In the constant quest to prove its quality, MLS has rightly identified winning Concacaf Champions League as the next major marker. There have been 13 champions crowned during the current version of the tournament, all of them from Liga MX. Just four times has an MLS team even reached the final.
As frustrating as this failure has been, it’s also served to prove the point that chasing this goal is worthy, in part because it’s legitimately difficult. For an MLS team to win this tournament, they need to start playing competitive games while in preseason form, and have to navigate opponents who don’t have to deal with the same spending restrictions, while traveling all over one of the largest geographic federations in world football.