The trajectory of Major League Soccer shifted in 2015 based on a new target: catching Liga MX. The results in this year’s CONCACAF Champions League, however, are proof that the league has not gone far enough.



MLS has long aimed to be one of the best leagues in the world, but that is a long-term goal that, for now, is out of reach. A league-commissioned study with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in 2015 soon brought a more realistic yardstick by which MLS could measure its growth: its rivals to the south.



Liga MX is the standard of North American soccer, and the BCG study showed that as MLS evolved, and if it wanted to prove its mettle, it needed to show fans it could overtake that mantle.



“What (fans have) told us is they want to see us measured referentially against Mexico, for example,” MLS commissioner Don Garber recently told Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl in his Planet Futbol podcast. “Rather than having a fan determine...