CONCACAF Champions League 2009-10 Preview
The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football, CONCACAF in short is the Champions league that was founded in 2008. Now it is all set to begin the preliminary matches of 2009 starting July 28, 2009 but has got embroiled in with internal problems as the association found that one club is yet to submit completed paper work on participation agreement.
The 24-team tournament from almost 13 nations is expected to stir in some media response and is expected to be a permanent summer and fall fixture in the soccer calendar every year.
Initially, there will be a knock-out stage of 8 matches in this week with return legs slated for Aug 4th to 6th. Thereafter, the round-robin group between the preliminary round survivors and the 8 seeded teams will begin starting from Aug 18, 2009. These will be continued until late October.
Here the clubs will be placed into 4 groups with 4 teams in each group playing each other in both, home and away matches. The championship round will consist of top two teams from each group. Quarter finals will be played in the second week of March 2010 and the two-legged semi-finals in April 2010. The finals will be played in the last week of April 2010.
The winner of the CONCACAF Champions leg gets an assured berth in the 2010 FIFA Club World Cup. Last year, it was Mexico’s Atlante that won the trophy. Last year the CONCACAF Champions league was thoroughly dominated by the Mexican Teams.
It is being speculated that the most interesting preliminary match would be between Canadian representatives Toronto FC against the Puerto Rico Islanders. The opening match is between DC United versus Firpo. It is expected that in this Champions Tournament, the DC United will do well but the team needs to be well guarded against wear and tear from playing many matches.
Although there are initial hiccups, it is speculated that CONCACAF Champions League will witness many moments of adrenalin rush with fans as the ball gets dribbled through the goalposts.
