The 2017 CONCACAF League (officially the 2017 Scotiabank CONCACAF League for sponsorship purposes) was the inaugural edition of the
CONCACAF League
The CONCACAF League was an annual continental club football competition organized by CONCACAF as its second-tier continental competition. It was announced on 8 May 2017.
The competition uses a knockout cup format with each round having two le ...
, a
football club competition organized by
CONCACAF
The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football,, ; french: Confédération de football d'Amérique du Nord, d'Amérique centrale et des Caraïbes, . Dutch uses the English name. abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; types ...
, the regional governing body of North America, Central America, and the Caribbean.
The tournament was created as part of a new CONCACAF club competition platform consisting of two tournaments (CONCACAF League and
CONCACAF Champions League
The CONCACAF Champions League, known officially as the Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League for sponsorship reasons, is an annual continental club football competition organized by CONCACAF. The tournament is contested by clubs from North Amer ...
) and a total of 31 teams competing during the season (an increase from the previous 24 teams), with 16 teams competing in the CONCACAF League from August to October, and the winner of the CONCACAF League joining the 15 direct entrants competing in the CONCACAF Champions League from February to April.
Details of the inaugural edition of the CONCACAF League was confirmed on 8 May 2017.
Olimpia defeated
Santos de Guápiles
Santos may refer to:
People
* Santos (surname)
* Santos (DJ) (born 1971), Italian DJ
*Santos Benavides (1823–1891), Confederate general in the American Civil War
*Santos Balmori Picazo (1899–1992), Spanish-Mexican painter
*Santos (footballer, ...
in the
final
Final, Finals or The Final may refer to:
* Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event
** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...
, and qualified for the
2018 CONCACAF Champions League
The 2018 CONCACAF Champions League (officially the 2018 Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League for sponsorship reasons) was the 10th edition of the CONCACAF Champions League under its current name, and overall the 53rd edition of the premier footb ...
.
Qualification
A total of 16 teams participate in the CONCACAF League:
*
Central American Zone: 13 teams (from six associations; ordinarily from seven associations, but Guatemalan teams were excluded from this season's tournament)
*
Caribbean Zone: 3 teams (from two or three associations)
Therefore, teams from either 8 or 9 out of the 41
CONCACAF
The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football,, ; french: Confédération de football d'Amérique du Nord, d'Amérique centrale et des Caraïbes, . Dutch uses the English name. abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; types ...
member associations may participate in the CONCACAF League.
Central America
The 13 berths for the
Central American Football Union
The Unión Centroamericana de Fútbol (Central American Football Union), more commonly known by the acronym UNCAF, represents the national football teams of Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and ...
(UNCAF) are allocated to the seven UNCAF member associations as follows: two berths for each of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Nicaragua, and one berth for Belize.
All of the leagues of Central America employ a
split season
A split season is a schedule format implemented in a variety of sports leagues. The season is divided into two parts, with the winners of both halves playing each other at the end for the overall championship.
Split seasons are usually found in sp ...
with two tournaments in one season, so the following teams qualify for the CONCACAF League:
*In the league of
Costa Rica, the champions with the worse aggregate record, and the non-champions with the best aggregate record, qualify. If there is any team which are champions of both tournaments, the non-champions with the second best aggregate record qualify.
*In the leagues of
El Salvador
El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by ...
,
Guatemala,
Honduras, and
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...
, the champions with the worse aggregate record, and the runners-up with the better aggregate record (or any team which are runners-up of both tournaments), qualify. If there is any team which are finalists of both tournaments, the runners-up with the worse aggregate record qualify. If there are any two teams which are finalists of both tournaments, the semi-finalists with the best aggregate record qualify.
*In the league of
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean Sea, Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to ...
, both champions qualify. If there is any team which are champions of both tournaments, the runners-up with the better aggregate record (or any team which are runners-up of both tournaments) qualify.
*In the league of
Belize
Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wa ...
, the champions with the better aggregate record (or any team which are champions of both tournaments) qualify.
If teams from any Central American associations are excluded, they are replaced by teams from other Central American associations, with the associations chosen based on results from previous CONCACAF Champions League tournaments. For this season, the two teams from Guatemala were excluded due to the suspension of their federation by FIFA and were replaced by an additional team each from Panama and Honduras.
Caribbean
The three berths for the
Caribbean Football Union
The Caribbean Football Union (CFU) is the representative organization for football associations in the Caribbean. It represents 25 FIFA member nations, as well as 6 territories that are not affiliated to FIFA. The Union was established in Januar ...
(CFU) are allocated via the
Caribbean Club Championship
The Caribbean Club Championship, also known as the CFU Club Championship or CFU Club Champions' Cup, was an annual international football competition held amongst association football clubs that are members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU). ...
, a subcontinental tournament open to the clubs of all 31 CFU member associations. To qualify for the Caribbean Club Championship, teams have to finish as the champions or runners-up of their respective association's league in the previous season, but professional teams may also be selected by their associations if they play in the league of another country.
The runners-up, third-placed and fourth-placed teams of the Caribbean Club Championship qualify for the CONCACAF League.
Teams
The following 16 teams (from eight associations) qualified for the tournament.
;Notes
Draw
The draw for the 2017 CONCACAF League was held on 31 May 2017, 19:00
EDT (
UTC−4), at the Hilton Miami Airport Hotel in
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at th ...
, and was streamed on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...
.
The draw determined each tie in the round of 16 (numbered 1 through 8) between a team from Pot 1 and a team from Pot 2, each containing eight teams. The "Bracket Position Pots" (Pot A and Pot B) contained the bracket positions numbered 1 through 8 corresponding to each tie. The teams from Pot 1 were assigned a bracket position from Pot A and the teams from Pot 2 were assigned a bracket position from Pot B. Teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other in the round of 16 except for "
wildcard
Wild card most commonly refers to:
* Wild card (cards), a playing card that substitutes for any other card in card games
* Wild card (sports), a tournament or playoff place awarded to an individual or team that has not qualified through normal pla ...
" teams which replaced a team from another association.
The 16 teams were distributed in the pots as follows:
Format
In the CONCACAF League, the 16 teams played a
single-elimination tournament
A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final mat ...
. Each tie was played on a home-and-away
two-legged basis. If the aggregate score was tied after the second leg, the
away goals rule
The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...
would be applied, and if still tied, the
penalty shoot-out
The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...
would be used to determine the winner (Regulations, II. D. Tie-Breaker Procedures).
Schedule
The schedule of the competition was as follows.
All times were
Eastern Daylight Time
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a sma ...
, i.e.,
UTC−4 (local times were in parentheses).
Bracket
Round of 16
In the round of 16, the matchups were decided by draw: R16-1 through R16-8. The teams from Pot 1 in the draw hosted the second leg.
Summary
The first legs were played on 1–3 August, and the second legs were played on 8–10 August 2017.
Matches
''Santos de Guápiles won 8–3 on aggregate.''
----
''Chorrillo won 2–0 on aggregate.''
----
''Árabe Unido won 5–1 on aggregate.''
----
''1–1 on aggregate. Águila won 4–3 on penalties.''
----
''Olimpia won 3–0 on aggregate.''
----
''Alianza won 4–2 on aggregate.''
----
''1–1 on aggregate. Plaza Amador won 5–4 on penalties.''
----
''Walter Ferretti won 5–1 on aggregate.''
Quarter-finals
In the quarter-finals, the matchups were determined as follows:
*QF1: Winner R16-1 vs. Winner R16-2
*QF2: Winner R16-3 vs. Winner R16-4
*QF3: Winner R16-5 vs. Winner R16-6
*QF4: Winner R16-7 vs. Winner R16-8
The winners of round of 16 matchups 1, 3, 5, 7 hosted the second leg.
Summary
The first legs were played on 15–17 August, and the second legs were played on 22–24 August 2017.
Matches
''Santos de Guápiles won 2–0 on aggregate.''
----
''Árabe Unido won 2–1 on aggregate.''
----
''Olimpia won 3–2 on aggregate.''
----
''Plaza Amador won 2–1 on aggregate.''
Semi-finals
In the semi-finals, the matchups were determined as follows:
*SF1: Winner QF1 vs. Winner QF2
*SF2: Winner QF3 vs. Winner QF4
The semi-finalists in each tie which had the better performance in previous rounds hosted the second leg.
Summary
The first legs were played on 13–14 September, and the second legs were played on 21 September 2017.
Matches
''Santos de Guápiles won 1–0 on aggregate.''
----
''Olimpia won 8–2 on aggregate.''
Final
In the final (Winner SF1 vs. Winner SF2), the finalists which had the better performance in previous rounds hosted the second leg.
Summary
The first leg was played on 19 October, and the second leg was played on 26 October 2017.
Matches
''1–1 on aggregate. Olimpia won 4–1 on penalties.''
Top goalscorers
Awards
See also
*
2018 CONCACAF Champions League
The 2018 CONCACAF Champions League (officially the 2018 Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League for sponsorship reasons) was the 10th edition of the CONCACAF Champions League under its current name, and overall the 53rd edition of the premier footb ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Concacaf League 2017
2017
File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...
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2018 CONCACAF Champions League
August 2017 sports events in North America
September 2017 sports events in North America
October 2017 sports events in North America