Toronto FC suffered a nightmarish start to the Concacaf Champions League final, surrendering a 2nd-minute goal to Chivas Guadalajara and eventually falling 2-1 on their home turf in the first leg.
It leaves the Reds with a daunting task in Leg 2 at Chivas' Estadio Akron home next Wednesday (9:30 pm ET | TSN in Canada, Univision Deportes, go90.com in US). Not only did the Mexican heavyweights bag a road victory, they scored two away goals, raising their odds of victory significantly, with away goals serving as the first tiebreaker should the two-legged series finish tied on aggregate (total) goals.
So just what are TFC's routes to an against-the-odds comeback?
First off, and obviously, only a victory will do in Leg 2. The easiest way for Toronto to win the series at this point is a 2-0 win in Guadalajara, which would give them a 3-2 aggregate series win.
Should they mirror the Leg 1 result by winning 2-1, the two sides would be level on both aggregate and away goals, meaning that the two sides would go straight to a penalty-kick shootout to decide the next champions of Concacaf. (Yes, that means CCL is not using extra time; a 2-1 TFC win at Estadio Akron would be immediately followed by PKs.)
If Chivas score more than once in Leg 2, TFC's job gets even harder. The Reds would have to either win the second leg by a margin of two goals or more, or win Leg 2 by one goal while scoring more away goals than the two that Chivas bagged in Toronto.
TFC are 1-1-1 in CCL away legs during this tournament. They won 2-0 at Colorado in the first leg of their opening round, lost 3-2 at Tigres in the second leg of their quarterfinal series (a series that ended 4-4 on aggregate, with Toronto advancing via the away-goals tiebreaker) and drew 1-1 with Club América in the second leg of their semifinal clash.
Still got questions? CCL's full rules and regulations can be found here.
