User:Quidster4040/sandbox/2020–21 CONCACAF SuperLiga

The 2020–21 CONCACAF SuperLiga is the 15th season of North America's secondary club football tournament organised by CONCACAF.

The 2021 CONCACAF SuperLiga Final will be played at Allianz Field in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States.

This edition of the tournament will be different from previous versions. The group stage will shrink from 48 to 32 teams. The knockout stage will still feature 32 teams. 16 teams from group stage, plus eight third place teams in the Champions League and eight group winners from the newly created CONCACAF Confederations League.

Association team allocation
A total of 215 (expected) teams from all 41 CONCACAF member associations participate in the 2020–21 CONCACAF SuperLiga. The association ranking based on the CONCACF country coefficients is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:
 * Associations 1–50 (except Liechtenstein) each have three teams qualify.
 * Associations 51–55 each have two teams qualify (starting from this season, with association 51 losing one spot and association 55 gaining one spot).
 * Moreover, 57 teams eliminated from the 2020–21 CONCACAF Champions League are transferred to the Europa League.

Association ranking
For the 2019–20 CONCACAF SuperLiga, the associations are allocated places according to their 2017 CONCACAF country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in North American competitions from 2014–15 to 2018–19.

Distribution
The following is the access list for this season.

In the default access list, the title holders of the CONCACAF Confederations League qualify for the group stage. However, since this berth is not used for this season, the following changes to the access list are made:
 * The cup winners of association 7 enter the group stage instead of the play-off round.
 * The cup winners of associations 13 and 14 enter the play-off round instead of the third qualifying round.

Changes will be made to the access list above, if any of the teams that qualify for the SuperLiga via their domestic competitions also qualify for the Champions League as the Champions League or SuperLiga title holders, or if there are fewer teams transferred from the Champions League due to changes in the Champions League access list. In any case where a spot in the SuperLiga is vacated, teams of the highest-ranked associations in earlier rounds will be promoted accordingly.

Teams
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
 * CW: Cup winners
 * 4th, 5th, etc.: League position of the previous season


 * UCL: Transferred from the Champions League
 * GS: Third-placed teams from the group stage
 * CH/LP PO: Losers from the play-off round (Champions/League Path)
 * CH/LP Q3: Losers from the third qualifying round (Champions/League Path)
 * CH/LP Q2: Losers from the second qualifying round (Champions/League Path)

The third qualifying round is divided into Champions Path (CH) and Main Path (MP).

Notes

Schedule
The schedule of the competition is as follows (all draws are held at the CONCACAF headquarters in New York City, United States, unless stated otherwise). The tournament would originally have started in June 2020, but had been delayed to August due to the COVID-19 pandemic in North America. The new schedule was announced by the CONCACAF Executive Committee on 17 June 2020.

All qualifying matches, including the play-off round, will be played as single leg matches, with all matches being played at the Toyota Stadium Soccer Complex near Dallas, United States, and will be played behind closed doors.

The original schedule of the competition, as planned before the pandemic, was as follows (all draws held at the CONCACAF headquarters in New York City, United States, unless stated otherwise).

Qualification

 * Main: 2020–21 CONCACAF SuperLiga qualifying phase and play-off round

Third qualifying round
Third qualifying round matches were held on 17 August 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, matches were played as a single leg at a neutral venue. 


 * +Champions Path


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 * +Main Path


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Play-off round
Play-off round matches were held on 19 August 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, matches were played as a single leg at a neutral venue. 


 * +Champions Path


 * }


 * +Main Path


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 * A : The play-off round match between W Connection and San Pedro Pirates, originally scheduled to be played on 19 August 2020, was postponed to 23 August 2020 due to several members from San Pedro Pirates' delegation testing positive for SARS-2 coronavirus and the whole team being put into quarantine by the American authorities. On 23 August, the match could not be played due to nine players from San Pedro Pirates testing positive for SARS-2 coronavirus and the whole second team being put into quarantine by the American authorities. W Connection were subsequently awarded a technical 3–0 victory by CONCACAF according to the regulations related to COVID-19.
 * B : The play-off round match between Sanarate and UNAM, originally scheduled to be played on 19 August 2020, was postponed to 24 August 2020 due to several members from UNAM's delegation testing positive for SARS-2 coronavirus and the whole team being put into quarantine by the American authorities. On 24 August, the match could not be played due to eleven players from UNAM testing positive for SARS-2 coronavirus and the whole second team being put into quarantine by the American authorities. Sanarate were subsequently awarded a technical 3–0 victory by CONCACAF according to the regulations related to COVID-19.

Group stage

 * Main: 2020–21 CONCACAF SuperLiga group stage

The draw for the group stage was held on 7 September 2020, 13:00 Eastern Time, at the Knight Center Complex in Miami. The 32 teams were drawn into twelve groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots based on their 2019 CONCACAF club coefficients.

In each group, teams played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The eight group winners advanced to the round of 16, where they played the winners of the preliminary knockout round. The eight group runners-up played the eight third-placed teams of the 2020–21 CONCACAF Champions League group stage.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in North America, all group stage matches were moved to neutral venues with matches played behind closed doors. There were three sites hosting two matches each for the total of six matches. Consequently, the match days for the group stage were 22 September 2020, 25 September 2020, 5 November 2020, 8 November 2020, 4 January 2021, 7 January 2021.

A total of 21 national associations were represented in the group stage. Sanarate, Once Deportivo, Jicaral, and Minnesota United made their debut appearances in the group stage.

Knockout phase

 * ''Main article: 2020–21 CONCACAF SuperLiga knockout phase

Preliminary knockout round
The third place finishers from the Champions League group stage and the runners-up from the SuperLiga group stage will participate in the preliminary knockout round. The first legs will be played on 10–11 March 2021, and the return legs will be played on 17–18 March 2021.


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Round of 16
The first leg were played on 8 April 2021 and the second leg were played on 15 April 2021. 


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Quarterfinals
The first leg were played on 29 April 2021 and the second leg were played on 6 May 2021. 


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Semifinals
The first legs were played on 20 May 2021 and the second legs were played on 27 May 2021. 


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Final
The final will be played on 4 June 2021.