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Sporting Kansas City will face Olimpia and Real Esteli in the 2013-2014 CONCACAF Champions League after being drawn into Group 2 on Monday evening.
Olimpia is a strong team from Honduras who has had some Champions League success before. Their best placement was reaching the quarterfinals back in the CONCACAF Champions Cup format, which they did multiple times. They got to the Champions League by winning both the 2012-2013 Apertura and Clasura, which was a division of the season into two tournaments. Olimpia is Group 2's representative from Pot 1, the top eight teams in the draw.
The team from Pot 3 is the Nicaraguan side Real Esteli FC. Real Esteli is the only representative from Nicaragua and they got to the Champions League by having the best aggregate record in both the Nicaraguan Apertura and Clasura. They finished first in the Apertura and were three points shy of the top spot in the Clasura.
Sporting Kansas City will face both of these teams twice, hosting both squads at home and facing each sqaud on the road. After each time has played each other twice in the home-and-home format the team with the most points will move on the quarterfinals which will become a two-leg bracket from there.
Other MLS teams got some tough draws. The Houston Dynamo were drawn into Group 7 with Mexican club Tiajuana even though the Champions League rules state that American and Mexican clubs cannot be drawn together. The same happened with the Los Angeles Galaxy and Cruz Azul in Group 8. CONCACAF will be fixing those draws but Sporting's draw will not change.
The San Jose Earthquakes were drawn into group 5 with the Montreal Impact, who won the Canadian Voyageurs cup to earn a spot in the league. That will make for some good MLS clashes from the American and Canadian sides.
The match dates have not been released yet but based on last year's schedule it can be assumed that the first match will be in late July or early August with the rest of the group stage going through the end of October.