CONCACAF Champions League - 08/09

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This is the first year that the CCL will take place and they recently announced the qualifications for the teams that will make the inaugural event.

CONCACAF

Four Teams from Mex
Top 2 in the Apetura from 2007
Top 2 from the Clausura from 2008

If any team is duplicated the next team in the list gets to go.

Four teams from USA (all for 2007)
MLS Champion (Playoff winner)
MLS Reg Season Points Leader
MLS Reg Cup Runner Up
US Open Cup Winner - BUT if a duplicate of other three than it goes to MLS best remaining regular season winner.

Two Teams from Costa Rica
Top teams from both of their seasons

Two Teams from El Salvador
Top teams from both of their seasons

Two teams Guatemala
Again the top two teams from both seasons

Two teams from Honduras
Again the top two teams from both seasons

Canada will get one team from a home/away round robin between the three teams in USL/MLS

Nicaragua will have their top two teams play a home/away for one slot
Panama follows the same as Nic

The Caribean Nations will qualify three teams based on their Club Championship series with the winner and runner up qualified and teams 3&4 facing a home/away match.

8 teams automatically qualify for the group stage (the top half of all nations that qualify more than one team). The other 16 teams face a qualifying stage of home/away winners advancing to the group stage.

The Group Stage will have four groups of four. Top two advance to quarters . Winners onwards. The Quarters/Semis and Finals will all be Home/Away. The CCL overall winner gets to go the FIFA Club World Cup.

This could add a TON (quick count is possibly 12 extra matches in two years) of football to the MLS sides, and I love the potential that a USL team or two could make the CCL. Gives some love to the little guys like Portland some hope and a reward for their passionate fans.

My last thought on this is that it will help lead to an improvement in overall gameplay and talent in the region as it incentives success even more and has more matches that count.


With the addition of the SuperLiga and the Pan Pacific Cup this means that the top MLS clubs will be playing many more games and will challenge their depth. This will likely hurt them a touch in their following years, but it will also lead to more cash on hand.

I'm hopeful that the PPC will be matched with a TransAtlantic Cup and that the qualification for those will be determined by Conference and not overall record.

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Heck, I forgot to mention the US Open Cup in that last stretch. There is now basically an 8 month "season" to soccer in the USA with concurrent Cup and Season competitions. Should be really intriguing to see what happens during World Cup years, though South Africa shouldn't have the in-season challenge for MLS