Concacaf has announced the draw procedures and pots for the 2021 edition of the Scotiabank Concacaf Champions League tournament. The TV event will take place on Wednesday, February 10 at 7 p.m. ET.
The four MLS qualifiers – Atlanta United, Columbus Crew, Philadelphia Union and Portland Timbers, and Toronto FC if they win their Canadian championship final – will all be placed in Pot A. All Liga MX qualifiers are also played in Pot A with the exception of Club Leon.
The draw will be conducted by Concacaf Competition Director Carlos Fernandez, who will be joined by former Mexico international Enrique Borja and Orlando City SC head coach Oscar Pareja.
The draw will be broadcast to fans on Concacaf’s TV partner networks, including FOX Sports (US-English), TUDN (US-Spanish), TSN and RDS (Canada-English and French), as well as other local partners.
The full breakdown of the drawing process as per Concacaf’s publication on Thursday can be found below.
2021 SCCL drawing procedure
The official drawing is carried out with a double-blind system and four pots. Pots 1 and 2 contain the balls with the names of the 16 participating clubs. Pots A and B contain the balls with the bracket positions for the round of 16.
Based on the 2021 SCCL ranking, the clubs in pots 1 and 2 will be distributed as follows (in alphabetical order by country):
Pot 1 (clubs in place 1-8): Forge FC or Toronto FC (CAN), CF Monterrey (MEX), Club America (MEX), Cruz Azul (MEX), Atlanta United FC (USA), Columbus Crew SC (USA), Philadelphia Union (USA) and Portland Timbers ( USA) USA).
Pot 2 (clubs 9-16): Deportivo Saprissa (CRC), LD Alajuelense (CRC), Club Atletico Pantoja (DOM), FC Arcahaie (HAI), CD-Marathon (HON), CD Olimpia (HON), Club Leon (MEX) and Real Esteli FC (NCA) .
The round of 16 bracket positions is divided into pots A and B as follows:
Pot A: A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7 and A8.
Pot B: B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7 and B8.
The draw begins with the random selection of a ball from Pot 1, followed by a ball from Pot A to confirm the position of the bracket. The same procedure applies to the remaining clubs in Pot 1, always drawing one club followed by a bracket position from Pot A.
Once the eight clubs in Pot 1 have been matched up, the first ball from Pot 2 is drawn at random, followed by a ball with a bracket position from Pot B. The same procedure applies to all Pot 2 balls.
At the end of the draw, one club from each pot and no more than one club from each country will be represented in each round of 16. According to the competition rules, clubs from the same country cannot face each other in the round of 16.
Concacaf will announce a full schedule in the coming weeks.
