Canada needs to play Gold Cup qualification

[Bxl Boy]

If I understand well (and explains it good in English[]), now players have to play an official game to be tied with the country.

Canada plays few official games : Gold Cup on the 2 years, and WC qualification, during 3 months on the 4 years.

So, we can lose players just because of the lack of official games.

If we have to qualify for the Gold Cup, it would add games and possibilities to select players and tie them with us.

[Cyrus]

I absolutely agree. We are in DESPERATE need of more games in the Caribbean and Central America. Playing qualifiers for the Gold Cup would be the perfect way for us to do this, since the CSA seem unable to schedule such games as friendlies. Plus this would allow the Voyageurs to organize nice package vacations to sunny spots like Bermuda, Cuba, and Haiti. Maybe scratch that last one.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Careful what you wish for. Doesn't automatic Gold Cup qualification guarantee a good number of games every two years by itself? If the schedule of games became too heavy all that would happen would be a lot of Aguiar and Radzinski type effective retirements or long hiatuses from the national team.

[finchster]

It would be good but lets be realistic, we wouldn't be playing in the Gold Cup if qualifications were during Mitchels term [xx(].

[rdroze]

I absolutely agree that Canada should have to qualify for the Gold Cup.

I hadn't considered it from this particular viewpoint (explained quite well), but it's true. Right now we rely on friendlies just to keep our core players familiar with each other and the Canadian system (whatever that is). Being able to use the friendlies to try out new players and new ideas would certainly help.

However, if I can detour for a moment, I think that requiring qualification for the Gold Cup would also do wonders for our FIFA ranking. Since yesterday's rankings came out I've been looking closely at the details of how the ratings are generated, and I've realized that Canada suffers a huge disadvantage compared to the other upper level CONCACAF nations by not having the opportunity to qualify for the Gold Cup.

Every Gold Cup qualifying game is worth 2.5 times more ranking points than a friendly. So consider this situation: earlier this year Honduras played five games as part of their Gold Cup qualifying. They played Belize, Nicaragua, El Salvador twice, and Panama, losing only the game against Panama. Even if Canada had played five friendlies during that same time span (Canada did not actually play a single game), and even if they had won four out of the five against similarly-ranked opposition (I think most would agree that's a reasonable result), Honduras would still have earned 2.5 times as many ranking points as Canada.

By my calculations, if Canada had played those same games as friendlies with the same results, they would have only about 11 more ranking points than they do now, still only good enough for 11th overall in CONCACAF. If Canada had played those same games as Gold Cup qualifying games with the same results, they would have about 108 more ranking points than they do now, good enough for 7th in CONCACAF. Those four ranks of difference may not mean much when we're in the depths we are now, but the difference between, say, 7th in CONCACAF and 3rd would be huge. And it's an advantage that all of Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, Jamaica, T&T, etc, etc enjoy to the detriment of Canada.

Friendlies are not an efficient way to improve your ranking.

[jpg75]

I'm not sure i'd like to see us go through qualifiers. It usually happens in the winter prior to the GC which is during the MLS off-season. So we either go with out of form MLS players or we try and get our Euro-based players to make the trek overseas for a week to play a couple of minnows. I could see most of our top players declining to play and us subsequently failing to qualify, much like Jamaica in '07.

[hamiltonfan]

agreed. this is a no brainer

[Obinna]

^Yes, but these qualifiers will also be a chance to cap-tie alot of young players who are eligable for other nations. Not to mention the needed experience. The Question is, what kind of qualification can we look at? The Caribbean and Central Americans have their own championships to use, but what about us? Mabye a three team mini-tournament with Canada, the Central American 6th place, and Caribbean Cup 5th place? Perhaps with the top two going through. That would have seen Canada/Guatamala/T&T battle it out, kind of tricky but mabye better in the end. Of course then you would have to expand the tournament to 14 teams which would be odd....

[ChrisB]

quote:Originally posted by Sigma

The last time Canada played in qualifying for the Gold Cup was back in October 1999. Canada tied Cuba 0-0, beat Haiti 2-1 and El Salvador 2-1.

And THAT Gold Cup was certainly a disaster

[redhat]

They don't really need a GC qualifier. What the CSA needs is

to revive a FIFA-sanctioned tournament in Canada, like the Canada

Cup.

They should play it at BMO or Stade Saputo, invite the other

teams that hosted us before (U.S., Iceland, Finland, Ireland, etc)

and make a sh*t-load of money.

This would also make up for the other nations hosting us in the past,

and would cap-tie certain players, and have a games in Canada

as promised.

My problem with GC qualifiers is that they are CONCACAF-refereed

events and, depending on the ref, we can get royally screwed and

be out of the Gold Cup before it starts.

[youllneverwalkalone]

^Good idea. I'm not sure if those matches would then cap-tie players but I don't think that's really important. If I were FIFA, I would defintely look into the issue of cap-tying young players just for it's own sake. Like Alain Rochat. He played one fairly meaningless match against Faroe Islands or some minnow, and now we can't call him. I doubt he would have ever played if he wasn't born outside Switzerland. I say we go after Frei . Begovic who?

Regarding the tournament, I think the no-brainer that everyone would love to see is a Commonwealth championship. I'm not sure how many Commonwealth countries there are, but if you could play 3 or so matches to qualify into a tournament of say 8 teams, the schedule wouldn't be too difficult to handle. And England might actually win something.

[amacpher]

Well, all the problems mentioned in this thread can be solved by fixing the World Cup qualifying and having the Gold Cup once every 4 years. Minnows like Luxembourg, UAE, Rwanda and Bolivia are involved in WC qualifying right up until the World Cup draw, but CONCACAF decided it was a good idea to eliminate a good chunk of the teams after a couple of months of competition.

That said, there should also be Gold Cup qualifying for every body because that's the fair way to do things. What if Canada doesn't qualify? Tough luck. Why should anybody get a free pass? What if players don't want to bother making the trip? That will probably be solved if the GC was once every 4 years, thus making the games actually ... you know.... matter.

[youllneverwalkalone]

^Also a good idea.

[Bxl Boy]

quote:Originally posted by amacpher

Well, all the problems mentioned in this thread can be solved by fixing the World Cup qualifying and having the Gold Cup once every 4 years. Minnows like Luxembourg, UAE, Rwanda and Bolivia are involved in WC qualifying right up until the World Cup draw, but CONCACAF decided it was a good idea to eliminate a good chunk of the teams after a couple of months of competition.

That said, there should also be Gold Cup qualifying for every body because that's the fair way to do things. What if Canada doesn't qualify? Tough luck. Why should anybody get a free pass? What if players don't want to bother making the trip? That will probably be solved if the GC was once every 4 years, thus making the games actually ... you know.... matter.

I totally agree