Mark your calendars because CONCACAF announced the dates and times for next year’s Champions League quarterfinals on Wednesday.
Four U.S.-based MLS teams and four Liga MX teams will compete for the CCL crown in 2016’s knockout stage of the competition, and the tournament will kick off in the new year late February. While the Liga MX Clausura season will be underway, D.C. United, Real Salt Lake, Seattle Sounders and the LA Galaxy will kick off CCL action before the start of the MLS regular season.
The winner between D.C. United and Queretaro will meet the winner of Real Salt Lake-Tigres in one semifinal, while the Club America-Seattle Sounders winner will face the Santos Laguna-LA Galaxy winner in the other CCL semifinal.
The CCL finals are scheduled for the last two weeks of April.
Here is the complete schedule for the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals:
FEB. 23
8 p.m. — Queretaro (MEX) vs. DC United (USA) – Estadio Corregidora, Queretaro, Mexico
10 p.m. — Seattle Sounders (USA) vs. Club America (MEX) – CenturyLink Field, Seattle, Wash., USA
FEB. 24
8 p.m. — Tigres (MEX) vs. Real Salt Lake (USA) – Estadio Universitario, Monterrey, Mexico
10 p.m. — LA Galaxy (USA) vs. Santos (MEX) – StubHub Center, Carson, Calif., USA
MARCH 1
8 p.m. — DC United (USA) vs Queretaro (MEX) – R.F.K. Stadium, Washington D.C., USA
10 p.m. — Santos (MEX) vs. LA Galaxy (USA) – Estadio Corona, Torreon, Mexico
MARCH 2
8 p.m. — Club America (MEX) vs. Seattle Sounders (USA) – Estadio Azteca, Mexico City, Mexico
10 p.m. — Real Salt Lake (USA) vs. Tigres (MEX) – Rio Tinto Stadium, Sandy, Utah, USA
—
Which quarterfinal are you most anticipating? Which teams will advance to the semifinals?
Share your thoughts below.
Though I’m a Galaxy fan, the Sounders–Club America match up sounds like the most interesting to me. This year’s tournament could be among the best yet.
I would say Galaxy have the best shot vs Santos. Sounder-America will be a big time game, defiantly the most interesting matchup. DC and RSL don’t look like Champions League teams and I doubt they do anything huge before these games, Tigres is also a pretty solid team
I actually think DC and RSL have a better shot much like Montreal pre-Drogba. Tigres and Team Bornstein are likely to still field primarily reserve sides so if DC and RSL give it a full shot they might have a chance.
Galaxy consistently gets slaughtered this round. They never seem to come out of preseason strong and with this being in the middle of preseason this will once again be a tough one. Would love to advance but doesn’t seem likely.
With the questions surrounding all 4 MLS teams, and it being preseason I don’t see any of them advancing to the semis. Of course we might actually see some first team lineups out of them which is more than we see during the group stage.
I think this is going to be a lot of fun to watch…
…..and then a Mexican team will win it.