The governing body of the North, Central American and Caribbean soccer associations (CONCACAF) announced changes to its Champions League, a tournament that pits the top clubs from each region against one another.
The four-year-old competition will remain a 24-club tournament, but instead of an initial knockout phase of 16 teams, all qualifiers will proceed to a main group stage of eight, three-team groups, from which only the winners will advance to the quarterfinals.
The Championship Round, or knockout stage, will remain the same.
Teams from the same country will not face each other in the group stage, with the exception of a reallocated or wild card berth, and every group will contain either a U.S. or Mexican club.
The competition will begin as previously planned during the week of July 31. With each team playing four matches instead of six, and the elimination of the Preliminary Round, the initial phases of the competition will be condensed from 64 to 48 games.
Quarterfinal legs for the 2011 edition of the CCL, which include MLS sides Toronto FC, LA Galaxy and the Seattle Sounders, will be played March 5-7 and March 12-14, with the semi-finals April 2-4 and April 9-11. The finals are slated for April 24 and May 1.
The Impact: first ever Canadian CCL representative
The Impact won the inaugural Nutrilite Canadian Championship in 2008, the pre-tournament competition that decides the Canadian representative in the CCL, with a record of 2-1-1 against Vancouver and Toronto. The team then beat Real Estelí FC (Nicaragua) 1-0 in the preliminary round, qualifying for the group phase. Considered the underdog in this competition, the Impact finished second in group C with a record of 3-1-2, earning a bye for the quarterfinal round. The Impact then made history on February 25, 2009, by winning 2-0 against Mexican club Santos Laguna in front of 55,571 spectators at Olympic Stadium. However, the Impact was later eliminated from the CONCACAF Champions League 5-4 on aggregate goals, following a 5-2 loss in the away-game played in Mexico the following week.
