So yesterday was a U.S. team first victory over a Mexican team in the semis. I wonder if that's ccl era only or all time
CCL Era; most recent otherwise was DCU over Pachuca at RFK in '08, immediately preceded by HOU over Pachuca at Robertson in '07 I see a pattern here X-D =edit= Looking further back, the next most recent time a US team beat a Mexican team in the semis (or final) was way back when DCU won the whole thing in 1998 by beating Leon then Toluca, back when the knockout stage was all single games instead of home-and-home series. So Pachuca is the only Mexican team to lose to a US team in the last two rounds in nearly two decades (though they've only had those losses in the past decade).
Yup. As far as we can tell this is the case. The two MLS teams that reached the final (RSL and Montreal) beat Costa Rican opposition in the semifinals. The first MLS team to win a home-and-away series against Liga MX opposition was Kansas City, who beat Santos in the 2002 quarterfinals. That was the CCC format. The victory by Dallas was the first win of a single game in the semi or final against Liga MX opposition in the CCL era. Of course, it'll be meaningless if they don't advance. FCD will probably rue some chances they had late in the game to take a 3-1 lead. To me it looked like Pachuca scored that away goal early and then took their feet off the gas a little bit.
The better team won last night. Dallas gave it everything they had, but came up short. They had no answer for Lozano in particular. Now that FCD is out I'll root for Pachuca as they have Dallas native Omar Gonzalez on their squad. I can't lose!
Vancouver 1:2 Tigres This was the fifth CCL with seeding based on Group Stage performance. The 4:1 aggregate was the biggest margin of defeat for a 1 seed in a Knockout Round.
It was my suggestion and Paul's execution that changed the CCL seeding format. It feels good to know that we effected change onto this tourney, which has worldwide implications. Anyway, the Final finna be LIT. Pachuca will give em all they got, aiming for #5 in 15 years. Gotta do it for Calero, who played in the 1st 4. No one is left from that dominant era, but this new Pachuca squad is very worthy of succeeding them.
So we also have you 2 to blame for the abomination of tournament that we are going to have next year/tournament. Thanks for nothing. Why are you 2 so evil with your powerful influence on Concacaf.
Pachuca are in trouble if Tigres manage to score twice in the 2nd leg, and they have the personnel to do it (assuming they get over their snakebite from yesterday), so it's still anyone's game.