This must be tough for Major League Soccer clubs and their fans.

The steady drumbeat of failure and defeat in the Concacaf Champions League.

Tonight, it was the LA Galaxy crushed 4-0 by Santos Laguna (after a scoreless first leg in Carson) and DC United going down 3-1 on aggregate to Queretaro after the latter took the first leg 2-0.

MLS fans will be shocked if the Seattle Sounders can survive surrendering two away goals to defending champion Club America in a draw in Seattle … and if Real Salt Lake can overcome a 2-0 deficit in a home game versus UNAM.

So, how long has it been since an MLS team won the local confederation’s top club prize?

That would be January of 2001, when the Galaxy won the Concacaf Cup in their home stadium, the L.A. Coliseum, 3-2 over Club Deportivo Olimpia of Honduras. Cobi Jones scored; it was that long ago.

The Galaxy is happy to talk about winning that Concacaf club championship (DC United is the only other MLS team to do so, having won in 1998), but they generally don’t mention that the “2000” tournament was held in Southern California, and the Galaxy didn’t have to face a Mexican team.

Meantime, the Galaxy and the rest of MLS have been kicked around regularly since the competition was expanded to 24 teams and rebranded the Concacaf Champions League in 2008-09.

Mexican clubs have won all seven championships in the new, more significant, winner-goes-to-the-Fifa Club World Cup competition, and in five of them both finalists were from Mexico.

It appears that the 2015-16 tournament is about to become an all-Mexico final for the sixth time in eight years.

What is up with MLS? Two decades after its founding, with the league expanding all the time and generating more fans … why can it not compete evenly with Mexican clubs?

The good news, this MLS reporter suggests, is that Mexican teams at least are playing their first team against the MLS now.

The bad news … MLS sides are still losing.

Let’s identify three problems for the league that lies north of the Rio Grande.

–The timing of the competition is difficult for MLS. Back in the fall, all four MLS teams in the competition advanced to the quarterfinals. But the final eight was contested in February and March, just before MLS clubs begin their league season. So maybe they are rusty. Mexico teams, meanwhile, are in the middle of their league season.

–MLS clubs have that salary cap which limits how much they can spend on reinforcements.

–The MLS just isn’t as good as Liga MX. Mexico’s league has deeper and older rivalries and has a real grip on fans, as opposed to MLS, which is Just Another Sports League in the U.S. and Canada.

–Big Mexican clubs also seem to do a better job of recruiting foreigners as well as hanging on to their best nationals — while the MLS tends to go for guys in their golden years and also tend to lose their best American players to Europe.

To wit: Santos Laguna’s expats thoroughly outplayed the Galaxy’s aged imports tonight. Argentine striker Martin Bravo, 29, scored two goals and Cape Verde forward Djaniny, 24, scored another. Another Argentina national, goalkeeper Agustin Marchesin, 27, did not allow a goal in 180 minutes over two legs.

Meanwhile, the Galaxy’s collection of foreigners, on the back side of careers in most cases, were overpowered. Former Liverpool star Steven Gerrard, 35, was noticeably sluggish ahead of Santos Laguna’s second goal. Robbie Keane, the 35-year-old captain, was off the mark, as was Mexican winger Gi0vani dos Santos, 26. And Jelle Van Damme, the 32-year-old Belgian defender and Netherlands national Nigel de Jong, 31, a defensive midfielder, watched as four goals went in.(Left back Ashley Cole, 35, another British geriatric, can’t be blamed for this one because he was in Europe for the birth of a child.)After it was over, Galaxy coach Bruce Arena stated the obvious: The Mexican side was better. He added that he “didn’t see any superstars out there” for the Galaxy. So, barring a miracle tomorrow night, it’s wait till next year again for MLS, which must confront the reality that Mexican teams still rule the roost in Concacaf. What is a little strange about this is … how well the U.S. national team has done versus Mexico, regularly defeating them over the past decade. The Galaxy, at least, won’t have to worry about the 2016-17 tournament because they failed to qualify — perhaps saving themselves some embarrassment a year from now.