Nashville knocked Inter Miami out of the CONCACAF Champions Cup on away goals after the teams finished level at 1-1 on aggregate over 180 minutes, and now the Tennessee club is headed into a quarterfinal against América. Nashville had already beaten Miami twice before in the Leagues Cup, and both of those matches ended in penalty shootouts the home side won.
The quarterfinals now belong entirely to clubs from Mexico and the United States after the exits of Alajuelense, Vancouver Whitecaps and Mount Pleasant. LAFC moved on with a 3-2 series win over Alajuelense, Toluca eliminated San Diego FC, and Tigres advanced by turning back FC Cincinnati in dramatic fashion.
The bracket also carries a reminder of how far the competition has come since 2020, when Cruz Azul and LAFC were supposed to meet in a quarterfinal series in March before the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the match nine months later. That game was played as a single contest on December 16 in Los Angeles, where LAFC beat Cruz Azul 2-1 on goals from Yoshimar Yotún, Carlos Vela and Kwadwo Opoku before going on to reach the final and lose to Tigres in a final without public attendance.
América arrives with a different kind of pressure. The club has had problems scoring, even as it focuses on continental success while dealing with issues in Liga MX. Nashville, meanwhile, has already shown it can get past Miami in high-stakes knockout play, and it will now face an América side that has not played it before in the Champions Cup. Nicolás Larcamón, who won the CONCACAF competition with León in 2023, is in the picture too as the field narrows to the teams that can finish the job.
What happens next is straightforward and unforgiving: only one of Nashville and América will move closer to a title in a field now made up entirely of Liga MX and MLS clubs, and the next round will test whether Nashville’s knack for surviving tight series can travel one step farther.
