Game Day: In one sport, cups are overflowing

Editor’s note: This is the Tuesday, June 27, 2023, edition of the “Game Day with Kevin Modesti” newsletter. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

Good morning. A big soccer story around here over the weekend was C.F. Pachuca defeating Tigres UANL on Sunday in Carson in the annual Campeon de Campeones match between Liga MX’s Apertura and Clausura champions to advance to a showdown with Los Angeles FC in September at BMO Stadium in the annual Campeones Cup match between the Major League Soccer and Mexican league champions. Did your eyes glaze over reading that? My fingers glazed over typing that.

Let’s take a break for this morning’s sports headlines: The Angels opened a homestand with a win over the White Sox thanks to Reid Detmers’ pitching and Mike Trout’s dash home on a wild pitch. The Dodgers’ Will Smith, by at least one measure the best hitting catcher in the majors the past four years, has a good chance to make his first All-Star team as fan voting wraps up this week. Columnist Jim Alexander explains why we should side with the former scouts who’ve sued baseball for age discrimination. Kings center Anze Kopitar won the Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship, joining Wayne Gretzky as the only L.A. players to win it more than once; Edmonton’s Connor McDavid was voted MVP. The Ducks said goaltending coach Sudarshan “Sudsie” Maharaj, 59, is being treated for pancreatic cancer; assistant coach Mike Stothers has been fighting melanoma since last winter. The Sparks moved up to No. 5 in John Davis’ WNBA rankings; nine of their next 10 games are against lower-ranked teams. The Chargers signed second-round pick Tuli Tuipolotu, the edge rusher from Lawndale High and USC. And LSU thumped Florida to win the College World Series two games to one for its seventh baseball title, second to USC’s 12.

The game between Mexican league teams is one of the many events that make non-soccer people scratch their heads.

Some soccer people too.

The glut of competitions for North American men’s and women’s professional clubs and national teams raises concerns that were expressed well in an article last week by Los Angeles Times soccer writer Kevin Baxter.

It’s familiar to Southern California News Group readers, too, since Damian Calhoun covers Galaxy games and Angel City FC games as well as national team news, and Josh Gross covers LAFC games.

We read about, and maybe have time to watch, matches in Major League Soccer and the National Women’s Soccer League. And the U.S. Open Cup for professional clubs from many levels. And continental club tournaments called the CONCACAF Champions League and CONCACAF Leagues Cup. And the Mexican league’s Campeon de Campeones and the Mexican vs. MLS Campeones Cup. And national teams’ CONCACAF Gold Cup and CONCACAF Nations League. And in women’s soccer, the NWSL Challenge Cup. And, this summer, the Women’s World Cup, which the United States is favored to win in July and August in Australia and New Zealand.

And then there’s the post-pandemic return of international friendly matches featuring European and South American teams touring the United States in their preseason.

I might have left out some things.

Soccer saturation isn’t unique here. English Premier League champion Manchester City played 61 games in five competitions last season, adding the English Football Association Cup and European Champions League title to its trophy case. My English cousins’ beloved Brentford, while finishing ninth in the Premier League, played a mere 41 games in three competitions.

But it’s a different headache for clubs here. As Baxter notes, once the MLS playoffs are factored in, LAFC could play as many as 56 games in less than 32 weeks in a half-dozen competitions – while dealing with travel distances, time changes, summer heat and artificial-turf fields that are more common in the United States, and getting little relief from MLS’s roster restrictions.

When LAFC and the Galaxy met in the U.S. Open Cup round of 16 last month at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, what should have been a classic edition of their rivalry was diminished by the fact LAFC had a two-legged CONCACAF Champions League final to begin eight days later. Coach Steve Cherundolo did the smart thing by resting many of his veteran players for the U.S. Open Cup game, putting higher priority on the Champions League. LAFC thus lost the U.S. Open game to the Galaxy – and then it also lost the Champions League final to Mexico’s Club León.

This is not to knock extra competitions. Basketball, baseball and hockey are enhanced by having national-team tournaments like the Olympics and World Baseball Classic. On the franchise level, they and the NFL would be enhanced if there were more prizes to win, on top of the league championship rings that are a uniquely American fixation, reducing all but one team a year to the rank of failures.

To that end, judging by early reactions I might be the only basketball fan looking forward to the NBA in-season tournament planned for the 2023-24 season.

The way the NBA tournament has been sketched out, having regular-season games double as tournament games, it won’t add games to the schedule. Well, it will add one game to the schedule, for the two teams matched in the final, a hardship the Lakers and/or Clippers presumably would accept. The question remains whether players and fans will care at first, but for those who do it will add a dimension to the league’s nearly eight-month season.

But you can do that – adding a competition without adding games – when the tournament involves only teams within one league. That’s not the case in soccer, and shouldn’t be.

All of those cups and championships can cause confusion for those of us who love soccer enough to try to keep up, and they certainly cause strain for those who play and coach.

They aren’t going away, though, as long as they’re popular enough to make money for teams, leagues and federations.

The biggest trophy should go to those who figure out how to cope.

TODAY

• Dodgers open a six-game trip at Colorado (5:40 p.m., SNLA) with Clayton Kershaw trying to cap a strong June (3-0, 1.33 ERA) following a poor May (1-3, 5.55).

• Angels face the White Sox (6:38 p.m., BSW) behind Shohei Ohtani, who despite occasional struggles on the mound has MLB’s best nine-inning averages in strikeouts (11.8) and hits allowed (5.7).

BETWEEN THE LINES

Checking 2023-24 college basketball national title odds after the NBA draft: USC (30-1 to 35-1, 17th on the list at VegasInsider.com) is ahead of UCLA (30-1 to 45-1, 20th) in betting at this stage of the offseason for the first time since 2017, according to SportsOddsHistory.com.

280 CHARACTERS

“Sending out all great thoughts to #NHLDucks goalie coach Sudarshan Maharaj, who is undergoing cancer treatment. … One of hockey’s best people.” — Sportswriter Elliott Teaford (@ElliottTeaford).

1,000 WORDS

Moment of glory: LSU players storm out of their dugout, while their fans in the stands rejoice, after the Tigers defeated Florida, 18-4, to win the College World Series finals last night in Omaha, Neb. Photo is by Jay Biggerstaff for Getty Images.