MLS may have had to scrap its plans for an unprecedented All-Star Game last year, but the league is not letting the idea go to waste.
Major League Soccer announced on Wednesday that the 2021 All-Star Game will adopt the format of the one scheduled for previous summer, as a team made up of some of the top MLS players will face off vs. one comprised of many of Liga MX’s best talents for the first time.
The match will be played on Aug. 25 at Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles, and is set to take place more than one year after MLS canceled the 2020 All-Star Game due to the impact of the global pandemic.
LAFC head coach Bob Bradley, who was set to guide the MLS All-Stars a summer ago, will lead the league’s team in the upcoming showdown against the Liga MX contingent. The MLS All-Star Skills Challenge will also return as part of the annual event.
“Fans have been looking forward to this historic matchup for more than a year, and we have no doubt the 2021 MLS All-Star Game presented by Target will prove to be worth the wait,” said MLS commissioner Don Garber in a prepared statement. A game of this magnitude in Los Angeles, played in front of incredible fans in one of the greatest soccer stadiums in global soccer, is unlike anything our sport has seen.
“This event is a perfect expression of the groundbreaking partnership that continues to build between MLS and Liga MX.”
The last MLS All-Star Game took place in 2019, with Spanish side Atletico Madrid beating the U.S. and Canadian league’s assembly of players by a 3-0 mark in Orlando, Florida.