MIAMI, Florida – A pair of teams from Major League Soccer (MLS) will lock horns on Wednesday night in the first leg of the 2024 Concacaf Champions Cup Round of 16, as the Houston Dynamo host the Columbus Crew at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston, Texas.
This will be the first ever Champions Cup meeting between the two sides, but there is plenty of familiarity from MLS competition. In 27 MLS matches, the series is evenly matched with eight wins each and 11 draws.
Hosts Houston had to overcome another MLS opponent in the previous round, St. Louis City SC, to reach this stage of the tournament. After suffering a 2-1 defeat in the first leg in St. Louis, a 1-0 win at home in the second leg on a goal from Erik Sviatchenko resulted in a 2-2 draw on aggregate and a Houston series victory via the away goal tiebreaker.
That victory gave Houston their fifth home win in six Champions Cup matches and they will be looking to improve upon that on Wednesday night by leaning on players like Sviatchenko, Sebastian Kowalczyk and Steve Clark.
Kowalczyk scored the first goal for the Dynamo in St. Louis and completed 87 passes and made two ball recoveries over the two legs, while Clark was an anchor in goal, keeping a clean sheet in the second leg and making five saves in the two games.
We are all in this together! 🤘 We need you all to help us pack Shell Energy Stadium on Wednesday as we take on Columbus Crew in the Round of 16 of @TheChampions
— Houston Dynamo FC (@HoustonDynamo) March 4, 2024
🎟️ :https://t.co/w69xzv2Yye#Hustlin4More pic.twitter.com/IfOeoIzAre
Columbus will be making their debut in the 2024 Champions Cup after qualifying directly for the Round of 16 as 2023 MLS Cup champions.
This is their fifth Champions Cup appearance, with their last one coming in the 2021 edition when they finished as quarterfinalists.
Midfield mainstay Darlington Nagbe will participate in his fifth Champions Cup and second with Columbus, while attacking midfielder Diego Rossi is back in the Champions Cup for the first time since 2020 when he helped Los Angeles FC reach the Final, scoring two goals in five matches, including in the Final versus Tigres.
In attack, the Crew also boast one of the best strikers in MLS in the form of Juan Camilo Hernandez, who tallied 21 goals in 33 matches last season in MLS.
Match Officials Houston Dynamo FC (USA) vs Columbus Crew (USA)
REF: ARMANDO VILLARREAL (USA)
AR1: CORY RICHARDSON (USA)
AR2: LOGAN BROWN (USA)
4TH: VICTOR RIVAS (USA)
VAR: OSCAR MEJIA (Mexico)
VAR1: BENJAMIN WHITTY (Cayman Islands)
