2010–11 CONCACAF Champions League

2010–11 CONCACAF Champions League

Tournament details
Dates	July 27, 2010–April 27, 2011
Teams	24 (from 10 associations)
Final positions
Champions	Monterrey (1st title)
Runners-up	Real Salt Lake
Tournament statistics
Matches played	78
Goals scored	241 (3.09 per match)
Attendance	657,012 (8,423 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Javier Orozco (11 goals)

The 2010–11 CONCACAF Champions League was the 3rd edition of the CONCACAF Champions League under its current format, and overall the 46th edition of the premier football club competition organized by CONCACAF, the regional governing body of North America, Central America and the Caribbean. The tournament began on July 27, 2010 and ended on April 27, 2011.^[1] Monterrey of Mexico won their first title, defeating Real Salt Lake of the United States 3-2 on aggregate in the final. As winners, Monterrey qualified for the 2011 FIFA Club World Cup as the CONCACAF representative.

Qualification

Twenty-four teams participated in the 2010–11 CONCACAF Champions League from the North American, Central American, and Caribbean zones.^[2] Nine of the teams came from North America, twelve from Central America, and three from the Caribbean.

Teams may be disqualified and replaced if they don't have a stadium for the tournament that CONCACAF deems suitable. If a club fails to meet the standards for its home stadium, this club must find a suitable stadium in its own country. If said club fails to provide the adequate facilities, it runs the risk of being replaced.^[3]

• Central America: 12 Central American clubs can qualify to the Champions League. If one or more clubs is precluded, it is supplanted by a club from another Central American federation. The reallocation would be based on results from the 2009–10 CONCACAF Champions League.

• Caribbean: If any Caribbean club is precluded, it is supplanted by the "2010 CFU Club Championship" 4th place finisher.

For the Central American representatives that qualify via split seasons, in nations that play a playoff to determine a national champion, the winner gains the nation's top spot, and in nations that don't, total points over both seasons, followed by other tiebreakers, determine which team gains the nation's top spot.

After having analyzed previous results, the CONCACAF Executive Committee approved a reallocation of berths compared to the previous two seasons, giving Panama one automatic place in the Group Stage while making both of El Salvador's qualifiers go through the Preliminary Round.^[4]

Teams

Teams in bold qualify directly for the Group Stage.

Association	Club	Qualifying method
North America (9 teams)
Mexico 4 berths	Monterrey	2009 Apertura champion
	Toluca	2010 Bicentenario champion
	Cruz Azul	2009 Apertura runner-up
	Santos Laguna	2010 Bicentenario runner-up
United States 4 berths	Real Salt Lake	2009 MLS Cup champion
	Columbus Crew	2009 MLS Supporters' Shield winner
	Los Angeles Galaxy	2009 MLS Cup runner-up
	Seattle Sounders FC	2009 U.S. Open Cup champion
Canada 1 berth	Toronto FC	2010 Canadian Championship champion
Central America (12 teams)
Honduras 3 berths	Marathón	2009 Apertura champion
	Olimpia	2010 Clausura champion
	Motagua	2010 Clausura runner-up1
Panama 3 berths	Árabe Unido	2009 Apertura champion and 2010 Clausura champion
	Tauro	2009 Apertura runner-up
	San Francisco	2010 Clausura runner-up1
Costa Rica 2 berths	Brujas	2009 Invierno champion
	Saprissa	2010 Verano champion
Guatemala 2 berths	Municipal	2009 Apertura champion and 2010 Clausura champion
	Xelajú	2010 Clausura runner-up with better aggregate record
El Salvador 2 berths	FAS	2009 Apertura champion
	Isidro Metapán	2010 Clausura champion
Caribbean (3 teams)
Puerto Rico	Puerto Rico Islanders	2010 CFU Club Championship champion
Trinidad and Tobago	Joe Public	2010 CFU Club Championship runner-up
	San Juan Jabloteh	2010 CFU Club Championship third place

¹ Berths originally awarded to Belize (Belize Defence Force) and Nicaragua (Real Estelí), but both countries failed CONCACAF stadium requirements, so the spots vacated were awarded to Honduras (Motagua) and Panama (San Francisco) based on the performances of clubs from those countries last season.^[5]

Format

Like the previous editions, the tournament featured a two-legged Preliminary Round for 16 clubs. The eight winners of the aggregate series qualified along with the eight seeded teams that earned a direct spot to enter the Group Stage. The clubs involved in Group Stage were placed into four groups of four with each team playing the others in its group in both home and away matches in a round-robin format. The top two teams from each group advanced to the Quarterfinals of the Championship Round, which consisted of two-legged, home and away, knockout fixtures. For the two-legged ties, the away goals rule would be used, but not after a tie enters extra time, and so a tie would be decided by penalty shootout if the aggregate score is level after extra time.^[6]

Teams from the same association (excluding "wildcard" teams which replace a team from another association) may not be drawn with each other in the Preliminary Round and Group Stage, but may be drawn with each other in the Championship Round, where the only restriction is that in the quarterfinals, a group winner was drawn with the runner-up of another group and hosted the second leg.

Group Stage
Pot A	Monterrey	Toluca	Columbus Crew	Real Salt Lake
Pot B	Saprissa	Olimpia	Municipal	Árabe Unido
Preliminary Round
Pot A	Cruz Azul	Santos Laguna	Los Angeles Galaxy	Seattle Sounders FC
	Brujas	Marathón	FAS	Toronto FC
Pot B	Xelajú	Tauro	Isidro Metapán	Motagua
	San Francisco	Puerto Rico Islanders	Joe Public	San Juan Jabloteh

Schedule

Preliminary Round

The draw for the Preliminary Round and the Group Stage was held on May 19, 2010, at the CONCACAF headquarters in New York City.^[7] The first legs of the Preliminary Round were played July 27–29, 2010, while the second legs were played August 3–5, 2010.^[1]

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
FAS	3–1	Xelajú	1–1	2–0
Brujas	4–6	Joe Public	2–2	2–4
San Juan Jabloteh	0–6	Santos Laguna	0–1	0–5
San Francisco	2–9	Cruz Azul	2–3	0–6
Los Angeles Galaxy	3–5	Puerto Rico Islanders	1–4	2–1
Tauro	2–4	Marathón	0–3	2–1
Seattle Sounders FC	2–1	Isidro Metapán	1–0	1–1
Toronto FC	3–2	Motagua	1–0	2–2

Group stage

The Group Stage was played in 6 rounds during August–October 2010. The rounds are August 17–19, August 24–26, September 14–16, September 21–23, September 28–30, and October 19–21.^[1]

Group A

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Real Salt Lake 6 4 1 1 17 11 +6 13 Cruz Azul 6 3 1 2 15 9 +6 10 Toronto FC 6 2 2 2 5 7 −2 8 Árabe Unido 6 1 0 5 4 14 −10 3

ÁRA CRU RSL TOR Árabe Unido – 0–6 2–3 1–0 Cruz Azul 2–0 – 5–4 0–0 Real Salt Lake 2–1 3–1 – 4–1 Toronto FC 1–0 2–1 1–1 –

Group B

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Santos Laguna 6 4 1 1 19 7 +12 13 Columbus Crew 6 4 0 2 10 4 +6 12 Municipal 6 2 2 2 9 13 −4 8 Joe Public 6 0 1 5 7 21 −14 1

CLB JOE MUN SAN Columbus Crew – 3–0 1–0 1–0 Joe Public 1–4 – 2–3 2–5 Municipal 2–1 1–1 – 2–2 Santos Laguna 1–0 5–1 6–1 –

Group C

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Monterrey 6 5 1 0 11 4 +7 16 Saprissa 6 3 1 2 11 7 +4 10 Marathón 6 2 0 4 5 11 −6 6 Seattle Sounders FC 6 1 0 5 6 11 −5 3

MAR MON SAP SEA Marathón – 0–1 2–1 2–1 Monterrey 2–0 – 1–0 3–2 Saprissa 4–1 2–2 – 2–0 Seattle Sounders FC 2–0 0–2 1–2 –

Group D

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Olimpia 6 4 1 1 12 7 +5 13 Toluca 6 3 1 2 15 5 +10 10 Puerto Rico Islanders 6 2 2 2 8 10 −2 8 FAS 6 0 2 4 2 15 −13 2

FAS OLI PRI TOL FAS – 1–4 0–0 0–0 Olimpia 2–0 – 3–0 2–1 PR Islanders 4–1 1–1 – 3–2 Toluca 5–0 4–0 3–0 –

Championship Round

Bracket

The draw for the Championship Round was made on November 1, 2010.^[8] In the quarterfinals, the group winners were assured of playing the second leg at home, and were drawn against the group runners-up, with the only restriction being that they could not face the same team that it played in the Group Stage (and thus they may face a team from the same association).

	Quarterfinals						Semifinals						Finals
	Toluca	0	0	0
	Monterrey	1	1	2
							Monterrey	2	1	3
							Cruz Azul	1	1	2
	Cruz Azul	2	3	5
	Santos Laguna	0	1	1
													Monterrey	2	1	3
													Real Salt Lake	2	0	2
	Columbus Crew	0	1	1
	Real Salt Lake	0	4	4
							Real Salt Lake	2	1	3
							Saprissa	0	2	2
	Saprissa	1	2	3
	Olimpia	0	1	1

Quarterfinals

The first legs of the Quarterfinals were played February 22–24, 2011, and the second legs were played March 1–3, 2011.^[1]

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Toluca	0–2	Monterrey	0–1	0–1
Cruz Azul	5–1	Santos Laguna	2–0	3–1
Columbus Crew	1–4	Real Salt Lake	0–0	1–4
Saprissa	3–1	Olimpia	1–0	2–1

Semifinals

The first legs of the Semifinals were played March 15–16, 2011, and the second legs were played April 5–6, 2011.^[1]

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Real Salt Lake	3–2	Saprissa	2–0	1–2
Monterrey	3–2	Cruz Azul	2–1	1–1

Finals

The first leg of the Final was played April 20, 2011, and the second leg was played April 27, 2011.^[1]

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Monterrey	3–2	Real Salt Lake	2–2	1–0

CONCACAF Champions League 2010–11 Champion
Monterrey First Title

Top goalscorers

Pos	Name	Club	Goals
1	Javier Orozco	Cruz Azul	11
2	Álvaro Saborío	Real Salt Lake	8
	Emanuel Villa	Cruz Azul	8
3	Héctor Mancilla	Toluca	6
4	José María Cárdenas	Santos Laguna	5
	Juan Cuevas	Toluca	5
	Roger Rojas	Olimpia	5
5	Christian Giménez	Cruz Azul	4
	Nicholas Addlery	Puerto Rico Islanders	4
	Claudio Cardozo	Marathón	4
	Aldo de Nigris	Monterrey	4
	David Foley	Puerto Rico Islanders	4
	Guillermo Ramírez	Municipal	4
	Humberto Suazo	Monterrey	4

References

External links

• CONCACAF Champions League official website