Houston Dynamo, Austin FC and FC Dallas will all take part in the newly formed La Copita preseason tournament in April, the teams announced Friday.
In addition to the three Texas-based MLS clubs, USL Championship side San Antonio FC will also be participating in the competition, with fellow USL outfit Oklahoma City Energy also taking part in one La Copita match on Tuesday, April 6 against Houston.
Houston will welcome Oklahoma City as the tournament's first guest on April 6 at Aveva Stadium.
“It’s good for all of us to have competition,” FC Dallas head coach Luchi Gonzalez said in a Friday release from the club. “We usually don’t play each other in preseason and wait until the regular season but there’s obvious challenges with travel so we need to be more regionalized. Our administrators and leaders have collaborated to make this possible so I think it’s great. We all need it, competition is what’s going to allow us to be ready for the real season.”
Added Austin FC sporting director Claudio Reyna: "I’m glad we have been able to organize La Copita, and we’re hopeful it becomes an important part of Austin FC’s preparations each season for years to come."
FC Dallas will also play a preseason match against San Antonio FC at Toyota Field on March 27, but that game will only count toward La Copita table for San Antonio. It will be a standard preseason match for FC Dallas with no bearing on its La Copita standing.
Most games will be available to stream via the clubs' websites.
The tournament will run from March 27-April 10 with the winner being decided by a single-group table. All four participating clubs will play three 90-minute matches to accumulate points. The standard rule of three points for a win and zero points for a loss applies, but ties will be decided by a penalty shootout with the winning team taking two points and the losing team taking one. Goal difference and number of goals scored will serve as tiebreakers if clubs finish on the same number of points in the table.
See the full preseason schedule for Austin, Dallas, Houston and every MLS club here.
