CCL 2011-12 Qualifiers: Alajuelense, Take 2; and River Plate May Be Coming to a City Near You
Posted on April 15, 2011 5:01 pm
In an earlier post, I mentioned that the majority of the articles in The Regional Review would take the form of “Round-ups” keeping track of movement towards Champions League qualification all over CONCACAF. Because of the considerable overlap in competitions here, however – the Portland Timbers recently won a US Open Cup play-in game en route to the 2012-13 CCL, while their Cascadia rivals Vancouver Whitecaps have yet to get started on the road to the 2011-12 edition – I will be sure to indicate which CCL qualifying I’m covering in each of these posts. The general rule of thumb here is to give thorough coverage to tournaments once teams get within two stages of qualification (the semifinals, in the US Open Cup’s case), in order to avoid this very blog cluttering itself with overlap.
Having said that, the only update that could take place on the list of 2011-12 CCL Qualifiers (at the end of this post) again involves Alajuelense’s opportunity to go straight to the group stages of next year’s tournament. On Sunday, their last remaining potential challenger for the CRC1 spot, Herediano, heads to Limon with a two-goal lead from the first leg last week. That game will take place at 4:00pm (Eastern Standard); later, Alajuelense will host Perez Zeledon at the Morera Soto at 6:30pm. Because the Costa Rican league also gives a tie in the playoffs to the higher seed (except for the final), the manudos only need a draw to move on to the semifinals; however, if they win, or Herediano fails to do so in the Caribbean, Alajuelense will have successfully avoided the preliminaries for the next CCL.
Also, this weekend will produce the first team to make it to the semifinals of the CFU Club Championship. Yes, Trinidad and Tobago’s Defence Force tore Milerock to shreds in Guyana, but the second leg of that particular series will have to wait for next Friday. Meanwhile, this Friday and Sunday (according to the CFU’s own schedule), Guyana’s Alpha United will enjoy the honor of hosting two games against the one, the only, RIVER PLATE.
…no, not that River Plate.
The Argentine club’s sister/farm team in Puerto Rico, referred to here as River Plate FC, is the defending champion of the Puerto Rican Super-Copa (recognized by FIFA as the island’s joint national league, along with the Puerto Rican Soccer League). That qualified them for the CFU Championship; and after defeating the Cayman Islands’ Bodden Town 2-1 on aggregate, the team will be playing tonight at 8:00pm and Sunday at 3:00pm (local time) in two different venues in Guyana.
Now you may ask: why did River Plate FC pass up on playing its home leg in Puerto Rico? According to the club’s official website:
Translation:
This also means, then, that if River lite were to qualify for the CCL, it would have to play home games at the Juan Ramon Loubriel (the Puerto Rico Islanders’ “Cemetery”) until its own stadium is ready and receives CONCACAF approval.
Translation: it is worth mentioning that in this case there is no “counting double” with respect to away goals.
Also, futbolboricua.net, dedicated to all things Puerto Rican soccer, claims that the semifinal matchups are already set:
So far, I have not seen any confirmation from the CFU or CONCACAF for this. But if that is the case, then the other half of the bracket could lead to a semi-final blockbuster in Trinidad between old hands Defence Force and the current Caribbean kings, the Puerto Rico Islanders.
If I get word from one of the Puerto Rican BigSoccer members on where to catch the River Plate FC – Alpha United games, I will pass on the information here. Or, if you have a thousand (Guyanese) dollars lying around and find yourself in the region, you can grab a ticket to the games themselves.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSo0FrNZ-KY"]YouTube – Alpha vs River Plate Football Ad[/ame]
1) Seattle Sounders [USA4]
2) LA Galaxy [USA2]
3) Colorado Rapids [USA1]
4) FC Dallas [USA3]
5) Santos Laguna [MEX2 or MEX3]
6) Monterrey [MEX1]
7) Real España [HON1 or HON2]
8) Tauro [PAN1 or PAN2]
9) LD Alajuelense [CRC1]
10) Isidro Metapán [SLV1 or SLV2]
11) Comunicaciones [GUA1 or GUA2]
In the Caribbean (part of South America): both River Plate FC’s website and futbolboricua.net are reporting that the first leg of the River-Alpha United series ended in a 0-0 draw, with the red card shown to Alpha’s Julio Maya the only notable incident. With no away-goal factor, Sunday’s showdown will be, for all intents and purposes, a single-elimination game with overtime and penalties in case the series remains tied after 90 minutes.
In this entry, I purposely forgot to cover the situation in El Salvador, where another team already qualified for the CCL is close to clinching its country’s #1 spot. The reason is that unlike in Costa Rica, where playoff results are clearly added onto the points gained in the two regular seasons over the year as the tiebreaker between CCL participants, I have no idea whether or not this is the case in El Salvador.
If it is not, and only points gained during the regular seasons of the Apertura and Clausura count, then Isidro Metapan has already captured the SLV1 spot, given that no one can catch them with the two matchdays left in the Clausura regular season. But if Liguilla results count, too, then Alianza (currently 8 points behind), Aguila and Firpo (both 12 points back) can still overtake Metapan with the potential five games left in the Clausura tournament.
If anyone has a definitive answer on this issue, please let us know. Otherwise, I’ll hold off until the end of the Clausura to declare which Salvadoran team will get a seed for the preliminaries.
For anyone interested in watching the Costa Rican playoffs, both the Limon-Herediano (going on right now) and Alajuelense-Perez Zeledon games can be seen here:
http://www.cdr.cr/player/230/BCanal%206
The video’s a couple seconds ahead of the audio, though.
The Limon-Herediano match finished in a 2-2 draw, enough for Herediano to win the series 4-2 and move on to the semifinals (a recap of those matchups will be posted tomorrow). However, the tie leaves them with 67 points over the full year, and with a maximum of four potential games left, they are mathematically unable to catch Alajuelense.
Thus, we can officially confirm that “la Liga” will be heading directly to the group stage next year, as one of the four Central American teams to enjoy that honor.
And from the Caribbean: according to futbolboricua.net’s Facebook, Alpha United will be heading to the CFU semifinals after defeating River Plate FC 3-2 today and on aggregate. I imagine this won’t make for pleasant reading in Buenos Aires (an Argentine farm team failing to make the top four in the Caribbean), but Alpha’s now one win in Trinidad away from being the first-ever team from CONCACAF’s South American constituency to qualify for the Champions League, and the first one to make a CONCACAF tournament since 1993.