The 2020 Concacaf Champions League has been put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but a schedule for its return has been established, and it is now scheduled to be completed in the United States.
Concacaf announced a new format and schedule to resume this year’s tournament with seven single-leg ties determining a winner. A USA-based location will host the quarterfinals, single-leg semifinals, and final from Dec. 15-22 which will also see frequent COVID-19 testing for players and staff. All matches will be played behind closed doors.
“At Concacaf our focus in recent months has been to continue supporting our Member Associations and the wider football family during this challenging time, and on working hard to ensure we can resume our suspended competitions,” said Concacaf President and FIFA Vice President, Victor Montagliani.
“It has been extremely pleasing to see so many leagues across the region get back to playing football again and the time is right for our flagship club tournament, the Scotiabank Concacaf Champions League, to return with the necessary protocols in place to ensure it is safe for everyone involved.”
Three of the four quarterfinal matchups will take place with first-leg scores from February still intact. Atlanta United, CD Olimpia, and Tigres will be considered the “home” team after playing the first leg on the road earlier this year.
Away goals will apply in these matches, should the aggregate score be level and penalty kicks will also be used if both away goals and aggregate scorelines are tied.
Here is a closer look at the quarterfinal schedule, which will be played over Dec. 15-16.:
- CD Olimpia vs. Impact Montreal (Olimpia leads 2-1)
- Atlanta United vs. Club America (Club America leads 3-0)
- Tigres UANL vs. NYCFC (Tigres leads 1-0)
- LAFC vs Cruz Azul (Did not play 1st Leg due to COVID-19)
The semifinals will take place on Dec. 19th and the final will take place on Dec. 22nd. Here’s the draw for the later rounds as followed:
- Club America or Atlanta United vs. LAFC or Cruz Azul
- Tigres UANL or NYCFC vs. CD Olimpia or Montreal Impact
cases and hospitalizations are already blowing up, and deaths will follow. to rational people this should be “at risk” because we’re about to go out of control public health wise. however, under trump or the right (red state) governor (eg desantis) you might still be able to pull off a closed door event before january. they are unlikely for political reasons to lockdown or close business entirely, whether it would be an appropriate neutral expert response or not. the wild cards i see are — as you see in USL — teams testing positive and being unable to fulfill their part — or teams (particularly cross-border ones) skipping/boycotting based on our likely situation in december.
as with the theoretical US-Wales game now up against a UK lockdown it will be interesting if it actually happens.
MLS or USL — but USL most telling because they couldn’t even finish the season
This sounds like a bubble situation that worked during Florida‘s spike in the Summer and as you said DeSantis seems agreeable to such events. If teams are staying in a closed off location it should be possible, if they are out in public locations seems unlikely to succeed.
FYI, I’m also a big college basketball fan and ESPN was looking to put together a pre-Christmas tournament in their Florida bubble. It fell through, most likely because of COVID concerns. Also, a number of college football bowl games have already been canceled. Anything looks problematic right now.
The problem with the NCAA bubble was each conference had their own protocols. Some schools were unwilling to abide by the strict protocols that ESPN wanted to put in place. My guess is with ESPN CB out of the way, Disney Sports is looking to fill some space. Some rumor that MLS may return for the playoffs as well.
UK has stated because of the strict testing protocols of professional soccer, that professional matches will continue as scheduled without fans. Now whether the FA will sanction a match between US and non-UK opponent I don’t know.
USMNT Twitter announced tonight the roster will be released tomorrow (Tuesday).