So You're Out of the 2024 Leagues Cup (Part 2)
Five more teams out in the group stages, five more teams forced to stare down an uneventful stretch of games off
Due to the breakneck pace of this tournament, I’m putting this post out halfway into the first round of the knockout stage. The final thrust of the group stage ended up eliminating another five MLS teams. Everybody leaves empty-handed, but everybody leaves with their own unique sort of empty-handedness.
Charlotte FC (2 points, -1 GD):
This was a beautifully pyrrhic Leagues Cup run. They managed to notch probably the biggest win in their team's history by beating to this point in the year unstoppable Cruz Azul on penalties (I know it technically was a draw, but we must fudge a bit considering that this is a young club whose trophy case currently consists of two MLS Next Pro Goalie Wars belts) and they managed to get a couple of weeks off. While every team in MLS is theoretically gunning for the same few trophies, there are always a couple of teams whose ambitions are pragmatically constrained by the time-consuming nature of building. This was Houston last year, Cincinnati in 2022, Vancouver in 2021, Orlando in 2020, Minnesota in 2019, and so on, and so forth. There's almost always at least one team that's clearly and praise-worthily on the rise, who is moving up but who we don't expect to really break through this year. In 2024, this team is... well, it's most aptly Colorado, but it's also Charlotte.
As of writing, the Crown...team (The Crowns?) sit at sixth in an Eastern conference, seven points clear that disgusting fleshy mass wriggling from spots 8th to 15th (two of whom will have to participate in this year's playoffs) and within punching distance of the 4th place spot that would secure them two home games in the first round.
The Leagues Cup, for Charlotte, could have been a shiny distraction from the genuinely obtainable prize of a decent playoff seed and a chance to advance in the playoffs. They now have a few weeks free to train, get healthy, and integrate Tim Ream for the final stretch.
Diagnosis: Minor setback but focus on your real, attainable goal
Minnesota United FC (3 points, -1 GD)
The Loons' tournament is not that far from Charlotte's. They (or, more specifically, Dayne St. Clair) gave the fans a truly enjoyable home performance in the win over Necaxa, they only really lost out on goal differential because Seattle couldn't pull through, and Tijuana didn't hold up on their end of the bargain to get us a theoretical Reynoso return match in Minnesota either, so they can't even really feel too badly about that. I will go to my grave believing in the 2024 Minnesota United team. I still have them categorized in my head with the LA and Rocky Mountain clubs as competitors in the Western Conference, when in reality, they're barely clinging to a playoff spot at the moment.
This is only partially their fault. Nobody saw their roster continuity so decimated by this summer's international tournaments as Minnesota did – for the early June international window, they lost nine players! They've never quite been the same since, with only a single MLS win (at home versus San Jose) in their last eleven matches.
This break represents less of a pragmatic avoidance of distraction for a team on the right track and more of a chance for a team in a downward spiral to right the ship.1 They've already made a few signings to shore up the defense, they added a DP forward in Kelvin Yeboah, they will have Tani Oluwaseyi back in full alongside him in an attack featuring Robin Lod, Bongokuhle Hlongwane, Sang-Bin Jeong, and Franco Fragapane. It is within the realm of possibility that we get a decent month or two out of Teemu Pukki. Much like with Dallas, I can see a version of this Minnesota team that gets as hot as their attack should seem to be able to get, gets into the playoffs, and makes a nice little run out of the opportunity.
Diagnosis: FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU DO
Real Salt Lake (3 points, -2 GD)
The unfortunate reality of the Leagues Cup is that the groups are built off of what happened last season, which is a fool's errand in a competition featuring two teams in which there is so much volatility. There are certain groups with three good teams, certain groups with two good teams, certain groups with only one good team, and one group had to squeeze two advancements out of Nashville, New England, and Mazatlan. Salt Lake ended up on the opposite side of this spectrum, sharing a group with Houston and Atlas. Somebody had to lose out, and it was them.
RSL is definitely the best MLS team and probably the second best overall team after Monterrey to go out in the group stage. They are still on cusp of Supporter's Shield contention and should be adding a DP attacking midfielder to help them reach that goal once the season resumes. This is a setback of sorts, as I don't think it was at all improbable for them to have won the Leagues Cup with their squad, but they still have a lot to play for this year.
Diagnosis: Setback but focus on on the slightly less attainable but by no means impossible goal
Atlanta United FC (2 points, 0 GD)
Atlanta United has speedrunned (speedran? spedrun?) the arc of becoming Major League Soccer's version of the Chicago Bulls, or the Dallas Cowboys, or the Miami Hurricanes, or the Louisville Cardinals, or the Nebraska Cornhuskers, or DC United – A team that reached dizzying heights and now must adapt to being one of the normal ones among us. The key pieces to the team they built with ambitions much higher than a sixth-place finish in-conference last season has been sold off, stripped to the foundations, beginning another rebuild in Georgia.
They have the financial capacity to make it work. The path for Atlanta, with their resources and front-office talent, to get back to prominence feels fairly straightforward – They have the budget to import good players, a club president with a proven track record of winning in MLS, and an academy producing players adept enough to play for US youth national teams. It's easier to see them getting back to where they want to be than it is to see Montreal, or Kansas City, or, and I may regret saying this,Philadelphia getting back where they want to be.
But my goodness is there absolutely no buzz around Atlanta anymore. I think the most unfortunate aspect of Atlanta's current situation is how obligatory it feels now. This was the team that delivered those beautiful full-team goals in the 2018 MLS Cup, beat Club America in the Campeones Cup, broke every attendance record in MLS history, had 73,000 people doing the “We Ready” song with the phone lights, delivered Atlanta its first major league championship in two decades, had a massive crowd at their victory parade, and brought thousands out to every road match they played in the South... But now I'm hardly even surprised by them dropping out of the Leagues Cup early for their second season in a row. The two shootout losses felt sort of fitting for them – There was a point at which Atlanta came through in those big clutch moments, they no longer do.
Now, they have to figure out what to do with the rest of this season. They are obligated to play it out, and, morose as I have been here, Atlanta still sits just above the playoff cut-line at the moment and could almost accidentally find their way into the postseason by staying the course. I think we're really all just waiting for the winter to see what shape the rebuild takes, though.
Diagnosis: Get set to rebuild again
Nashville SC (1 point, -2 GD)
I was in the midst of a crying jag during the latter half of the Nashville/New England match on Tuesday evening (one completely unrelated to the events of the Nashville/New England match, but I will admit that it was playing on a TV in the same room at a low volume), one of those crying jags that you have to prepare for, one of those jags that I knew was going to hit at some point, but that I was able to sort of chamber over the course of the preceding workday, but that I also knew I'd need to let happen prior to the next day lest something trigger it on the highway or in the check-out line at CVS or while talking to a colleague at work, so I kind of fell into it on Tuesday evening. I am talking one of not just with the tears but with the stifled breaths and the mucus backing up the sinuses and the ugly, vocal, vowel-laden, non-masculine sobs during which the final half-hour of a professional soccer match and most of the ensuing penalty shootout can be lost in the throes of the jag.
I finally returned to Earth, from beneath or above I couldn't say, with nine penalties taken, one missed by New England, and Alex Muyl stepping up to take the winning shot. This shot would win his team absolutely nothing but pride, and not even that much of that, but amid a season in which nothing much of anything has been won by Nashville SC, it was a chance to win something. Muyl missed the shot. I had the wherewithal at that moment, thoughts still swirling and cheeks still wet, to think to myself “Oh, poor Alex.” I felt it sincerely. “After what happened in the 2021 playoffs, it would have been nice for him to have come through there.” It is astounding, among all of the self-pity driving the crying jag, that a memory of a particularly poorly taken penalty against Philadelphia in the 2021 playoffs, one which ended up nestled among the Sons of Ben, could sneak its way to the front of my mind there. I meant it sincerely, and I mean it sincerely now that I wish Alex Muyl well.
Brandon Bye then stepped up and made his penalty. Again, I thought “It's nice to see him make that after that injury left him sidelined for so long.” Trivia (well, I wouldn't call that trivia, as it's very significant to the arc of his career, but most people I meet out in the world do not know who Brandon Bye is, let alone which of his ligaments have torn) about another American MLS outside back wormed its way to the front of my mind. Right there. Snuck its way in.
Dan Lovitz then stepped up. I thought “it would be good for him to make this given the criticism he's received after getting subbed on during the 2019 Gold Cup final.” Then he missed it. I doubt that Dan Lovitz was thinking about that at that moment. He is a grown man who has had, all things considered, quite a good professional soccer career, and he converted a much higher-pressure penalty in the Leagues Cup final against Miami last year. I think my capability to drudge up little tidbits of knowledge about American soccer is a strength of mine, at least it's something I like about myself. I cannot deny that it's abnormal, but it's far from a curse. It may be this ability to care so deeply about so many thing that leaves me vulnerable to these sorts of debilitating jags but ultimately I'm a fan of it.
I felt something of a kinship with Lovitz, Muyl, Bye, and everyone else going through a pointless shootout at the end of a sort of sad match for the right to progress to be, in all likelihood, defeated soundly, if not by New York City in the first round of the knockouts, then by Tigres, Pachuca, Columbus, or Miami, all of whom present imminent danger on that part of the bracket. Why make them do this?
I think they still have a quality roster with which they can chase a playoff spot at the very least. We'll have to wait and see what B.J. Callaghan's capability as a head coach in MLS is, though that Mazatlan loss will leave a poor taste in fans' mouths over the next few weeks.
Diagnosis: Look you will have to play out the remainder of the season regardless of whether you want to do so or not
NOBODY else in American Soccer writing is accidentally triple-mixing transportation metaphors in a single sentence. I'd like to see Matt Doyle do that!