Why Messi and Inter Miami MLS’ Best Concacaf Champions Cup Hope

Two weeks after the

Concacaf Champions Cup
began, it’s time for MLS

‘s 10 competing clubs to get involved.

Eight will begin play in Leg 1 of their first-round series this week, while the Los Angeles Galaxy

and Columbus Crew SC

have byes to the round of 16 by winning the 2024 MLS Cup and Leagues Cup, respectively.

And while anything can happen in tournament football, it’s only logical to like some teams’ chances much more than others.

Here’s our ranking of the MLS field, separated into three categories: The contenders who could legitimately win the title, the pretenders who might make some noise but don’t have real championship hopes, and the dead-enders who are likely to go home much sooner than later.

10

Sporting Kansas City

Dejan Joveljic should greatly improve Sporting Kansas City

‘s attacking balance. But this is still most of a roster that finished second-from-bottom in a weaker Western Conference last season. And while Johnny Russell’s peak days are behind him, his exit and the loss of that kind of experience is amplified in continental play. They might have risen to pretender status with a different draw, but facing a fresh Messi and Inter Miami in the first round is a killer.

9

Vancouver Whitecaps

Usually you’d be more bullish on a team with as much recent continental experience as the Vancouver Whitecaps

. But with the club reportedly for sale and a new manager incoming, it’s unlikely that this will be a high priority for a club looking to build a new identity. Plus there’s the exit of midfielders Stuart Armstrong and Fafa Picault. While the former has drawn more attention, the latter could be an absence felt for much of the season.

8

Colorado Rapids

There’s a lot to like about the Colorado Rapids

, who return most of a team that would’ve finished higher in last year’s Western Conference standings if not for some late-season injuries. But this is mostly about a terrible draw. The road to the semifinals most likely requires series wins over three of the four most -talented teams in MLS last year: Inter Miami, the Columbus Crew and first Los Angeles FC

. You can imagine an upset over one of those squads over two legs. Imagining three defies credulity.

7

Real Salt Lake

With

the exit of Cristian Arango
and, to a lesser extent, Anderson Julio, Real Salt Lake

is less of a finished product than Colorado. But the draw is much more kind, beginning with a first-round tie against Costa Rica’s Herediano. If they win that, they’ll face the Galaxy without their best player, Riqui Puig. But then it would get tricky, with Tigres UANL or FC Cincinnati the most likely quarterfinal opponent.

6

LA Galaxy

The Galaxy are plenty talented enough to win a decent share of MLS games without the services of Joveljic and Puig. But continental play generally requires stars playing at their best. And while the Galaxy do have a bye, so long as Puig isn’t in the team, it’s hard to conceive a real title challenge, even if Marco Reus, Gabriel Pec and Joseph Paintsil are enough to put a scare into opponents on their better days.

5

Columbus Crew

Admirably, the Crew opted to

do best by their player
by sending Cucho Hernandez to La Liga’s Real Betis. Unfortunately, it’s hard to overstate just how much that is likely to impact Wilfried Nancy’s group in the short term, even if reinforcements are eventually on the way. The draw is also a difficult one, with LAFC and Miami potentially looming in back-to-back rounds.

4

Seattle Sounders

The Seattle Sounders

have bona-fide continental credentials, and there’s a lot to like about their offseason moves and their general difficulty to beat in a tournament format. But they have arguably the worst draw in the tournament, with Cruz Azul waiting in the round-of-16 followed by the winner of Club America vs. Chivas of Guadalajara if they reach the quarterfinals. If it wasn’t for that brutal path, they’d be in the contenders category.

3

FC Cincinnati

FC Cincinnati

‘s

competitive history without Luciano Acosta
is dire, but the overwhelming majority of it came before the Chris Albright-Pat Noonan regime took over. Evander is a very good replacement — if maybe not quite as consistent — and this remains a talented roster, bolstered by the signing of striker Kevin Denkey from the Juliper League last November. They could have an extremely difficult second-round meeting with UANL Tigres, but if they can pull off that upset, then they’ll be favored in a quarterfinal against RSL or the Puig-less Galaxy.

2

LAFC

While the Sounders remain the only club to win this tournament in the modern era, Los Angeles FC

is the only team to reach its final on multiple occasions. Institutional experience matters a lot in continental play, and this is still a club that has one of the league’s best players in Denis Bouanga and one of the world’s most experienced strikers in Olivier Giroud

.

The losses of Mateusz Bogusz and Ilie Sanchez hurt, but in additions like Jeremy Ebobisse, Nkosi Tafari and Yaw Yeboah, there’s more players on this squad capable of matching Bouanga’s verticality.

1

Inter Miami CF

This seems like the safe selection, but it has as much to do with the draw as the quality of Lionel Messi

, Luis Suarez

and the rest of Miami’s 2024 Supporters’ Shield-winning roster. The Herons are far more talented than SKC in Leg 1, and will have an even wider edge on Jamaican side Cavalier provided they reach the second round.

Then it finally gets more difficult, but still without having to face one of the traditional Mexican powers in this competition until at least the semifinals. The question will be Miami’s motivation level, given the Herons are already playing in the FIFA Club World Cup in 2025.