The final round of the 2013-14 CONCACAF Champions League group stage kicks off on Tuesday and while Sporting KC is not in action until Wedneday (7pm, Buy Tickets), there are matches on tonight's docket that Sporting KC will be paying close attention to.
Tuesday's schedule features two matches between Mexican and Costa Rican sides. At 7 p.m. CT, Club America hosts Alajuelense, while Herediano hosts Cruz Azul at 9 p.m. CT. Both matches can be seen on FOX Soccer 2Go.
America and Alajuelense are tied atop Group 4 with six points, but America holds the edge in overall goal differential. That means that only a win for Alajuelense woud put them through to the next round.
In Group 3, Cruz Azul holds a three-point lead over Herediano and a three-goal lead in the goal-differential category. So Herediano would need to defeat Cruz Azul by two or more goals to advance to the next round.
So what are we rooting for tonight?
The best case scenario is Herediano pulling off the upset over Cruz Azul and America and Alajuelense playing to a draw. That way, one of the groups would finish with a nine-point winner and the other with a seven-point winner.
So how would these results impact Sporting KC?
Sporting KC currently leads their group with seven points. The eight group winners in the group stage advance to the quarterfinals. Those teams are then re-seeded based on points earned in the group stage with goal-differential serving as the first tiebreaker (Sporting KC's is currently +4). The top four teams host the second leg of the quarterfinal series.
So why is this important?
Since the first edition of CONCACAF Champions League in 2008-09, no Mexican team has EVER lost to a non-Mexican team in a knockout round when the Mexican club was the higher seed.
You would need to go back to 2005 (when the tournament was called the CONCACAF Champions' Cup) to find the last Mexican club to lose in the knockout round when they hosted the second leg at home. That year, Costa Rican club Deportivo Saprissa drew Monterrey 2-2 at home in the first leg, tied Monterrey 1-1 in Mexico in the second leg, and then defeated the Mexican giants 5-3 on penalty kicks to advance to the championship round.
Ironically, Saprissa advanced to the semifinals after beating the then-KC Wizards 2-1 on aggregate in the quarterfinal leg.
So what does this all mean?
Sporting KC can finish with no more than 10 points in the group stage if they defeat Olimpia on Wednesday night. If they tie, they will advance to the quarterfinals with eight points. Currently, there are six teams that can win their group with at least 10 points, so Sporting KC will want to finish with as many points as possible and see as many group winners finish with as few points as possible to secure one of the top four seeds in the next round.
Now that we have thoroughly confused you, enjoy the games tonight and we'll see everyone at Sporting Park tomorrow!
