PACHUCA. - Carlos Moreno will suit up to be the starting goalkeeper for CF Pachuca when the club hosts the Columbus Crew in the 2024 Concacaf Champions Cup Final on Saturday at Estadio Hidalgo in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico.

“So many, many nights as a child one dreams of playing these types of matches,” Moreno said in an interview for Concacaf.com. “I have to enjoy this final, we have to enjoy it, to be able to bring out the best version of ourselves and be able to lift the title.”

Moreno was on the bench the last time the Tuzos were in a championship game. He was the second goalkeeper to then-starter Oscar Ustari in the Liga MX Apertura 2022 finals, Moreno’s first trophy with his boyhood club and the qualifier that brought the team to this 2024 edition of the Concacaf Champions Cup.

Manager Guillermo Almada has since promoted the 26-year-old as the starter under the three posts. Pachuca has gone unbeaten in its six CCC matches, with Moreno making 17 saves, three clean sheets, and only conceding three goals.

If Moreno continues that form, Pachuca will like its odds of winning its sixth Concacaf Champions Cup title. The Mexican shot-stopper isn’t taking Columbus Crew lightly as the MLS side, also unbeaten in its 2024 CCC encounters, has gone to Mexico twice and eliminated fellow Liga MX clubs in Tigres UANL and Monterrey.

“It is a team that tries to play, a very dynamic team, vertical, that has good individualities, has a lot of quality in its players, and also has good solidity in defensive,” Moreno said of his opponents on Saturday. “So, surely there are many points that we must pay attention to, but we think that the most important thing is what we can do on the field.”

The Tuzos will look to defend a home-field advantage that has been impenetrable in 30 Champions Cup matches across three decades. Additionally, Pachuca has a history of winning each of its five previous trips to the final.

A capacity crowd awaits on Saturday at the Estadio Hidalgo. Moreno will look to join Miguel Calero and Alfonso Blanco as goalkeepers who have won a Champions Cup Final for Pachuca, with his predecessors lifting the cup on home turf.

“There are not enough words to thank the people who have been supporting us,” Moreno said of the Pachuca faithful. “Truthfully, just ‘Thank You.’ We hope they will continue to be present in the final and that we can make Hidalgo weigh so that the cup stays home.”

An added caveat to winning another major trophy is that the winners will qualify for the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup. Pachuca has participated four times, with its best finish coming with a bronze medal in 2017, its previous participation.

“It is a great dream, without a doubt,” Moreno said. “For the entire institution, being able to be part of an event like that great Club World Cup is a dream, and for all the members of the team, being able to lift a cup with this team, for me, would be the first on the field. So, without a doubt, very special and dreamed of by everyone.”