CONCACAF Champions League: American Sides Unlikely to make Impact

Oswaldo Sanchez and San­tos Laguna are among the favorites

The CONCACAF Cham­pi­ons League begins Tues­day night with four of the six par­tic­i­pat­ing US and Cana­dian based teams in action.

Here are my favorites for the tour­na­ment and what sides from the US & Canada have a real­is­tic shot of advanc­ing deep in the competition.

Favorites:

San­tos Laguna (MEX)

Saprissa (CRC)

UNAM Pumas (MEX)

Cruz Azul (MEX)

Ala­jue­lense (CRC)

I believe their is a 85% chance one of the above five teams will win the competition.

Poten­tial Spoilers:

Hous­ton Dynamo (USA)

Olimpia (HON)

CD Munic­i­pal (GUA)

Atlante (MEX)

New Eng­land Rev­o­lu­tion (USA)

The chances of one of the above sides win­ning the com­pe­ti­tion is 10%

Could com­pete but will not win event

DC United (USA)

Marathon (HON)

Jalapa (GUA)

San Fran­cisco (PAN)

Har­bour View (JAM)

Mon­treal Impact (CAN)

The chances of one of the above sides win­ning the title is 4%

No real­is­tic chance to advance beyond the group stage (if they make it that far)

Puerto Rico Islanders (PUR)

Chivas USA (USA)

Tauro (PAN)

Joe Pub­lic (T&T)

Real Esteli (NGA)

Firpo (SLV)

Meta­pan (SLV)

Han­kook Verdes (BLZ)

The teams on the above list have col­lec­tively about a 1% chance of win­ning the title.

What we have in CONCACAF is an imbal­ance that you will not find in Europe or South Amer­ica. We have one world class league in Mex­ico, one very strong league in Costa Rica, two emerg­ing leagues in the Amer­i­can first divi­sion (MLS) as well as Hon­duran league and bunch of weak domes­tic leagues that have at best two decent sides. So in other words it is com­pletely unre­al­is­tic to expect any team from out­side Mex­ico or Costa Rica to win this com­pe­ti­tion in the near future.

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