks mostly to a dominant win over Santos Laguna, but still) and have some good chance creation underlying numbers.
But that possession can be a double-edged sword, as they’re very susceptible to getting hit on the counter when they turn it over. And on top of that, they just get eaten up by wide overloads (think about the goal young Snyder Brunell scored for the Sounders this weekend… that exact pattern has killed Puebla this year).
It’s a nice story that they’ve made it this far. They won’t be going any further.
