In the race to the 2020 Canadian Championship, Canada’s three Major League Soccer teams will face each other across nine matches in August and September in a prelude to this year’s Battle of the North. The nine MLS matches from August 18 to September 16 in Vancouver, Toronto and Montréal (six matches per team) will have the added importance of qualifying one MLS team to the 2020 Canadian Championship Final.
As announced, the 2020 edition of the Canadian Championship Final will feature the winner of the Canadian Premier League’s Island Games against the Canadian winner of the MLS first phase of the revised league schedule. In all, 44 matches will be played amongst the 11 Canadian teams across the two leagues in August and September.
All nine MLS matches between Vancouver Whitecaps FC, Toronto FC and the Impact de Montréal will be broadcast live on TSN. The team with the most points from their six matches will advance to the 2020 Canadian Championship Final, which will be a single-match final, with the date and location to be announced later. In case two or more MLS teams are tied on points after all nine matches, the following tie-breaker scenario will be used to determine the winner:
• Total number of wins
• Goal difference
• Goals scored
• Away goals differential
• Away goals scored
• Home goals differential
• Home goals scored
• Coin toss (if two clubs are tied) or drawing of lots (if three clubs are tied)
Already this year, Canada’s three MLS teams have played five regular-season games each (two in February/March and three at the MLS is Back tournament in July). Since 2007, Canada’s MLS teams have combined to play more than 1,000 league matches (regular season and playoffs) from which 520 have been played in Canada. Toronto FC won both the league (MLS Supporters’ Shield) and playoff final (MLS Cup) in 2017.
The Canadian Championship is Canada Soccer’s highest domestic professional soccer competition. Since 2008, 14 different clubs have participated in the competition with Toronto FC (seven), Impact de Montréal (four) and Vancouver Whitecaps FC (once) all previous winners. From the Canadian Championship, both Montréal (2014-15) and Toronto (2018) have reached the Concacaf Champions League Grand Final.
