For those of you out there that don’t have access to Fox Sports 2, you missed a hell of a CONCACAF Champions League match last night in Montreal. The Montreal Impact held the “advantage” of being the home team for the second leg of the two-legged series. If you want the details of what happened Tuesday night, go check out this link.
A game like last night is why it is good for Major League Soccer to be in competitions like CONCACAF Champions League. Some will argue that MLS needs to ditch their participation in the tournament because nobody cares or shows up.
Montreal would disagree. 38,104 supporters were in attendance for the game as the Impact made history as being the first ever Canadian team to defeat a Mexican team in this current version of the CCL. Sure it is obnoxious that teams have to travel during the middle of the week thousands of miles to play a “meaningless” game.
These games aren’t meaningless. They are important for the growth of MLS in the eyes of other countries. In the end do we really care what other leagues and countries think about MLS? Some of you out there do and some of you don’t. Others will say only the deep pockets teams can make runs in the CCL. That’s not true either. Since the current incarnation of CCL, only one MLS team has made it to the finals. That was Real Salt Lake in the 2010-2011 version of the tournament. Salt Lake is a lower budgeted team in the league and builds their team on defense first. MLS teams are progressively getting better through-out the years in the tournament.
The teams playing in the tournament is what makes it really interesting. Look at D.C. United, who in 2013 won a total of three games, are playing in the quarter finals of the 2014-2015 CCL tournament. They gained entry into the tournament by winning the United States’ domestic tournament, the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. Montreal who gained entry by winning the AMWAY Canadian Championship, a tournament to determine the best team in Canada, finished with a total of six wins in 2014.
Sure, it's not the best teams always out there playing, but everyone knows once you are in tournament, it’s anyone's ballgame. D.C. United went from being one the worst team in 2013 to winning the Eastern Conference in 2014. That is why they are playing so well, they are a completely different team than the one that gained entry into the tournament. Montreal was fortunate enough to win the 2014 AMWAY Championship and are also a completely different team now that they are about to start the 2015 MLS season.
When the CCL first began, MLS teams were a road to the final for Mexican teams. The tables are slowing turning and showing that MLS teams can compete with some of the better Mexican teams. There will be cases when MLS teams will be nothing more than a stomping mat, but those will be far and few between.
If anything, teams such as DC United and Montreal show why Major League Soccer should continue to compete in CONCACAF Champions League.