User:Quidster4040/sandbox/2016–17 CONCACAF SuperLiga

The 2016–17 CONCACAF SuperLiga will be the 11th season of North America's secondary club football tournament organised by CONCACAF.

The 2017 CONCACAF SuperLiga Final was played between Seattle Sounders FC and León at the Thomas Robinson Stadium in Nassau, Bahamas, and won by Seattle, their first title.

Querétaro were the defending champions. They qualified for the 2016–17 CONCACAF Champions League group stage as the SuperLiga title holders, and participated in the SuperLiga after finishing third in their Champions League group. Querétaro were eliminated in the Round of 32 by eventual semifinalists, Portland Timbers.

Association ranking
For the 2016–17 CONCACAF SuperLiga, the associations are allocated places according to their 2015 CONCACAF country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in North American competitions from 2010–11 to 2014–15. In this scenario, the island territories of the Crasqui Islands, Culebra, Vieques are allowed to submit their domestic cup winner, since there is no formal league.

Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations may have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:
 * (CL) – Additional berth for Champions League participants

† For competitive reasons, the Falkland Islands participate in CONCACAF competitions.

Teams
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
 * CW: Cup winners
 * 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, etc.: League position
 * LC: League Cup winners
 * RW: Regular season winners
 * PW: End-of-season European competition play-offs winners
 * CL: Transferred from Champions League
 * GS: Third-placed teams from group stage
 * PO: Losers from play-off round
 * Q3: Losers from third qualifying round

Round and draw dates
The schedule of the competition is as follows (all draws held at CONCACAF headquarters in New York City, United States, unless stated otherwise).

Matches in the qualifying, play-off, and knockout rounds may also be played on Tuesdays or Wednesdays instead of the regular Thursdays due to scheduling conflicts.

First qualifying round
The first legs will be played on 28 and 30 June, and the second legs will be played on 5, 6 and 7 July 2016. 


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Second qualifying round
The first legs will be played on 12–14 July, and the second legs will be played on 19–21 July 2016. 


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Third qualifying round



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Play-off round
The draw for the play-off round will be held on 5 August 2016. The first legs will be played on 18 August, and the second legs will be played on 25 August 2016.

A total of 44 teams are expected to play in the play-off round: the 29 winners of the third qualifying round, and the 15 losers of the 2016–17 CONCACAF Champions League third qualifying round.


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Group stage

 * Main article: 2016–17 CONCACAF SuperLiga group stage

The draw for the group stage will be held on 26 August 2016, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The 48 teams are drawn into twelve groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association cannot be drawn against each other. For the draw, the teams are seeded into four pots based on their 2016 CONCACAF club coefficients.

In each group, teams play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advance to the round of 32, where they are joined by the eight third-placed teams of the 2016–17 CONCACAF Champions League group stage. The matchdays are 15 September, 29 September, 20 October, 3 November, 24 November, and 8 December 2016.

A total of 48 teams play in the group stage: 16 teams which enter in this stage, the 22 winners of the play-off round, and the 10 losers of the 2016–17 CONCACAF Champions League play-off round.

Knockout phase

 * Main article: 2016–17 CONCACAF SuperLiga knockout phase

In the knockout phase, teams play against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis. The mechanism of the draws for each round is as follows:
 * In the draw for the round of 32, the twelve group winners and the four third-placed teams from the Champions League group stage with the better group records are seeded, and the twelve group runners-up and the other four third-placed teams from the Champions League group stage are unseeded. The seeded teams are drawn against the unseeded teams, with the seeded teams hosting the second leg. Teams from the same group or the same association cannot be drawn against each other.
 * In the draws for the round of 16 onwards, there are no seedings, and teams from the same group or the same association can be drawn against each other.
 * If any association sends two teams to the semifinals, those teams will automatically be paired with each other and the draw will only be used to determine which team hosts the second leg of each semifinal match-up.

Round of 32



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Round of 16



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Quarterfinals



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Semifinals



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Final

 * Main article: 2017 CONCACAF SuperLiga Final