'We were so close': Nicolás Mezquida reflects on Whitecaps' last Concacaf semi-final in 2016/17

On Thursday night, the Vancouver Whitecaps play arguably the biggest match of their MLS-era history, hosting Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami in the first leg of the 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup semi-final at BC Place. 

The match, live on OneSoccer (7:30 p.m. PT/10:30 p.m. ET), is a huge opportunity for the Whitecaps to take a big step toward a first-ever appearance in a continental final. 

It isn’t, however, the first time the Vancouver club have gotten to this stage in the competition. Back in 2016-17, a Whitecaps team coached by Carl Robinson, and featuring a 16-year-old Alphonso Davies, reached the semi-finals, where they faced Mexican giants Tigres. 

An important part of that Whitecaps team was a Uruguayan attacker named Nicólas Mezquida, who recently returned to the province to sign with the Canadian Premier League’s Vancouver FC. The now 33-year-old has fond memories of that Champions Cup (then Champions League) run as that Vancouver team came within two legs of the 2016-17 final. 

“We were so close,” said Mezquida. “They were tough games. I remember we had many, many chances to score. Particularly in this moment, when [Tigres] were so, so good.” 

This was a Tigres team in the midst of reaching four Concacaf Champions Cup finals in five years, eventually winning the tournament in 2020.

The competition was formatted differently back then, and in order to reach the semi-final, the Whitecaps had to first win their group, which consisted of Sporting Kansas City and Trinidadian club Central FC in 2016. That qualified them for the knockout stages in early 2017, where they defeated the New York Red Bulls in the quarter-final. 

The first leg of the semis brought them to one of the region’s most fearsome venues: the Estadio Universitario in Monterrey, nicknamed El Volcán. The Whitecaps lost that match 2-0, with Mezquida coming off the bench for the final 20 minutes as a substitute, but the Uruguayan remembers his team giving a strong account of themselves despite the challenging conditions. 

“It wasn’t easy because it was a long, long trip,” said Mezquida. “It was a very new thing for other players. I’ve been in South America playing before, I saw the crazy fans. But I saw the face of my teammates, the first time they’d seen that. Crazy fans in like a huge stadium and people making a lot of noise. But also, the direction of the team was good, because we played our game. We didn’t stop running, good reaction… we played very, very good away.”

Photo courtesy of Concacaf.

The Whitecaps went into the second leg at BC Place knowing they needed multiple goals to get back into the tie. Things got interesting when Brek Shea fired them in front in just the third minute on the second phase of a free kick, but French international André-Pierre Gignac all but put Tigres in the final with a goal in the 63rd minute, before Damián Álvarez added further insurance in the 84th. The Whitecaps lost that second leg 2-1, and the series 4-1 on aggregate. 

This year’s Whitecaps may be coming up against some pretty formidable names – but that Tigres team in 2017 had plenty of quality as well. 

“They had a huge, huge team,” said Mezquida. “[Eduardo] Vargas, Gignac, [Guido] Pizarro, other players. It was a nice memory, it was one of my best memories with the Whitecaps.” 

The Whitecaps at the time had a pretty notable player on their roster too, a 16-year-old Davies who was just starting to really hit his stride in professional soccer. He scored his first professional goal earlier in the competition against Sporting Kansas City in the group stage, and another against the New York Red Bulls in the quarter-finals. 

“When he stepped in training with us, he was different for his age,” said Mezquida. “He was so good for a young player physically, so good with the ball. Of course, he in that moment had to learn to make better decisions. But maybe because he was young, it was his first season he maybe took the wrong decision. But he was so good, and he learned fast, and it’s why he made the difference, and is now at the top, top level in the world. 

“I remember also [one of] his first professional goals against Montréal, I assisted,” added Mezquida with a grin. “So I’m happy to be part of his story too.” 

Now, eight years later, the Whitecaps are back in the semi-final stage, and this time bringing some of the game’s biggest stars to Vancouver as a result. 

For someone who calls Vancouver his second home, it is exciting to Mezquida what this could mean for the sport’s interest in the city, especially now with multiple professional teams. 

“The community of football here in the city [is growing],” said Mezquida. “It’s what we want is to help the community and see more kids playing soccer in the park. So that’s amazing.” 

He has been following their run to the final since the start, recently exchanging texts with fellow former Whitecap Mauro Rosales, who is one of the guys he still keeps in contact with, during the competition. And he’s hoping that the tale doesn’t end here, that this Whitecaps group is able to take things one step further than his did and reach a first-ever continental final. 

“I hope now the Whitecaps beat [Miami], Messi, and make a new story, and then [we can] talk about the new Whitecaps getting to the final,” he said. 

And, perhaps, another meeting with Tigres, who compete in the competition’s other semi-final against Cruz Azul, which begins on Wednesday, also available on OneSoccer (7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET).