Charlotte FC tops Cruz Azul on penalties, but it needs help to advance in Leagues Cup

Charlotte FC entered this season’s Leagues Cup in good spirits and with ambitions of winning the club’s first trophy in its short history.

With a CONCACAF Champions Cup qualification spot for the competition’s top three finishers and a rare opportunity for silverware on the line, head coach Dean Smith didn’t plan on taking the matches between clubs in the U.S. and Mexico’s top leagues lightly.

However, the Queen City side’s campaign started with a dreadful 1-0 loss against Philadelphia Union on Saturday in which they failed to register a shot on target. That left Charlotte needing a positive performance at home against Liga MX powerhouses Cruz Azul to keep its knockout stage hopes alive.

Despite surrendering a majority of possession and struggling to connect passes early in the match, Charlotte FC did just that in front of a crowd of 33,329 fans at Bank of America Stadium.

Smith’s side kept a clean sheet against a strong Cruz Azul attack through 90 minutes and topped the Mexican side 4-2 on penalty kicks in its final Leagues Cup group stage match on Wednesday to keep its knockout stage hopes alive.

However, Charlotte FC couldn’t find a winning goal in regulation that would have put the Queen City side in a much better position to advance — despite creating multiple opportunities on counterattacks throughout the match.

They will now be reliant on a Philadelphia Union team that’s already advanced to the next round to get a favorable result in the final group stage match against Cruz Azul on Sunday. A Philadelphia win or penalty kick shootout win following a draw after 90 minutes would see Charlotte FC through to the next round — any other result would eliminate the third-year club from the competition.

“We knew they was going to have a lot of possession and a lot of control in that first half, but we also knew where our out ball was and how we could cause them problems as well,” Smith said.

While Wednesday’s result leaves Charlotte Leagues Cup campaign in doubt, its performance against one of the best teams on the continent served as a marked improvement from its Leagues Cup opening loss in Philadelphia.

“That’s possibly the worst game I’ve seen since I’ve come over to the USA,” Smith said after Saturday’s loss to Philadelphia Union. “It was littered with errors for both teams, they deserved to win because they probably got the only shot on target all game. It was just a bad, bad game.”

Wednesday’s showing wasn’t much prettier against one of the top teams from Mexico in Cruz Azul — a finalist in last year’s Liga MX’s Clausura season and sits at the top of the table this season with 10 points from four games — but a solid backline and dynamic counterattack delivered an improved performance and result.

Smith made five changes from Saturday’s starting lineup against Cruz Azul. One of those was the introduction of goalkeeper David Bingham, who made his first start since October 2023, in place of regular starter Kristijan Kahlina.

The veteran delivered a man of the match performance, making four stops in regulation before saving two of Cruz Azul’s penalty kicks in the shootout to keep Charlotte’s knockout stage hopes alive.

“I feel like I’ve kind of deserved this chance tonight and I feel like I took it well considering I haven’t played a lot in the last few months,” Bingham said.

The solid group performance against a team both Smith and Ashley Westwood called the best opponent they’ve faced this season was another positive step amid the club’s most successful season in its young history.

But after Saturday’s letdown in Pennsylvania, Charlotte will be left to wait for the outcome of Sunday’s match to determine its future in the competition.

“It’s our own fault to begin with, we didn’t play very well in (Philadelphia),” Brandt Bronico said. “But it was important that we came out here and won tonight, and now we sit back and watch and hope we go through.”