Leagues Cup 2023: Messi's Impact and MLS Struggles
The fog is finally lifting on this year’s Leagues Cup. The tournament is still a maze — staggered kickoffs, tangled seeding rules, and a table full of ifs and buts — but the shape of the thing is starting to emerge. Chaos, yes. But chaos with a storyline.
And right at the center of it, again, is Lionel Messi.
Messi returns, Miami crash out
Inter Miami walked into Wednesday night knowing the math was brutal. Beat Leon, and beat them well, or go home. Leon had already handled Orlando and Nashville. Miami were patched together: German Berterame still not fully back, Luis Suarez suspended, rhythm broken.
Then came the twist. Messi showed up.
Barely half a day earlier, he had admitted he wasn’t sure he could even play again after the death of his father. He hadn’t trained all week. Yet he arrived at the stadium, laced up, and told Miami he was ready.
The stage seemed perfect for a cathartic cameo. Miami were 1-0 up, chasing goals to rescue their goal difference and their tournament. Instead, the night turned on them. The Herons folded, Leon roared back, and a 3-2 defeat dumped one of the pre-tournament favorites out before the real jeopardy had even begun.
Messi’s 45 minutes were full of intent, touches that sharpened Miami’s attack, little bursts that reminded everyone what he can still do. None of it mattered in the standings. No Leagues Cup trophy for Miami this year. No Messi charge through the knockouts. Just an early exit and a lingering sense of opportunity wasted.
Pull the camera back, and the balance of power looks clear. Liga MX sides are starting to crowd the top of the bracket. Leon look hardened. Monterrey, if they survive the math, will frighten anyone. Cruz Azul, Club America, Toluca — all lurking with serious menace. This is as competitive as the Leagues Cup has felt in years, and MLS is suddenly the one scrambling for answers.
Cincinnati’s nightmare turn
No MLS side felt the grind of this format more than FC Cincinnati.
Their draw was a gauntlet, designed to manufacture marquee clashes. For two games, Cincinnati made it look easy. Pachuca and Pumas were brushed aside by a combined 5-1. Evander, reborn after the World Cup break, stitched everything together with a goal contribution in each match, driving them forward with the swagger of a player in peak form.
Tuesday night should have been the continuation of that surge. At home, in control, against a side they had every reason to believe they could handle.
Evander scored just before halftime. Cincinnati were cruising, the crowd relaxed, the last eight within reach.
Then the game flipped on a pair of goalkeeping errors that will haunt Evan Louro.
In the 79th minute, Louro spilled a routine shot. Florian Monzon pounced. Five minutes later, almost a carbon copy: another spill, another punishment. What had been a procession turned into a collapse in real time.
Cincinnati still had one final lifeline. Deep into stoppage time, a potential penalty dangled in front of them. The stadium held its breath. VAR took its time, poured over the footage, and then wiped the appeal away. No spot-kick. No rescue.
Now, Cincy are stuck waiting on others, needing a chain reaction of upsets just to keep their hopes of the last eight alive. From dominant to desperate in the space of 15 minutes.
Columbus cling on as Navas shines
Across Ohio, the mood was very different, even if the nerves were just as raw.
Pumas had nothing left to play for. Their Leagues Cup was already over before kickoff against the Columbus Crew. Pride and mischief were all they brought to the table — and that was almost enough.
Columbus struck early. Tarun Karumanchi finished after nine minutes, and the Crew settled into a rhythm that suggested a comfortable night. But Pumas refused to fade. On the stroke of halftime, Alvaro Angulo found the equalizer, and suddenly the tension inside the stadium spiked.
Then Keylor Navas took over.
The veteran keeper turned the second half into a personal highlight reel, swatting away three big chances and dragging the game toward a shootout. For Columbus, with eight points looking like the magic number for qualification, those penalties carried enormous weight.
Pumas blinked first. They missed two. Nicolas Hagen saved a third. Columbus held their nerve, turned a 2-2 draw into a result that felt like a win, and pushed themselves to the right side of the qualification line. In this tournament, survival often feels as big as triumph.
Liga MX splits: heavyweights and casualties
While MLS teams veer between promise and implosion, Liga MX has drawn a much harder line between contenders and casualties.
By the end of Matchday 2, ten Liga MX clubs were already out, many of them battered on the way. The bottom half has been ruthlessly exposed. At the top, though, the heavyweights are marching. Leon, Club America and Cruz Azul have all but stamped their tickets to the last eight.
Monterrey kept their own fragile hopes alive on Wednesday night in dramatic fashion. Rayados needed a win in regulation over a rotated Nashville side to stay in the race, knowing full well that even that might not be enough.
They got it in the final act.
Deep into second-half stoppage time, Hugo Cuypers — a familiar name for MLS fans — met a cross with a gorgeous volley, ripping a 2-1 victory out of a game that looked destined to drift away. Monterrey still have to wait on other results, but they’ve done their part. Beating one of MLS’s strongest teams on this stage sends a message, whatever the math says next.
Charlotte punished at the death
Charlotte FC, by contrast, had everything laid out in front of them and let it slip away.
For 90 minutes against Pachuca, they sat in a position most MLS sides would have taken gladly. Pachuca are no pushover — Salomon Rondon leads the line smartly — but they’re not in the tier of Toluca, Tigres, Cruz Azul or Club America. A solid, mid-table Liga MX outfit, nothing more, and already eliminated. Spoilers, not contenders.
Charlotte had reasons to be confident. They might lack a ruthless edge in attack, but Allan Saint-Maximin’s arrival looks shrewd, and their defensive structure has often been good enough to grind out results in games like this.
Yet they barely laid a glove on Pachuca. The performance drifted, cautious and flat, as if a draw would simply materialize on its own.
It didn’t. In the 91st minute, the punishment arrived.
Charlotte’s back line crumbled at the worst possible time. Alan Bautista slipped into the chaos and finished, a simple goal born from defensive collapse rather than attacking brilliance. It wasn’t pretty. It didn’t need to be.
That strike may have ended Charlotte’s campaign before it ever really got going — another MLS side watching a tournament defined by Liga MX muscle and thin margins, wondering how quickly the balance of power can be tilted back.
