Canadian Championship, CONCACAF Champions Cup & MLS Next Pro round-up, April 23-24

The preliminary round of the 2024 Canadian Championship got underway on Tuesday with an all-Canadian Premier League clash between Cavalry FC and Vancouver FC. The winners knew they would be playing Vancouver Whitecaps from MLS in the quarterfinals and so the tie took on added impetus for those wanting to impress on a bigger stage, and - of course - a possible local derby for the visitors. Almost 2,000 fans came out to ATCO Field in Calgary to cheer on the home side, and a scoreless first-half was not without its chances. The game fired into life just past the hour, though, when Cavalry's Shamit Shome was shown a straight red card. What could have been a fatal blow seemed to charge up the home side and they took the lead five minutes later when Tobias Warschewski got his head on the end of a deflected cross. This was the fifth time Vancouver and Cavalry have met, with the Eagles still yet to win.

Wednesday's match between Toronto FC of MLS and Simcoe County Rovers, 2023 winners of the semi-professional League 1 Ontario competition, was very much a David and Goliath situation, even if Reds coach John Herdman did make seven changes from the side that beat New England Revolution. This was Simcoe's first foray into the Canadian Championship and they gave a good account of themselves early on, hitting the post and testing Luka Gavran in the Toronto goal either side of the home side's opener from Prince Owusu in the eighteenth minute. After that, though, it became something of a one-sided affair as the MLS side added another three in the first half - Cassius Mailula, Kevin Long, and Jonathan Osorio making it 4-0 at the break. Toronto took their foot off the gas after the break, scoring just once more when substitute Tyrese Spicer found the net, and although the game highlighted the massive gulf between the first- and third-tiers of Canadian soccer, Simcoe will have enjoyed their night out in front of over 11,000 fans. Toronto now await the winners of next week's HDX Wanderers versus CS Saint-Laurent match.

As the last remaining MLS side in this year's CONCACAF Champions Cup, Columbus Crew carried the hopes of a nation on their backs as they welcomed CF Monterrey to Lower.com Field last night. The visitors hadn't lost a Champions Cup tie for five years and so the task facing Wilfred Nancy's men seemed considerable, even without factoring in the Mexican side's elimination of both Inter Miami and FC Cincinnati to get to this stage. Still, Crew showed in the quarterfinals that they can rise to an occasion and Cucho Hernandez fired them ahead in the 25th minute with a fantastic finish from outside the area. The home side held that lead through the half-time break but some sustained Monterrey pressure finally told just before the hour mark when Maximiliano Meza equalised from close range. Ukrainian centre-back Yehven Cheberko and Sean Zawadzki went close to restoring Crew's lead, but it was Jacen Russell-Rowe, heading home from a corner, that put Columbus back in front with eighteen minutes to go. Diego Rossi and Yaw Yeboah could have even extended Crew's advantage but they had to settle for a 2-1 lead to take to Nuevo Leon next week. In the other semi-final, an all-Liga MX encounter saw Club America and CF Pachuca draw 1-1.

In the third-tier MLS Next Pro league, which mostly consists of MLS reserve teams but this year has two new independent clubs taking part, Atlanta United 2 welcomed Chattanooga FC, one of those new teams, to Kennesaw, Georgia, on Wednesday night. The visitors sat third in the table before the game, having lost just once this season - in the shootout that decides drawn matches - and would have been confident of continuing their decent start to the season. United were content to sit back and let them control the game, hitting them on the break, and it was one of those forays that led to the only goal of the night when Javier Armas dispatched a penalty kick given for handball in the Chatts' box. The visitors didn't manage a single shot in the first half but were far better in the second, going close on the hour and then really close in stoppage time to finding an equaliser, but it was Atlanta who took the points.