Good Friday morning Caps fans. Hope you all are having a good week and that you have big plans for your weekend.

It was a quieter week in Caps world, what with no CONCACAF action to occupy the midweek. That didn’t stop MLS from rolling out more matches for the Caps to play in later this season, however, as Leagues Cup fixtures were announced.

The takeaway headline is that the Caps are one of four teams headed to Mexico, with Liga MX teams hosting matches south of the border for the first time in the competition’s history. I’m going to shock you when I say that Vancouver is, once again, playing Tigres for what feels like the millionth time in recent years.

The trip to Monterrey is balanced out by two manageable fixtures at BC Place, with the Caps hosting Juarez and Mazatlan. Juarez is a plucky, albeit perennially midtable, team, and Mazatlan won’t even exist in a year (Atlante are reportedly set to buy their spot in Liga MX to return to the top flight).

Given Leagues Cup’s byzantine setup (I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out the seed/ranking system they have devised for this) and the fact that only four teams progress from each league, six points may not actually be enough to advance (it wasn’t last year).

For most fans, that’s probably OK. The novelty of seeing some different Liga MX teams at BC Place is balanced out by the horrendous cascade of matches Vancouver will be playing this year. And that brings me to my main frustration, which is that the league is having the Caps travel to Tigres (presumably to have a marquee matchup) when they are the only team playing in four competitions this year. The travel burden already sucked for this team. Why make it even worse?

The players won’t complain (at least not publicly), and I’m sure they’ll relish a chance to take on a top Mexican side. They certainly deserve the bonuses that will come along with this competition. But the Caps are helping to bolster Apple’s ratings by lending their star power (i.e., Thomas Müller) to this half-baked tournament. Couldn’t they have thrown us a bone by letting Mexico’s finest come to Vancouver, rather than the other way around?

Shameless Self Promotion

We look ahead to Saturday’s road trip to Portland for the first Cascadia Cup match of the year. A reminder to get your starting XI predictions in before the match!

Best of the Rest

The Caps have officially settled the class action lawsuit over Messi’s no-show in Vancouver, ending the world’s dumbest legal saga.

The Chicago Fire have broken ground on their own privately-funded stadium. Why can’t we have that?

A look at the current state of GAM reserves around the league — the Caps are down to a measly $20,945.

The latest on the Canadian Men’s National Team’s World Cup prep. The women, meanwhile, fell to the U.S. 1-0 earlier this week.