Concacaf announced on Wednesday afternoon that the draw for this year’s Concacaf League competition will be conducted on Wednesday, June 8 at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT) in Miami, Florida.
Pacific FC will be representing the Canadian Premier League for the first time in their history, having qualified for the continental competition by winning the CPL championship last December.
This year, the Canadian club will be seeded in Pot 1 for the draw rather than Pot 2, following successful runs in recent years by Forge FC that improved the coefficient for the CAN2 spot. As a result, Pacific will draw a lower-ranked team and host the second leg of their preliminary round tie at Starlight Stadium in a bid to advance to the quarterfinals.
Forge are the only other CPL club to participate in the Concacaf League, and their 2021 campaign was their most successful as they advanced all the way to the semifinals (qualifying for the Concacaf Champions League in the process) before bowing out to Honduran club FC Motagua.
Concacaf also revealed the tentative schedule for this year’s tournament, which is as follows:
Preliminary Round: July 26-28 (first legs) and August 2-4 (second legs)
Round of 16: August 16-18 (first legs) and August 23-25 (second legs)
Quarterfinals: September 6-8 (first legs) and September 13-15 (second legs)
Semifinals: October 4-6 (first legs) and October 11-13 (second legs)
Finals: October 25-27 (first leg) and November 1-3 (second leg)
Of the 22 clubs from across North and Central America competing in this year’s tournament, Pacific could possibly draw six of them from Pot 2 for the first round: CD Águila (El Salvador), Atletico Vega Real (Dominican Republic), Real Esteli FC (Nicaragua), CD Malacateco (Guatemala), Verdes FC (Belize), and either Waterhouse FC (Jamaica) or Bayamón FC (Puerto Rico) from the Concacaf Caribbean Club Championship.
This year’s Concacaf League is expected to be the final edition of the tournament, with the Concacaf Champions League expanding and moving to a new format beginning in 2023.
More information on the draw process is available here.