Sporting Kansas City to play one of 2 Liga MX clubs in August at Children’s Mercy Park
Prepare for Sporting Kansas City to face some international competition later this summer at Children’s Mercy Park.
The bracket for the 2021 Leagues Cup — an annual competition between Major League Soccer and Mexico’s Liga MX — was announced Wednesday, featuring SKC as one of the four teams from each league participating in the tournament. Sporting will play either Club Leon or Chivas Guadalajara in the quarterfinals at 7 p.m. Aug. 10 in Kansas City, Kansas, with the match televised on ESPN2 and TUDN.
Sporting qualified by virtue of being one of the top two teams in the Western Conference that did not participate in this season’s CONCACAF Champions League. The other MLS representatives are Seattle Sounders from the West and New York City FC and Orlando City from the East. Leon and Chivas will duel July 18, as part of the Campeon de Campeones (a Mexican club competition), for the right to face SKC.
The Leagues Cup tournament will be played entirely in the U.S., though locations and times for the semifinal round (Sept. 14 or 15) and final (Sept. 22) currently unknown. It’ll be the third time that a Mexican club has visited Children’s Mercy Park to face Sporting; SKC is 2-0-1 all-time in games against Mexican teams, its last result a loss to CF Monterrey in the 2019 CONCACAF Champions League semifinals.
If Chivas qualifies, it’ll have to likely deal with former striker Alan Pulido, who signed with Sporting from Chivas in 2020. Leon, meanwhile, is the defending champion of the Liga MX Torneo Guardianes 2020 (the league’s first-half tournament).
With a quarterfinal win, Sporting would face either New York City or Pumas in the semis. Should Sporting make it to the final, it would play whichever team makes it out of the other side of the bracket in Orlando, Seattle and Mexico’s Santos Laguna or Tigres UANL.
This story was originally published July 7, 2021 at 5:34 PM with the headline "Sporting Kansas City to play one of 2 Liga MX clubs in August at Children’s Mercy Park."