CONCACAF's amendment to the Central American qualification criteria for the Champions League is a welcome improvement. Granted, CONCACAF had to start somewhere when it came to deciding which team would obtain the berth to the Group Stage, but in the end a separate two-match playoff proved unwieldy and difficult to schedule. Click to continue reading...

Given that the MLS Cup was just a little over a week ago, you might think that everybody in the league would be taking a little breather. Not so much. Here are links to a few of the rumors and newsy bits that are floating around this week. (And be sure to [...] Click to continue reading...

The group stage is complete, and the "country standings" have changed to reflect what most would have said before the competition started -- the Mexican league is the strongest in CONCACAF.
W L T GF GA DIF WIN % PPG
Mexico 15 5 7 61 25 36 55.6% 1.93
Canada 4 1 3 11 5 6 50. Click to continue reading...

There has been a thread on BigSoccer arguing for the reallocation of Champions League qualifying berths in light of this year's performance. Now, that's simply not going to happen on the sole basis of Group Stage results in the first edition of the Champions League. Nevertheless, I talked to my contacts within CONCACAF and they confirmed the current allocation for next season but ". Click to continue reading...

For those who haven't or won't download the spreadsheets in the previous post, here is a list of the top 10 leagues and clubs that have participated in the CONCACAF's premier club competition over the past four and a half years. That period covers the 2004-05 Champions Cup through the group stage of this year's Champions League. Click to continue reading...

Well I hope those of you in the States are enjoying your Thanksgiving and today's matches in whatever football code you prefer. After last night's game I completed the update to the CONCACAF coefficients and placed them on my site. There are some changes to the coefficient calculations -- instead of using the results from the UNCAF or CFU qualifying competitions, I use the results from the preliminary round of the Champions League. Click to continue reading...

 

Brian Ching's 13th-minute goal was enough to help the Houston Dynamo earn a place in the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals with a 1-0 victory against CD Luis Angel Firpo on Wednesday night.

The Dynamo defense rebounded well from its Western Conference playoff loss to the New York Red Bulls to post a shutout in a must-win match as goalkeeper Pat Onstad recorded five saves.

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Brian Ching's 13th-minute goal was enough to help the Houston Dynamo earn a place in the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals with a 1-0 victory against CD Luis Angel Firpo on Wednesday night.

The Dynamo defense rebounded well from its Western Conference playoff loss to the New York Red Bulls to post a shutout in a must-win match as goalkeeper Pat Onstad recorded five saves.

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The group stage of the CONCACAF Champions League is now complete, and we now know the final eight teams. Here they are: Group Pot A Pot B A Marathón Cruz Azul B UNAM Houston Dynamo C Atlante Impact de Montréal D Santos Laguna Puerto Rico Islanders So all four Mexican qualifiers are in the final eight, followed by one team each from Honduras, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the USA. Click to continue reading...

I left to go to the gym, thinking that I would be back in time for the Dynamo-Firpo match at 8pm local time (according to CONCACAF's TV schedule). Well, I returned at 8:05pm to find out that the match had just concluded! How did CONCACAF manage to get their schedule so incredibly wrong? And why did I believe them? Click to continue reading...

Just when you thought the last competitive action for MLS was over until the 2009 Pan Pacific Championship we are reminded that Houston still has some unfinished business in the Champions League with LA Firpo. We will make an effort to bring you the game here.


Courtesy of CONCACAF:

With a single quarterfinal spot still undecided, it all comes down to one night in Houston. Click to continue reading...

Before you head to Gramma's house for the holiday, know that:

*Those English newspaper reports were true for once and MLS Deputy Commissioner Ivan Gazidis is off to England's Arsenal as chief executive officer in the new year. Is this Stan Kroenke at work?

Arsenal Chairman Peter Hill-Wood said: "Ivan's credentials are first class.

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It seems that Houston Dynamo fans will likely be cheering for the Columbus Crew to defeat New York Red Bulls on Sunday in the MLS Cup. The Red Bulls did knock Houston out of the playoffs, but that is not the reason for the Crew support in Houston.

The CONCACAF Champions League announced the teams qualifying for the tournament next year.

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CONCACAF's Executive Committee announced the date windows for the 2009-10 Champions League, and the biggest news is that next year's competition will start a month earlier and the group stage matches will be played over nine weeks instead of seven. That schedule change brings the group stage of the CONCACAF Champions League closer to the Copa Libertadores (which schedules six group matches over ten weeks). Click to continue reading...

A few readers have asked me if I have released any updates of the CONCACAF club and country coefficients. The answer is that I have not, but will do so after the Houston-Firpo match in a couple of weeks. I will probably use the same formula that UEFA use to compute its coefficients now that the larger countries (USA and Mexico) have teams represented in the preliminary round of the competition. Click to continue reading...

Of the four teams that represented MLS in the CONCACAF Champions League (Chivas USA, New England Revolution, DC United, Houston Dynamo), NONE will advance to the semifinal round of the MLS Cup playoffs. And of the four, only DC United will return to the Champions League next year, and they enter in the preliminary round as US Open Cup champions. Click to continue reading...

The final match in Group A of the Champions League between Marathón and Saprissa has been completed. Read the commentary as it happened.[Grp A] Marathón 2-0 Saprissa F So Marathón finish on top of Group A and Cruz Azul back into the knockout stage at Saprissa's expense. Alejandro Alpízar will be thinking of his miss for a long time. Click to continue reading...

I apologize for missing tonight's matches. I had a very long day at work and just got in. And as it happened the critical matches started at 1700 local time, so no liveblogging tonight. Anyway, the scores:[Grp A] Saprissa 1-0 Cruz Azul F[Grp A] DC United 2-4 Marathón F[Grp D] Tauro 2-2 Puerto Rico F[Grp B] UNAM 0-0 San Francisco 25'So Saprissa and Marathón score big wins tonight, and will play each other next week to see who advances to the quarterfinals. Click to continue reading...

Tonight starts a decisive week in the CONCACAF Champions League, and if results go a certain way, we may not know all of the eight quarterfinalists until late next month. Here are tonight's matches, with the highlight being the critical match in Group B:[Group C] Olimpia - Joe Public 1700[Group B] LA Firpo - Houston Dynamo 1900[Group C] Atlante - Montreal Impact 1900 Come back later today for live commentary of the Firpo-Dynamo match. Click to continue reading...

At the end of Matchday 5, four teams have secured their places in the knockout stage of the CONCACAF Champions League. The permutations in each group are complicated and I'm bound to get something wrong, so please bear with me.I'm just focusing on what teams have to do to secure a top two place in their group. Click to continue reading...

Matchday 5 of the Group Stage concludes tonight. Here we go...[Group D] Puerto Rico Islanders 0-0 Municipal 67'[Group A] Marathón - Saprissa ppd 1831: About 25 minutes remaining. And Noel runs in hard on goal and is taken down just outside the penalty area by Noriega. Very dangerous free kick for the Islanders. Click to continue reading...

Matchday 5 of the CONCACAF Champions League continues with three matches.Kickoff times are listed in Arizona time (GMT -7).[Group B] San Francisco 0-0 LA Firpo 30'[Group D] Santos Laguna 2-0 Tauro 30'[Group B] Houston Dynamo - UNAM 1900 1735: I don't know what the score is in Panama, so don't take that 0-0 as authoritative. Click to continue reading...

Now, obviously, I wasn't expecting much from this match. We had almost zero chance to advance, and we threw out a bunch of reserves. Still, they played well despite adversity, and that gives me a little hope that we'll go out with a bang this weekend (assuming we have anything to play for). In the meantime, my sole talking point boils down to this: CONCACAF is a joke, and the standard of its Click to continue reading...

Thursday night's Group A match between Marathón and Saprissa has been canceled due to persistent heavy rain since last week. It will be replayed next month, making it the second match to be moved to November due to poor weather. Click to continue reading...

The penultimate matchday of the Group Stage begins today. Here are tonight's matches:Kickoff times listed in Arizona time (GMT -7)[Group C] Montreal Impact 1-1 Olimpia 64'[Group C] Joe Public 0-2 Atlante 64'[Group A] Cruz Azul - DC United 1900Commentaries after the jump. 1830: GOAL Joe Public 0-2 Atlante (57')While I was away, Gabriel Pereyra spotted Joe Public 'keeper Figueroa far away from his line and launched a shot from over 80 yards, and it goes in! Click to continue reading...

That's right! As if the playoffs weren't enough mucho mas fútbol! CONCACAF's Champions League will kick back into action tonight.

As speak DC United is preparing to take on Cruz Azul tonight in Mexico City. Houston will host Pumas UNAM tomorrow night.

Schedule courtesy of Cristiana Cruz and our friends at Behind The Badge. Click to continue reading...

This morning I realized that I hadn't commented on the actual television coverage of the Champions League. Basically the coverage is good but uneven and not standardized. Fox Soccer Channel has had the better broadcasts of the matches - their graphics are very clean, the image is good, and a wide angle is kept on the action most of the time. Click to continue reading...

For all the hoo-ha and ballyhoo about MLS clubs failing in this year's CONCACAF Champions League, when compared to their USL counterparts, one thing they have not failed in is getting a point on the road in two hostile places where MLS clubs had, until this year, NEVER gotten a point: Mexico City, Mexico and San Jose's Saprissa Stadium, Costa Rica. Click to continue reading...

All right, let me make the standard disclaimer that I'm going by highlights and writeups, so I'm going to avoid doing any real "match analysis." Rather, I'll react to the result. And what a result for a bunch of kids with precious little experience! Of course, the 2-2 draw gives us just one point while the rest of the group sits on seven, so we're officially done unless we win both of our Click to continue reading...

[10/09/08 - I finished the remainder of the post tonight.]A couple of posts ago I gave my impressions of the CONCACAF Champions League in terms of the play on the field and how the rest of the Group Stage would unfold. But the Champions League -- like all similar club tournaments around the world -- is more than just a regional club championship. Click to continue reading...

Matchday 4 concludes tonight with two late matches. Action starts in about 45 minutes.(Grp A) Saprissa - DC United 1900(Grp B) Firpo - UNAM 1900Commentaries after the jump. 1827: LA Firpo have three players in the El Salvador national team (Gómez, Rivas, and Monteagudo), while UNAM have no players represented in the Mexican national team, although four players have been called up in the past 12 months (Cacho, Barrera, Augusto, and Castro). Click to continue reading...

Sorry for missing yesterday's matches, but I'm back for tonight's. Joining in progress...[Grp C] Joe Public 1-3 Montreal Impact 73'[Grp D] Santos Laguna 2-0 Puerto Rico Islanders 71'[Grp C] Olimpia - Atlante 1900[Grp D] Municipal - Tauro 1900Commentaries below... 1833: Watching Joe Public's play against Montreal demonstrates to me just how irresponsible Gregory Richardson's red card was. Click to continue reading...

Photos courtesy of our friends at BehindTheBadge.com the official blog of DC United.






Ahead of Thursday nights's CONCACAF Champion's League match against Deportivo Saprissa, a DC United team made up mostly of reserve players has touched down in San Jose, Costa Rica. Click to continue reading...

We are halfway through the first edition of the CONCACAF Champions League. Thirty-nine matches have been played, and thirty-nine remain. In this post I'll focus on the action on the field; I want to write something about the organization of the event, the attendance, the refereeing, and how all this has played out on television. Click to continue reading...

With their thrilling 4-4 tie against Pumas earlier this week, the Houston Dynamo became the first American team to play an official game in Mexico and not lose... ever.

Congrats! Too bad the rest of the league has been a horrifying cesspool of suck in the CONCACAF Champions League. Click to continue reading...