The club is beginning to get a better picture of how its 2013 season will open as the dates for the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals have been finalized.
Slowly, the Sounders FC is filling out their calendar for the 2013 season.
On Tuesday, the club learned that they would be facing the Montreal Impact in their 2013 regular season opener on March 2 at CenturyLink Field.
Then on Wednesday, CONCACAF announced the dates and times of the quarterfinal matches for the CONCACAF Champions League. After opening the MLS season on Saturday, March 2, the Sounders will travel to Monterrey, Mexico, to meet Tigres in the first leg of their quarterfinal series on Wednesday, March 6. The return leg will fall on Tuesday, March 12 at CenturyLink Field. The Sounders will not play a match on the weekend between the two legs of the series.
This is Seattle’s second straight appearance in the CCL quarterfinals, with the Sounders posting a 2-1 win at home before falling 7-3 on aggregate to Santos Laguna last year.
In the current Champions League cycle, the Sounders went 4-0-0 in the Group Stage, with victories at home and on the road against Marathon from Honduras and Caledonia from Trinidad to win Group 4 and earn the No. 3 seed in the quarterfinals.
There they will meet a Tigres side that went 2-0-2 in Group 6, topping Costa Rica’s Alajuelense and Real Esteli from Honduras. They posted 5-0 and 4-0 wins, respectively, over their two opposing sides when playing at home at Estadio Universitario, but only managed draws on the road.
Tigres finished 12th in the 2012 Apertura season in Mexico’s Primera Division after finished fifth in the Clausura. The team won the 2011 Apertura and is making its first appearance in the Champions League. They feature two US National Team players in right back Jonathan Bornstein and midfielders Jose Francisco Torres.
The winner of the aggregate-goal series will advance to the semifinal, where they will meet the winner of the series between the Houston Dynamo and Santos Laguna.
On the other side of the bracket, the LA Galaxy face Costa Rica’s Herediano while top-seeded Monterrey will meet Xelaju from Guatemala.
The winner of the 2012/13 CONCACAF Champions League will earn a berth to the 2013 FIFA Club World Cup in Morocco.
