USL Jägermeister Cup Expanded For 2025 Season

38 teams will enter a World Cup Tournament style Jäegermeister Cup in 2025

Photo Courtesy of USL

USL announced today that the USL Jäegermeister Cup is expanding from the original USL League One only tournament from 2024 to a USL Championship and USL League One 38 team World Cup style tournament in 2025.

Six regional groups have been filled out by the two upper divisions of USL. Each club will play 4 matches in the group stage. Two home matches will be randomly selected and the other two matches will be away matches.

Group play will be scheduled into each team’s regular league season schedule, and matches will begin on April 26 and will conclude on July 26. Penalty shootouts will decide the match winner in group stage matches that draw even at the end of 90 minutes. The first tiebreaker in the group stages between clubs is goals scored. The six group winners and two wild card teams will advance to the tournament bracket.

At the conclusion of the group stage, a draw will be held to set up the eight clubs into a bracket. Bracket play will begin around mid-August, with the Final scheduled for October 11.

Regional group stage matchups will aid in keeping travel costs low for the clubs and should increase the atmosphere in the stadiums since fans will also have less distance to travel to support their club.

The attacking rule mindset in the penalties to decide the winner of a match and the most goals scored as a group stage points tiebreaker will make for some great matches in the group stage for traveling supporters.

Portland Hearts of Pine regional group is group 4 which consists of Detroit City FC, Hartford Athletic, Pittsburgh River Hounds SC, Rhode Island FC, and USL League One fellow expansion club Westchester FC.

Detroit City FC finished third in the Eastern Conference last year and exited the playoffs early against the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Hartford Athletic finished 10th in the Eastern Conference and failed to make the playoffs.

Pittsburgh River Hounds SC finished seventh in the Eastern Conference and were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs to a Charleston Battery team that made the Eastern Conference Finals.

Rhode Island FC is certainly the big dog in this group. In the club’s very first season in existence, The Tide finished 5th with 12W-15D-7L. Rhode Island would make a Finals appearance in its first year losing to the Switchbacks 3-0.

USL’s expanded version of the Jäegermeister Cup aims to cultivate a soccer story across the country for all supporters to remember, and most importantly, participate in the away days. With clubs from USL’s two professional levels getting to compete against one another, the cup is sure to provide plenty of storylines for fans and add yet another opportunity for players, coaches, and clubs to lift a trophy.