The good — and bad — of MLS participation in CONCACAF Champions Cup

The CONCACAF Champions Cup — North and Central America's answer to the UEFA Champions League — is one of the longest-running soccer competitions on the continents. 

Contested annually since 1962, the tournament has been won by club teams from the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Haiti, Honduras and other countries. Each year, Major League Soccer sends several of its top teams to the Cup with the goal of seeing one crowned continental champion. The financial reward for winning the tournament is significant: $5 million.

It sounds like a fantastic opportunity, so why do MLS clubs loathe it as much as they love it?

Travel woes. The Champions Cup runs from February to June, meaning it overlaps with the beginning of the MLS season. Games take place during the middle of the week so teams can return to MLS play by Saturday.

Adding a few mid-week games into the MLS season might not sound terrible, but it becomes exhausting for teams when travel distances are factored in. On Thursday, New England beat Costa Rica's Alajuelense 5-1 on aggregate after flying 2,400 miles and then returned home for a game Sunday against FC Cincinnati.

Cincinnati, meanwhile, flew roughly the same distance for a Thursday match in Mexico against Monterrey of Liga MX, the top soccer league in the country. (Cincinnati lost, 2-1.) 

Those trips aren't comparable to the far shorter trips European teams make in the Champions League. 

The "Champions Cup effect": Winning $5M in the Champions Cup is an exciting prospect for MLS teams facing a cost cap. So it's no wonder many of the MLS teams involved may not go all out in league games while the Cup is running.

Eight of the top teams in the MLS qualified for the Cup this season and all but three are sitting outside of the MLS playoff positions as we enter the fourth weekend of the season. This isn't coincidence. Rather, it is the real-life effect of playing so many games in a compressed time frame.

Gaps in quality in both directions. It's hard to see what New England gets from beating a side such as  Alajuelense in the Champions Cup (besides a pass through to the next round, of course). The teams are so far apart in quality that neither really learns much from facing the other.