No MLS team has ever won the CONCACAF Champions League. Only two — one of them American — have ever even made the final.

So it’s painfully clear why the Red Bulls are taking the first leg of the Champions League semifinals against Chivas so seriously Wednesday at Estadio Akron in Guadalajara. And why the Mexican powerhouse is treating dispatching the American upstarts as a matter of pride.

“We’re all excited for the opportunity to go to Guadalajara and really put things on the line. What a great challenge that will be,” Red Bulls coach Jesse Marsch said. “A lot of respect for the job that [Matias] Almeyda has done with Chivas. They’re a really good team and, man, that is going to be an incredible challenge.

“It’s at elevation so that’s always a factor. And it’ll be a very fervent crowd and it’s a big occasion. So our ability to stay focused and concentrated on all the details that make us good will be really important, against a team that’s really combative to win our challenges, to win our battles to be ready to fight for everything. We have experience in that in big games, and we’re going to draw on that again.”

The Red Bulls, who won the Supporters’ Shield in 2015 and reached the U.S. Open Cup final last year, are 3-0-1 so far in the knockout rounds. Their 2-0 first-leg quarterfinal victory in Tijuana made them the first MLS team to win a knockout stage game in Mexico, and they closed the deal at home to become just the third league team to eliminate a Liga MX foe in the CCL knockout stage.

It got Chivas’ attention, as did the Red Bulls’ high press.

“Liga MX has been superior to the USA league at certain times. Right now USA is growing a lot, so as a Mexican team want to show that the Liga MX is at a great level,” said Chivas defender Oswaldo Alanís, who beat Seattle with Santos Laguna in the 2015 quarterfinals and again in this year’s quarters. “We do not see it as pressure, but as a challenge to reaffirm what Mexican football is.”

“I previously had to play against Seattle with Santos in the Champions League, and the difference at that time … to now is very big. The league is growing a lot and I think they’ve proved it. Now they’re competing just like the Mexicans. In my opinion, it is a league that is very strong and that it’s increasingly generating more competition at a better level.

“We are aware of what the New York Red Bulls are as a team. We talked with Matias [Almeyda], and he told us about their strengths, how fast and unbalancing their players can be. We have to work hard for our offensive strategy. We know what New York Red Bulls are capable of and what we are going to face.”

Red Bulls defender Kyle Duncan is going to be sidelined indefinitely with a major knee injury.

The MLS announced that the 20-year-old tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during the Red Bulls’ match against Orlando City SC on Saturday. Surgery will be done in the coming weeks.

Duncan is a product of the Red Bulls Academy. He spent the past two years with FC Valenciennes in France. He had appeared in all four MLS games this season, recording his first MLS assist.

A timetable for his return will be set after the surgery.

— with AP