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Should Canada have to qualify for the Gold Cup?


Daniel

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We did in 1999, but after having won in 2000, CONCACAF found it easier to give an automatic qualification to "previous winners" (aka Mexico and the US, who were guaranteed up until then) so it wouldn't have to bother with Canada, all alone up there. It also seems that we were automatically included in the previous Gold Cups.

Seeing as we're lacking competitive games, would Canada be better served qualifying for the Gold Cup (at the risk of not making it)?

By the way, our qualifying record:

1999: 1st of the final group, 2 wins and a draw against ES, Cuba and Haiti, all games in Los Angeles.

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We wouldn't be better off as the quality of opposition and potential to make money just aren't there, sure you bring the squad together more often but if money is to be invested in the senior team it could be spent in better ways. We'd likely have to qualify with mainly NA players negating alot of the team building effect and would probably miss now and again and lose even the Gold Cup games. Given the potential to build a following in Toronto with a purpose built stadium and a decent sized club team maybe that will change.

It's my personal opinion that european games after a training week at a smaller London ground like Griffin Park or Brisbane would be alot better, perhaps even playing a club side or two. Of course the friendly pre-season tournament with our B team was an excellent investment in hindsight as well. Both better than home and aways with a tiny Carribean nation or having a development team brave bags of urine being thrown at them in central america, no exposure for them at all.

We probably should have to in fairness but we aren't better served.

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On the one hand, everyone should hvae to qualify, but on the otherhand, when teams are invited as guests, it creates animosity should we not qualify. I mean, I wonder how other Concacaf nations like it to see Korea, or Columbia in their tournament, at their expense?

What I would love to see (pipedream alert) is a tournament with both America's. Have qualification, make it 16 teams, 10 from South, 6 from North - or some other combination - and make it a really dynamic tournament.

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quote:Originally posted by RJB

What I would love to see (pipedream alert) is a tournament with both America's. Have qualification, make it 16 teams, 10 from South, 6 from North - or some other combination - and make it a really dynamic tournament.

So, you essentially want all of the South American teams to get in then (Can't remember if there are 10 or 13 teams - CONCACAF must have atleast 30)? A qualification round would not make sense.

How about a nice 16 team (4x4) tournament featuring 8 from South America, and 8 from North America? Each group would have two teams from each continent. An equal distribution may not be fair from a merit POV, but it is less controversial and more marketable.

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Yes, as many games together as a team as possible, even if we send a "b-team" sometimes. Look at Uefa, qualifying for Euro 2008 is well underway. By Christmas most Euro sides will have played more than we do in a year. We need that kind of competitive schedule to develop a quality squad.

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quote:Originally posted by mjoni

Yes, as many games together as a team as possible, even if we send a "b-team" sometimes. Look at Uefa, qualifying for Euro 2008 is well underway. By Christmas most Euro sides will have played more than we do in a year. We need that kind of competitive schedule to develop a quality squad.

Maybe but the GC is not recognized as a FIFA event and clubs don't have to release players.

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quote:Originally posted by ANC2

Maybe but the GC is not recognized as a FIFA event and clubs don't have to release players.

Are you sure about this? The Gold Cup serves as our regional Championship and is very likely a FIFA-sanctioned event. While agreements are often made for special situations (such as players starting with new teams), the CSA is (I believe) within its right to call up players, just as African teams do (against club wishes) during their continental final, even though these games aren't limited to FIFA dates either.

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quote:Originally posted by David C.

The Gold Cup serves as our regional Championship and is very likely a FIFA-sanctioned event. While agreements are often made for special situations (such as players starting with new teams), the CSA is (I believe) within its right to call up players, just as African teams do (against club wishes) during their continental final, even though these games aren't limited to FIFA dates either.

Yep, David's correct. The Gold Cup is a FIFA-sanctioned event that

sometimes fell (as in the past) on inconvenient dates for clubs. As

I understand clubs must release the players at least 5 days from

the tournament. This doesn't exactly help prep time for us, and it

also isn't surprising that many will have sudden injuries before

the tournament starts.

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The Copa America and the Gold Cup will never be merged. Conmebol would never go for it. The Copa is South America's tournament, showcasing their own brand of football, that is why it is special. Conmebol is far above concacaf, why would they ever want to water down their top trophy tournament with the likes of Panama, Honduras, Trinidad, or Costa Rica. We all saw what Ecuador, a mid table conmebol team, did to Costa Rica at the World Cup. It would only benefit Concacaf, and only its top teams, leaving the majority of the nations in concacaf without a true tournament. I would rather see the Gold Cup expanded to 16 concacaf teams.

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quote:Originally posted by rdroze

Me too. It never quite feels right to have our continential championship include randomly-invited teams.

From the perspective of the tournament as representing CONCACAF it probably would be better to not have any guest teams. However, considering how poor the CSA is at arranging friendlies, from a purely selfish perspective the guest teams probably benefit Canada by giving us higher level opponents with a variety of styles.

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quote:Originally posted by BrennanFan

why would they ever want to water down their top trophy tournament with the likes of Panama, Honduras, Trinidad, or Costa Rica. We all saw what Ecuador, a mid table conmebol team, did to Costa Rica at the World Cup.

You forgot that in 2001 (when Canada was invited), Honduras, Costa

Rica, and Mexico participated and did very well (up to the quarters).

As much as I agree with your sentiment about CONCACAF and CONMEBOL,

I think that if CONCACAF wants to improve in its quality of play,

they should also strive to upgrade its OFFICIATING.

The inconsistent refereeing and the assenine tournament scheduling

makes the Gold Cup more of a joke. Any European team, no matter

how high up in the rankings, will face much difficulty when faced

with these types of refs and poor scheduling that in not evident

in UEFA play.

The Gold Cup should invite the top 3 teams of CONMEBOL as its guests

instead of teams like South Korea.

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quote:Originally posted by Daniel

I'd like to see an all-CONCACAF GC, even if it needs to be scaled back to 8 teams.

Me too.

This would give us a nice, compact regional tournament. I suspect that players would be more apt to come over for a shorter competition, allowing teams to field (more competitive) full-strength squads.

Plus, it would also set up the need for a short qualifyling schedule (read: more competitive game), as well. Win, win.

Maybe, a secondary tournament could be created, with the top two CONCACAF teams paired against the top two CONMEBOL teams. That would be fun to see.

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Should Canada have to qualify for GC, YES. Will I take the previous winners spot and not have to qualify, well..duh...YES. CONCACAF gives it so we'll take it and shut-up about it.

The States seems to be the only country with the $$ to host the GC? In order to make the GC some what saleable CONCACAF has decided the invitees are one avenue to sell the tourney. Right or wrong I wonder how many CONCACAF members are willing to pay for Q rounds and then attend the GC with-out much $$ coming back. No matter how we look at it CONCACAF ain't the cash cow of UEFA Euro Cup, CONMEBAL (to lazy to look it up..Libertores (?)(don't follow SA soccer [B)]) or even CAF with they're African Cup of Nations.

Look no further than CONCACAF Champions Cup compared to almost every other "club" championship held by other confederations, except maybe Oceania, CONCACF is the worst. CONCACAF has the problem where outside of Mexico the richest members have a hard time selling the game.

Now is this a CONCACAF created problem or the market CONCACAF has to deal with?

I don't mean to belittle the game in CONCACAF it's just reality to me.

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quote:Originally posted by redhatThe inconsistent refereeing and the assenine tournament scheduling

makes the Gold Cup more of a joke. Any European team, no matter

how high up in the rankings, will face much difficulty when faced

with these types of refs and poor scheduling that in not evident

in UEFA play.

As much as I agree CONCACAF reffing is terrible, the recent World Cup showcased reffereeing at a level of incompetence and corruption equal if not greater than what we get in CONCACAF. Most of these poor refs were European, many from the top leagues and surprise surprise almost all of the shady calls favoured European teams. The biggest problem with reffing is corruption and unfortunately that is a problem in all of the federations and begins right at the top with Sepp Blatter. We complain about CONCACAF because that is what we are watching and the calls are going against us but quite honestly all of the federations suffer from the same problem and UEFA reffing is often attrocious. The really terrible thing is that many of these refs are actually good refs when they are not being directed how to call the game. Even our arch-enemy Archundia is a good ref and was one of the few good ones at the recent WC. Apparently he is only on the take in CONCACAF and not at the WC level unlike a fair number of refs at the World Cup who did not call games in a fair manner.

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Grizzly, I totally respect your right to an opinion, but I have a hard time believing that all these referees are "on the take". It was bizarre seeing Archundia refereeing in a competent manner at the world cup considering his ineptitude was a major factor in Canada not having a place in the hex. I'm not letting archundia off the hook; I don't think the gaffes were honest mistakes. I believe there was a distinct bias against Canada evident in his calls but I don't think Mr. Warner slipped him a few thousand $US.

OT(sort of)

Canada should take a page from that player from the old XFL and switch the names on their jerseys from their given names to "He Hate Me" or "I Be the Ref's Beeotch".

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Maybe during WCQ, different Confederation's Cups club and nation. FIFA should come with a rule that UEFA refs do AFC game, CAF refs do CONMEBOL, CONCACAF refs do CAF, OCEANIA DO CONCACAF, etc. How hard would a rotating ref pool be, all done by FIFA where refs all have to be from outside the confederation that are playing. It's not like FIFA and Blatter haven't stuck their nose in stuff before.

This would expose teams to how various confederations refs call a game?

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quote:Originally posted by argh1

Maybe during WCQ, different Confederation's Cups club and nation. FIFA should come with a rule that UEFA refs do AFC game, CAF refs do CONMEBOL, CONCACAF refs do CAF, OCEANIA DO CONCACAF, etc. How hard would a rotating ref pool be, all done by FIFA where refs all have to be from outside the confederation that are playing. It's not like FIFA and Blatter haven't stuck their nose in stuff before.

This would expose teams to how various confederations refs call a game?

Poor confederation that would get the Concacaf refs......

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quote:Originally posted by shaku_bert

Grizzly, I totally respect your right to an opinion, but I have a hard time believing that all these referees are "on the take". It was bizarre seeing Archundia refereeing in a competent manner at the world cup considering his ineptitude was a major factor in Canada not having a place in the hex. I'm not letting archundia off the hook; I don't think the gaffes were honest mistakes. I believe there was a distinct bias against Canada evident in his calls but I don't think Mr. Warner slipped him a few thousand $US.

OT(sort of)

Canada should take a page from that player from the old XFL and switch the names on their jerseys from their given names to "He Hate Me" or "I Be the Ref's Beeotch".

I also don't think Archundia's gaffes were honest mistakes. I don't think Warner had anything directly to do with Archundia's calls other than creating the conditions where such things are allowed to happen. The federations of Honduras and Mexico did have something to do with Archundia's calls in my opinion and at some point a Honduran ref will make some favourable calls for Mexico. I think in the World Cup many of the same situations occured as with Archundia in CONCACAF. Whether there is actual money involved or just some pressure/hints from certain powers/federations that some results is preferrable is moot. Noone had any problem believing something fishy was going on in 2002 when Japan and Korea had calls going their way so I don't understand why people have a problem believing something was behind the far more numerous fishy examples in WC 2006. The main difference is that the beneficiaries this time were not underdogs and were popular teams with the fans so nobody complained that the reffing was fixed. Why for example does Markus Merk, a crappy Bundesliga referree who has also been suspected of unfair calls in the league, always get sent to every international tournament? His reffing was so bad in the WC that it couldn't have been just chance. He does what he is told and gets rewarded for it. It is probably not a monetary payment but he does get sent to every prestigious and well paid tournament as a ref.

There is no doubt that there are more competent refs in UEFA than in CONCACAF. I am not convinced though that the corruption level is less. We have had recent reffing scandals in almost all the major European leagues and then the disgraceful reffing performance in the World Cup (and I still have not seen a CONCACAF ref give three yellows to the same player in one game). I quite honestly would prefer an incompetent ref to a biased one. Considering what we are used to in CONCACAF I wouldn't be unhappy if the ref against Jamaica reffed a game for us in that manner. He was incompetent but not biased and I will take that any day over a biased competent ref because that will always kill us. There is no doubt CONCACAF reffing should be improved but I don't see any other federation as a model of good reffing. Soccer is probably the worst reffed major sport and not because of lack of skill but because of corruption that originates at the very top level of the sport's administration.

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Grizzly, that was thoughtful and thought provoking reply, which leant a lot of strength to your argument. Very unusual for this board as of late.

[V]

You're describing what Joe MacGuiness (sp) called "il sistema" in "Castel Di Sangro". In "Castel", the nudge-nudge business went on between clubs in Italy, whereas you are describing nefarious actions between countries. It does seem plausible. But didn't Pipe, Sharpe, etal have any friends in WCQ06? Or are we too lily white to engage in those shenanigans?

Damn, I'm guilty of another thread hi-jack.

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