Though the Seattle Sounders were unable to turn a great season into multiple championships, the club’s ability to juggle their championship Open Cup campaign with the Major League Soccer season and CONCACAF Champions League proved beneficial when the final whistle sounded for the 2011 MLS season.
By virtue of CCL qualification rules established by US Soccer and MLS, the Sounders were upgraded to automatic Group Stage entrants for the 2012-13 tournament courtesy of the Los Angeles Galaxy winning MLS Cup. The Open Cup champion and MLS Cup runner-up are slated to play in the Champions League Preliminary Round while the MLS Cup and Supporters’ Shield winners are placed into the group phase.
The qualification rules use the order of finish in MLS as the determinant for the alternates should those honors be claimed by the same club. With LA winning both MLS titles, one of the group berths became available. As the runners-up for the Supporters’ Shield the Sounders were advanced onto the Group Stage with the Galaxy.
Real Salt Lake was the first beneficiary of the qualification rules, earning the berth when LA advanced to a semifinal meeting against them. It ensured that either RSL would reach the final or earn the berth via the qualification rules since their opponent had already earned a berth and they were in line per the league’s order of finish. RSL, finalists in the 2010-11 CCL, finished the season third behind the Galaxy and the Sounders, who had also already qualified via the Open Cup.
MLS Cup runners-up Houston Dynamo are the fourth entrant. They fell, 1-0, to the Galaxy Sunday on a late second half tally. It is the third entry into the CCL for the Dynamo, the first team from MLS to reach the tournament Quarterfinals. As Group Stage entrants in 2008, Houston went 2-1-3 to advance to the final eight, falling 4-1 on aggregate to eventual champion Atlante after posting a 1-1 draw at home in the first leg.
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