The Sister Tournaments - ACC & CFU Updates

The US Open Cup is in full swing at the midway point of the month-long, four-round blitz that will take the field of 64 down to eight. Meanwhile, on Wednesday the Amway Canadian Championship crowned a winner and this weekend the Caribbean Football Union will reduce the field down to the final group for the championship round.

Both tournaments will send representatives on to this summer's CONCACAF Champions League while the Open Cup winner will join the fray for next year's CCL. And if Puerto Rico Islanders get at least a draw Friday evening in the Cayman Islands, at least one club from the North American lower divisions will advance yet again, possibly two, from the CFU.

A Call for a Canadian Open Cup

Jonah Freedman of MLSsoccer.com may be onto something - though it has been a topic of discussion for a long while - with his feature column about expanding and opening the Amway Canadian Championship into an event more like the US Open Cup. The question behind the scenes over the years has been: "Can we create an Open Cup in Canada?" Politics and the same financial realities the American version faces were the main roadblocks over the years, particularly before Major League Soccer grew over the border.

With Toronto FC came a desire from the then lower division Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps to continue to show that they are just as good, despite the technical designation of the league. The three clubs, having built themselves to a professional capability on and off the field far superior to those in the other Canadian and Canadian-American leagues, came together, with the revamped CONCACAF Champions League on the horizon, and created the Canadian Championship. That event, obviously, has evolved with Vancouver and Montreal moving up to MLS while FC Edmonton was also founded.

But four years later, the question still remains. Can Canada, with a lot of fan and, seemingly, corporate support, finally expand the nation's championship event and make it open to all levels of the sport?

Canadian Championship kicks off Wednesday; Monterrey repeats as CCL champs

A week after CONCACAF crowned Monterrey champions and while the US Open Cup and its modern professional era record 64 entrants are busy preparing for the 99th edition of the tournament, the Amway Canadian Championship's fifth edition is about to kick off Wednesday evening with the three MLS clubs and one lower division NASL entrant.

FC Edmonton of the NASL and Montreal Impact, in their first season as an MLS club, will play host to the first leg matches. The second leg matches for the Canadian Championship are next Wednesday, April 9.

The Vancouver Whitecaps will head north with a 4-2-2 record in league play to face the winless FC Edmonton (0-3-1), who picked up their first point two weeks ago with a scoreless draw in Puerto Rico and ended their scoreless status in a wild 4-3 loss at their home opener 10 days ago.

Vancouver has yet to win the competition, finishing as runners-up the past three years. FC Edmonton is hoping to become the second lower division side to win the competition since the Montreal Impact accomplished the feat in the inaugural edition in 2008. It will be only the second all-Canadian match this season for Vancouver, who opened the MLS season with a 2-0 victory over the visiting Impact, who were making their league debut. Sebastien Le Toux and Camilo Sanvezzo scored in the match.

Tempete and Islanders clinch CCL berths; NCC delayed

In Guyana Wednesday night both Caribbean Football Union Semifinals ventured into overtime with Tempete of Haiti advancing via penalties against Trinidad’s Defence Force after a scoreless draw and the Puerto Rico Islanders scoring twice for a 3-1 victory against host Alpha United, clinching a record fourth consecutive appearance in the CONCACAF Champions League.

The Islanders are one of only three clubs that have now advanced to all four editions of the CCL, joining earlier qualifiers Isidro Metapan (El Salvador) and Olimpia (Honduras), who received a reprieve when the Belize champions, Defense Force, were withdrawn due to stadium standards. Cruz Azul (Mexico), Saprissa (Costa Rica) and Marathon (Honduras) are missing the tournament for the first time.

Three CCL berths handed out tonight

The Nutrilite Canadian Championship comes to a close Wednesday evening while the semifinals of the Caribbean Football Union championship will send another two clubs to this summer’s fourth edition of the CONCACAF Champions League.

A Tip of the Cap to the CCL Forgottens

For the past few weeks, there has been a lot of talk about Major League Soccer finally taking the CCL tournament seriously. And I think it is also safe to say that Mexican clubs who had not started taking it more seriously (even though the country has produced all the champions) will do so in the future out of fear of losing to MLS.

But in my opinion the forgotten individuals who deserve credit for the fantastic series we saw the past two weeks are those responsible for the stunning success of the Puerto Rico Islanders and Montreal Impact in previous years. These two clubs played a crucial part in the story leading up to this enthralling moment for three reasons.

CFU Championship continues, NCC nears

With the First Leg of the CONCACAF Champions League right around the corner, the Caribbean Football Union’s club championship tournament is a quarter of the way toward completing the field for the Final Four in Trinidad. In addition, the Nutrilite Canadian Championship is only a week away from the opening legs of the Semifinal contests. The two events account for four berths in the 2011-12 edition of the CCL.

Not having a home field proved fateful the second time around for USL Pro’s River Plate Puerto Rico as the club’s gallant attempt to play twice away from home in Guyana resulted in a narrow exit. They drew Alpha United in a scoreless affair in the opening leg April 15 and came up short in their attempt to rally in the second. Scoreless at halftime, things fell apart quickly with a red card eight minutes into the second, followed by a penalty and a second goal within five minutes. They fought back to close the gap to one twice, but the second goal in the 90^th proved too late as they fell 3-2.

CSA confirms 2011 NCC schedule

The Canadian Soccer Association has announced a new format for the Nutrilite Canadian Championship along with its 2011 schedule. For the first time, the competition will now feature four teams, with FC Edmonton added to the existing group of Toronto FC, Vancouver Whitecaps FC and Impact Montréal. The old round-robin format has been replaced by the combination of a home-and-away semi-final stage along with a home-and-away championship final.   Full Release +