The United States has been eliminated in the Round of 16 four times since 2010 and reached only one quarterfinal since 1930. This cycle stings because every advantage was stacked in the team’s favor: a home tournament, a $6 million coach in Mauricio Pochettino, a talented generation in its prime, and a soft group stage against Paraguay, Australia, Turkey, and Bosnia and Herzegovina that produced four wins and a growing sense that this was finally the year. Then a real opponent appeared, and the illusion ended in ninety minutes.
American players spend almost no competitive minutes against South American football before arriving at a World Cup wearing the U.S. crest. Concacaf, despite its improvement, does not produce the weekly tactical stress that English, Dutch, or German players face in their domestic and continental football. The United States does not have a talent problem. It has a resistance problem.
Trees packed tightly in a forest grow tall and straight, each racing its neighbors for light. A tree standing alone with no competition for light sprawls outward, growing crooked and stunted. Pressure from rivals forces upward growth. Remove the pressure, and growth becomes lazy.
Mexico ran this experiment for real. Liga MX clubs competed in the Copa Libertadores from 1998 to 2016, and El Tri reached five consecutive World Cup Round of 16 appearances, a run no Concacaf side has matched. Liga MX returned to Concacaf in 2016, where winning came more easily. Trophies followed but progress did not. Mexico lost to England in the Round of 16 this week on home soil, suggesting a decade of competitive comfort has costs that appear when least affordable.
An expanded Copa Libertadores, open to MLS and Liga MX clubs, would do for the USMNT what Concacaf physically cannot. And it would not be a favor to the United States. It would be a business decision that happens to solve a sporting one, too.
Start with the format. UEFA solved the engineering problem in 2024 when the Champions League moved to a 36-team single league phase. Every club plays eight opponents drawn from across the continent before a knockout playoff sorts out the bottom half of the bracket. Copy that structure onto the Americas, and Inter Miami, LAFC, and Atlanta United would face Flamengo, River Plate, and Palmeiras in matches that count, not preseason friendlies designed to sell jerseys.
Then look at the money, because this is not charity. Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana together generated roughly $500 million in 2024 across a market of 430 million people with a GDP of $3.2 trillion. Add Mexico and the United States, and the addressable market grows by 475 million people and $30 trillion in GDP, without adding a single new stadium or league. Apple already pays $250 million a year for MLS rights in the U.S. alone. A tournament featuring Inter Miami against Flamengo, or LAFC against a River Plate side playing under its new roof at the Monumental, is a package U.S. broadcasters would fight over.
That is also the part of the story that should interest UEFA, whether it wants to hear it or not. The Champions League currently sells itself as the only continental competition with genuine global weight, generating €2.5 billion a year with no serious commercial rival. An Americas-wide Libertadores, built on top of Messi’s Inter Miami, a resurgent River Plate, Flamengo’s fan base, and the growing spending power of MLS clubs, would be the first tournament in a generation built to actually compete with it for broadcast dollars and sponsorship budgets rather than simply exist beside it. Real competition tends to make everyone sharper, including whoever currently holds the top spot.
The point is simpler: an American player who regularly faces Brazilian and Argentine opposition in matches that carry Libertadores stakes will arrive at his next World Cup having already answered questions that a friendly against Belgium cannot ask in advance. Development is exposure, repeated often enough that it stops being a novelty.
* Federico N. Fernández is a visionary leader dedicated to driving innovation and change. As the CEO of We Are Innovation, a global network of over 50 think tanks and NGOs, Federico champions innovative solutions worldwide. His expertise and passion for innovation have earned him recognition from prestigious publications such as The Economist, El País, Folha de São Paulo, and Newsweek. Federico has also delivered inspiring speeches and lectures across four continents, authored numerous scholarly articles, and co-edited several books on economics.
Source: We Are Innovation
