Olimpia is a team to never underestimate. I saw them in Hamilton against Forge in the CONCACAF league. Got to play 90 minutes against them and never slow down... Montreal next, hoping they can get a result at San Pedro Sulas
I'm not sure that I'd say Montreal is the favorite against Olimpia. Olimpia more or less earned that 4-4 aggregate draw with Seattle and didn't really have to ride their luck too much from what I saw, and Montreal did have to get a good deal of luck to get by Saprissa.
Quarterfinal pairings (first leg host listed first): Montreal vs. Olimpia Tigres vs. NYCFC LAFC vs. Cruz Azul America vs. Atlanta
I hope Mtl gets absolutely destroyed by Olimpia. Considering it is the weakest MLS team in CCL, it's not a far fetch if you take Olimpia's performance vs Seattle into account.
Wow, figures the first CCL game I watch in its entirety in years is Seattle crapping the bed. I hope they miss the playoffs.
MLS teams need to practice taking penalty kicks for hours 7 days a week. I honestly didn't see this coming. I had Saprissa and Seattle meeting in the next round. Really surprised by Olimpia! Don't see Montreal beating them but then again I won't be surprised if the team that is suppose to win, loses.
As I said early in the game, people are underestimating Olimpia. That is a good team. I don't understand the thinking that any team other than a Mexican team is cannon fodder that MLS teams should roll over.
I was rooting for Seattle, obviously, but I do have to admit that I like it when at least one non-MLS/Liga MX team makes the quarterfinals...I just prefer it to be at the expense of Liga MX.
Montreal is still the favorite, even if they aren't very good. They're not as big a favorite as Atlanta was against Motagua though. It's like a 60-40 proposition rather than 80-20. MLS teams have a 75% advancement rate against Central American sides - it takes a lot more than advancing on penalties against a choppy Seattle side to overturn the structural disadvantages Olimpia faces.
The Liga MX teams and Montreal probably should be favorites, but honestly would not be shocked by an upset in any of the four match ups. Great tournament so far. I love when champions league is good.
Expecting the champions to be able to hang on to a late lead is not viewing the opposition as cannon fodder.
Then again, the only Liga MX team to be eliminated is the one with the best overall record in 2019-20...
I think there is still a lot of followers who don't know or lived CCL to understand C.A. teams aren't push overs. Saprissa, alajuelense fc, alianza, olimpia arabe unido etc. all had respectable showings
A single play in these games and Montreal, Club America and Tigres could all be in the showers too. Both Mexico and MLS are lucky to have the amount of teams left in the competition that they do.
They dont watch CONCACAF League and are quick to forget that those were all Champions league teams. A change in format where they got those berths taken away from them doesn't change that
The format change is irrelevant. No CA team has made a semifinal in 4 tournaments. None have even been close. Just because they were "Champions League teams" doesn't mean they were actually good. There are a lot of people taking a team that just advanced on penalties a bit too seriously. Seattle's result here is a ********ing disaster. Like, I can't really emphasize it enough. It's like Arsenal losing to Olympiacos earlier today. It's the joint-worst result an MLS team has posted at home against a Central American team in the history of the CCL knockouts. This is the first time a Honduran team has reached the quarterfinals since 2015. It's the first time an MLS team has ever lost a knockout tie to a Honduran opponent. That's because this is the first time a Honduran team has EVER won a CCL knockout tie. Credit to Olimpia - they overcame massive odds against them to pull this off. But let's not pretend that Seattle shouldn't have won this. It's a disservice to Olimpia to say otherwise. And before this gets perceived as the "cannon fodder" that @onefineesq is talking about, that's not accurate. MLS teams should win every series they play against CA teams - the resources they have dictate that - but that doesn't mean the matches won't be tight. "Cannon fodder" in the Concacaf context is Mexico/USA v. CFU opponents.
I further notice that Olimpia's starting lineup included three players who have been in MLS and did very little in their time here. This was definitely an upset. That said, this CCL again shows one of the differences between MLS and Liga MX: the Liga MX teams always seem to figure out how to win ugly when they have to.
Since you used the word "ever", just a reminder that they were seeded with Liga MX teams in the group stage format when MLS teams (except Canadian clubs) didn't have too...important to not leave that out. You obviously didn't watch CONCACAF league. Olimpia is a good club never to be underestimated. It's fascinating how defensive some can get by daring calling a team "good", not necessarily "better". Relax, despite Seattle being favorites it was always going to be a tough matchup and it's false to say that they are league below Seattle. Do they finished dead last in MLS? Nope! Having faced each other in the past, it's not like Seattle completely crushed them either at that time, so it falls flat when you're implying that Olimpia were always leagues below. That's false. Reminder... they had to face Liga MX clubs when MLS didn't have too when there was the group stage format. Definately a factor Seattle should have won, but Olimpia winning isn't as a shock as it should be either. Seattle are in preseason form after all or isn't possible that...maybe Olimpia improved over the years as well?
Seattle losing to an amateur team absolutely negates all the good things MLS achieved this round. Not even joking. That result is so bad that nothing else that happened even matters. What a ********ing nightmare!!!! I hate soccer and I hate MLS.
I'm guessing you're skipping over the Anglophone Caribbean, then? There are fewer than 10 countries in Concacaf where football is the #1 sport: - Mexico - Guatemala - El Salvador - Honduras - Costa Rica - Haiti - (maybe Suriname IDK) Everywhere else, the sport currently takes a back seat to American football (US/Canada), hockey (Canada), baseball (US, Hispanophone Caribbean, Nicaragua, Panama) and cricket (Anglophone Caribbean), although times are changing. In particular, MLB's utter negligence with managing access to the World Baseball Classic has allowed soccer to arguably equal baseball, if not overtake it, in Panama; Nicaragua's headed in the same direction, and even the Dominican Republic could go the same way in a distant future.