Lionel Messi will have this Thursday his long-awaited debut in the Concacaf Champions League, popularly known as the Concachampions, a historically adverse competition for American clubs.
The Rosario star and his Inter Miami will be playing from 11pm as visitors to the Nasvhille, for the first leg of the round of 16. The transmission will be on behalf of the platform Star+ and the return leg will be played in Miami on Wednesday the 13th.
The team led by Tata Martino qualified for the continental competition (Concacaf’s Libertadores) by winning the Leagues Cup last year, a tournament that included Mexican and Yankee clubs. Miami skipped the round of 16 and will be debuting directly in the round of 16 against the team they beat in the final of the aforementioned Leagues, which comes from eliminating Moca from the Dominican Republic by an aggregate of 7 to 0.
The round of 16 draw
Although there was a lot of expectation to see Messi play on different fields in Latin Americathe draw for the keys subsided as the majority of MLS teams and a couple of Mexican teams remained on Inter Miami’s side.
The winner of Miami-Nashvile will go against the winner of Cincinatti and Monterrey of Mexico. While on the other side the survivors of Columbus Crew-Houstony Orlando City-Tigres de México.
On the contrary, the other key has a Caribbean accent. The crosses are Pachuca of Mexico vs. Philadelphia (0-0 in the first leg in the USA) and Suriname’s Robinhood and Costa Rica’s Herediano on one side (2-0 in the first leg), y America vs. Guadalajara and Liga Deportiva Alajuelense of Costa Rica vs. New England Revolution of the other.
The history of the Concachampions
The Concachampions has been played since 1962 and is largely dominated by Mexican clubs, which have accumulated 38 titles. Then come the Costa Ricans with 6 coronations and just the American franchises, with 3, the same number as the casts from El Salvador. In addition, the clubs from Suriname, Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago, Honduras and Haiti add a pair each.
In any case, the Mexican and MLS teams dominated lately. Since 2008, a club that is not from these leagues has reached the final, the last one was the emblematic Saprissa of Costa Rica, being runner-up. Of the last 18 editions, 17 were for Mexico and one for the US.
The winningest club is América (7)followed by Cruz Azul (6), Pachuca and Monterrey (5), Saprissa and Pumas (3) among the most successful.
Inter Miami’s 2024 and how it would form
Reinforced with Luis Suárez, Inter Miami started the MLS with everything this year and leads its zone with 7 points out of a possible 9. On the last date it expired 5 to 0 to Orlando City with doubles for Messi and the Uruguayan.
This Thursday against Nashville (two draws in this MLS), Tata Martino will not have the team captain, winger DeAndre Yedlin, who was surprisingly sent these days to Cincinatti in exchange for 150 thousand dollars.
Thus, the team would consist of: Drake Callender; the Ukrainian Sergiy Kryvtsov, the exRacing Tomás Avilés, former Argentines Nicolás Freire, Jordi Alba; the German Julian Gressel, Sergio Busquets, the Paraguayan Diego Gómez; Messi, Suarez and the Finnish Robert Taylor.
The ex-Argentinos midfielder also plays in the pink team Federico Redondohe former Columbus Facundo Farías (injured) while everything would have already been arranged for the midfielder to join paraguayan exRacing and Defense and Justice Matthias Rojas.
