Good Friday morning Caps fans, hope you all are having a good week and staying warm — here in our neck of the woods, it is very much winter.

Saturday is the grand finale of the 2024 season, when the New York Red Bulls take on the LA Galaxy in Carson, California. It should be a good game, even sans Riqui Puig, the Galaxy’s star midfielder, and as a long time MLS fan it brings me joy to see two OG teams in the final.

There is little news in Caps world so I’ll instead sink my teeth into a news item that could still shape Vancouver’s season next year when it comes to Leagues Cup.

There are rumblings that, with the Club World Cup entering the North American soccer calendar next season, the annual cash grab between MLS and Liga MX will get pared back. This was enhanced by comments Ernst Tanner, Philadelphia’s CSO, who said he was unsure whether the Union would be competing in the competition in 2025.

Multiple media reports this week indicate that Leagues Cup will exist in 2025 (meh) but in a slimmed down format that will include some teams but not others. It is not clear which teams will be spared and which ones will not.

The fact that Leagues Cup sputtered in terms of attendance and interest a year after starting with a bang is a sign that the idea should either be jettisoned or significantly reworked. I doubt that this will be a radical overhaul of the structure (moving it to something looking more like Champions Cup) but rather a nod to the fact that teams will only be able to play in so many competitions next year.

If MLS ever does follow through on moving to a fall to spring schedule, Leagues Cup would fit nicely in the winter break (though it wouldn’t be much of a break then, would it). But that is years away, if ever, from happening.

In the meantime, the Caps could benefit from this if MLS opts to exclude teams that qualified for CONCACAF Champions Cup. This would be a logical move that I’m sure the league is 100% not going to do, as it would mean teams like Columbus, Inter Miami, LAFC and others wouldn’t be included (much less the Club Americas and Monterreys of the world).

The other sensible way of doing it would be to include all the playoff teams in Leagues Cup and ship all the others to U.S. Open Cup. This would be another screw job on the Caps (and Montreal), who would still have to navigate Voyageurs Cup and, in the Caps’ case, another continental competition.

The fine details clearly have yet to be ironed out. But after a season where fixture congestion probably didn’t help the injury and availability issues the Caps ran into down the stretch, it seems safe to say those issues aren’t going to alleviate next year.

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