- The CONCACAF Champions League final will be an all-Mexican contest for the seventh time in nine seasons
- MLS pair Vancouver Whitecaps and FC Dallas fall at penultimate hurdle
- Tigres, Pachuca one step away from FIFA Club World Cup UAE 2017
Tigres and Pachuca will meet in yet another all-Mexican CONCACAF Champions League final after they won their respective semi-finals this week.
The winner of this month’s final will represent the confederation at the FIFA Club World Cup UAE 2017. Tigres won through to the final with a 2-1 win (4-1 on aggregate) at Vancouver Whitecaps on Wednesday.
Twenty-four hours earlier, four-time winners Pachuca earned a dramatic 3-1 home win (4-3 on aggregate) over FC Dallas. While it will be a seventh all-Mexican final in the past nine seasons, the two semi-finals were far from routine wins for the Liga MX pair.
Boasting a 2-0 first-leg advantage, Tigres were pegged back at BC Place as Brek Shea scored for the Whitecaps inside the opening few minutes. The tie remained on a knife edge until prolific French striker Andre-Pierre Gignac scored a stunning equaliser on the hour mark, before Damian Alvarez added late insurance. It will be a second successive final for Tigres, who are still awaiting their maiden continental crown.
The other tie was even tighter with Pachuca overcoming a 2-1 first-leg deficit at FC Dallas. The contest was headed for extra time until a superb late Hirving Lozano strike – his second of the night – put Los Tuzos into a fifth Champions League final and first since 2010.
Vancouver Whitecaps FC 1-2 Tigres Highlights |@whitecapsfc @TigresOficial #SCCL #SoyAficionado pic.twitter.com/W954DILdSo
— CONCACAF (@CONCACAF) April 6, 2017