The elite eight of CONCACAF

The group stage of the CONCACAF Champions League is now complete, and we now know the final eight teams.  Here they are:

Group	Pot A	Pot B
A	Marathón	Cruz Azul
B	UNAM	Houston Dynamo
C	Atlante	Impact de Montréal
D	Santos Laguna	Puerto Rico Islanders

So all four Mexican qualifiers are in the final eight, followed by one team each from Honduras, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the USA.  At least one Mexican team will advance to the semifinals.  I'm going to wait for the draw on the 10th before I guess which teams have a good chance of joining the unnamed Mexican side.

In the end, I'm not surprised to see a single Honduran or American team in the final eight.  The big surprises are the appearances of the the USL entrants in the knockout round and the absence of the Costa Rican sides.  The latter event probably mirrors Costa Rica's decline at the international level since 2008.