The cycle of nature: a beautifully manicured procession of seasons that fold perfectly into one another, preserving the passage of time and forcing me to freeze my butt off for the better part of six months up here in the North Star State. But the frost has melted, and we’ve arrived at the doorstep of the greatest season of them all. Step aside, fall, winter, and even precious spring; it’s summertime, and that means one thing: soccer.
This summer is a unique one. There’s no World Cup, no Euros, and no Copa America. The international soccer action is shifting fully to the USA this year, with the Concacaf Gold Cup and the Club World Cup running alongside one another for the better part of the next month. This mixture of world-connecting club soccer and regional international competition is the first step in starting the football frenzy that’s set to take over North America next summer, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it all.
The 2025 Gold Cup starts this weekend, and it’s all set to pit the best soccer nations of Concacaf against one another. Defending champs Mexico will be looking to retain their title in this year’s field of 16, following a traditional tournament format. The top two teams from each of the four groups will advance to the quarterfinals, where a single-elimination bracket will guide the remainder of the tournament.
While Gold Cups tend to be among the more predictable international tournaments in the world, both the overall quality and parity within Concacaf have been improving over the last few years. Every group has at least two teams that I’d describe as strong this year, with Group D pitting four intriguing sides up against one another (USA, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Saudi Arabia). Saudi Arabia comes in as the lone non-Concacaf team in the field, getting an invite to this year’s tournament much like Qatar did in 2021.
Group B is the most Loon-heavy, with Dayne St. Clair and Tani Oluwaseyi’s Canada taking on Joseph Rosales and Honduras in the group stage. Carlos Harvey’s Panama side are the favorites to top Group C, with Jamaica posing the biggest threat. Finally, Loons loanee Alejandro Bran and Costa Rica will be hoping to challenge Mexico in Group A.
While I’m excited to see familiar teams fight for the title, I must admit, I’m hoping for two things in this tournament: upsets and USMNT dominance. After losing their last three matches, Mauricio Pochettino’s USMNT is in need of some positivity before they take the field next summer, and there’s no better way to start a positive trend than by lifting a trophy above your head to declare yourself the best team in the region that’s about to host the World Cup. Regardless of who lifts this year’s trophy, it’s going to be a huge boost ahead of next summer’s big dance. Matches will be broadcast on the FOX family of channels, including FOX, FS1, and FS2. Any Twin Cities based soccer fans will have a chance to watch the action in person as well, with a pair of quarterfinal matches coming to US Bank Stadium on June 29!
A maiden voyage awaits us! Though this isn’t the first Club World Cup ever, the first edition of the new-and-probably-improved format will take place from June 14 to July 13, featuring 32 teams from across the globe. Clubs qualified through what proved to be quite a confusing, some may call it convoluted, system, mainly centered around winning their respective continental tournaments across the last four years. So, the Sounders qualified by winning the Concacaf Champions Cup, Real Madrid qualified by winning the UEFA Champions League, and Moroccan side Wydad AC qualified by winning the CAF Champions League.
Miami? They just got … invited. Something about being “hosts,” even though their stadium won’t be hosting a single match. LAFC? They qualified through a playoff after Club León was kicked out for having the same owners as Pachuca, who also qualified (although it’s not as though their dual ownership was a new development). Then there’s a whole mess of European teams that didn’t win anything to get here, qualifying on some kind of mystical math. You see what I mean when I say the process was convoluted?
This tournament is absolutely crazy, and I am so here for it. It’s riddled with things to have hard opinions on, and no one really knows whether or not they should ignore it or hold it among the most important competitions the game has ever seen. Ask someone from Europe, and they’ll say it’s going to be a cakewalk for their favorite club. Ask a fan from South America, and they’re out to knock the European clubs down a peg. This is going to be fun. To give you some context for just how crazy we’re about to get, let’s look at humanity’s most telling metric: cold, hard cash.
The comparable club metrics alone are startling, with MASSIVE differences in club value, budgets, and notoriety. While the exact numbers vary in the reports I looked at, it appears that 2025 UEFA Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain — the club with the highest wage bill in the world — spends more on player salaries in a single week than New Zealand’s Auckland City FC spends on club operations in an entire year. That means PSG could fund Auckland’s first team for half a century by using just a single year’s worth of their own wage budget. Oh yeah, did I mention that Auckland’s an amateur club? They don’t even pay their players to play. That’s the scale difference we’re talking about here.
Why would teams agree to such a seemingly lopsided showcase that further clogs their fixture list? Well, the $1 billion purse, of course! You read that right. Billion, like, with a “b.” Dr. Evil can’t even fathom the stakes of this one. The winner gets up to $125 million, while every participating club will get a piece just for participating. Performance-based incentives add to the motivation, offering clubs bonuses for every win.
For the clubs that could be considered “smaller” from a financial perspective, this tournament offers a stage to shock the world on, an opportunity to earn transformational funds, and a place to let loose against some of the sport’s most famous giants. For those giants (Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, PSG, Chelsea, etc.), the potential winnings are attractive enough to coax out real effort in a way we’ve never seen on this scale before. Pundits and fans around the world expect a European team to run away with this trophy, and while that may very well be how it shakes out, the pressure is fully on the clubs measuring the crown and throne before they’ve earned them. Don’t count those chickens until they hatch!
This tournament will follow the familiar World Cup tournament format, with a round-robin group stage preceding a knockout phase. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the Round of 16, then single-elimination chaos will ensue from that point on. Games will be streaming for free on DAZN with English commentary, with select matches available on TNT. Univision and TUDN will carry Spanish options as well.
Small-club Summer is here, my friends; it’s time to support the underdogs like they’re the Loons. I don’t know about you, but I’m pulling for the Aucklands of the tournament, the Urawa Red Diamonds (Japan), the Mamelodi Sundowns (South Africa), and even Monterrey (Mexico). Of course, I wish our fellow MLS teams the best of luck, but I’m taking this opportunity to really spread the love. This is a tournament unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and I’m beyond excited to see how it shakes out. I’ll be back with updates and musings from my own observations, so stay tuned for hot takes and an unhinged rant or two. If you can’t wait for the next Summer of Soccer article, check out more of my work on Substack, where I’ll be raving about both of these competitions for the next month.
Onward to Summer of Soccer 2025!
