WATCH: Concacaf Champions Cup 2026 DRAW: Vancouver FC, Atlético Ottawa, Forge FC & Whitecaps learn fate 🏆
The full draw for the 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup will take place Tuesday night, and a record three Canadian Premier League sides will learn their first opponent in the continent's premier club competition.
CPL champions Atlético Ottawa, CPL Shield winners Forge FC, and TELUS Canadian Championship runners-up Vancouver FC will all compete in this year's tournament — Ottawa and Vancouver for the first time in club history.
This year's draw will begin at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, live from Miami, Fla. on OneSoccer's YouTube channel.
Twenty-seven teams from across the Concacaf region will participate in the tournament, 22 of them beginning in round one.
Five clubs will receive byes to the round of 16, as winners of certain competitions:
- Caribbean Cup champions: Mount Pleasant (Jamaica)
- Central American Cup champions: Alajuelense (Costa Rica)
- Leagues Cup winners: Seattle Sounders FC (MLS)
- 2024-25 Liga MX: Toluca (Liga MX)
- MLS Cup champions: Inter Miami CF (MLS)
Liga MX's bye spot goes to either the Apertura or Clausura campaign champion from 2024-25 with the higher aggregate points total across the two seasons, which in this case was Toluca.
The remaining 22 teams in the draw will be split based on their Concacaf club ranking position. The top three seeded teams (Cruz Azul, Club América and Tigres UANL) will be placed in specific positions in the first-round bracket, ensuring they can't meet one of the clubs with a bye in the round of 16.
The next eight highest-ranked teams will form the remainder of Pot 1, and the next 11 clubs in the rankings will form Pot 2.
All three CPL participants are in Pot 2. Fellow Canadian side Vancouver Whitecaps FC, who qualified via their place in the MLS regular season standings, are in Pot 1, and could theoretically match up against a CPL side as there's no country restriction in the Champions Cup.
The pots are as follows, including the three pre-seeded first-round clubs in Pot 1:
This year's Concacaf Champions Cup begins the week of Feb. 3, 2026, and runs until the final on May 30.
