C.F. Monterrey is no stranger to facing Canadian clubs.
Less than a month ago, they cruised past Forge FC with a 5-0 aggregate victory in the Concacaf Champions Cup, securing their spot in the round of 16. Their next opponent? The Vancouver Whitecaps.
These won’t be the first and second encounters with Canadian teams.
Going back 50 years, Monterrey faced the Serbian White Eagles of the Canadian Soccer League, marking their first-ever meeting with a club from Canada.
In the 1975 edition of the Champions Cup, the Toronto-based club—founded by Serbians in Hamilton, Ontario—made their debut in the competition, facing none other than Monterrey.
They became the first Canadian side to play in a Concacaf competition.
In the first leg, played at Tigres’ stadium in Mexico, the game ended 2-0 for the Liga MX side, thanks to goals from Alfredo Jiménez in the first half and Jose Sánchez at the death.
Fun fact: This match was Rayados' first-ever competitive international match.
Leg 2 would go down in history, but perhaps for all the wrong reasons.
At CNE Stadium in Toronto, Monterrey took an early lead in the 6th minute through Uruguayan forward Romeo Corbo, making a comeback for the Serbian White Eagles even more unlikely.
In the 35th minute, Former Yugoslav national team player Miroslav Vardic (playing under the name Mike Wareika) grabbed one back for the hosts, leaving them two goals away from tying the series.
Then, 22 minutes into the second half, chaos erupted.
A massive brawl broke out between players and hundreds of fans, with Ottawa Citizen reporting that an estimated 50 policemen rushed to the stadium in an attempt to restore order—ultimately, to no avail.
The fight began after a confrontation between Eagles player Dragi Denkovski and Monterrey’s Gustavo Peña, before spiraling into a full-scale melee, with hundreds of spectators storming the field. Ottawa Citizen even stated that welding steel chairs were used in the violence.
The game was abandoned with 23 minutes to go, and the visitors moved on to the next round.
It would be the Eagles’ last-ever Concacaf match, having qualified for the following year’s edition but withdrawing before the first game.
The Canadian outfit was subsequently suspended by the Canadian National Soccer League for the rest of the season after an emergency meeting the day after leg 2.
The Serbian White Eagles are now a semi-pro club playing in the Canadian Soccer League, a non-FIFA sanctioned league, becoming one of the most successful sides there.
