Canadian Premier League

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Canada's culture is a lot more similar to that of the United States than it is to Honduras, so I am not sure where you are going with that given I deliberately made it clear that the argument only applied with "all other considerations being equal", which I think is not unreasonable as a rough indication when two culturally similar countries are involved.

[Viruk42]

17 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Canada's culture is a lot more similar to that of the United States than it is to Honduras, so I am not sure where you are going with that given I deliberately made it clear that the argument only applied with "all other considerations being equal", which I think is not unreasonable as a rough indication when two culturally similar countries are involved.

Mhm, I agree, but there's two issues with your argument: First, if our culture is similar to that of the US, then arguments about population suggest we should produce proportionally the same number of pros. i.e. about 11%. We have ~4% of MLS. Doesn't seem to line up. Second, "all other considerations being equal" basically means that population is completely irrelevant, which is true, and thus it's not worth mentioning.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Did you read the rest of my post above? According to wikipedia 232 non-USMNT and CMNT-eligible players have played at least once in MLS this season. That suggests that up to 40% of the roster spots are held by players that are foreign to both the US and Canadian national team setups, largely because of how easy it is to get a green card in the United States. If Canadians hold 4% over and above that (think it's actually closer to 5%) there may be as few as 55% held by USMNT eligible players. People with an agenda twist stats to fit their argument, so it's always best to examine the assumptions involved. If it is 4.8% vs ca. 55% for CMNT-eligible vs USMNT-eligible (suspect it might be somewhat less favourable than that from a Canadian context, but don't have time to examine in depth) it's nothing like as skewed as people like Montgliani and Totera like to paint it once per capita population is factored in.

[Viruk42]

15 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Did you read the rest of my post above? According to wikipedia 232 non-USMNT and CMNT-eligible players have played at least once in MLS this season. That suggests that up to 40% of the roster spots are held by players that are foreign to both the US and Canadian national team setups, largely because of how easy it is to get a green card in the United States. If Canadians hold 4% over and above that (think it's actually closer to 5%) there may be as few as 55% held by USMNT eligible players. People with an agenda twist stats to fit their argument, so it's always best to examine the assumptions involved. If it is 4.8% vs ca. 55% for CMNT-eligible vs USMNT-eligible (suspect it might be slightly less favourable than that from a Canadian context, but don't have time to examine in depth) it's nothing like as skewed as people like Montgliani and Totera like to paint it.

Fair enough, it does seem to match up fairly closely to the proportion number of spots. I looked at wikipedia pages' "current roster" (which, it should be noted, does include people who have played 0 games for the team, like Laryea with Orlando, but I'm not so insane as to go through player by player to determine nationality per game played), and came up with these totals:

US teams: 238 Americans (52.2%), 3 Canadians (0.7%), 456 total
Cdn teams: 24 Americans (28.6%), 26 Canadians (31.0%), 84 total
MLS totals: 262 Americans (48.5%), 29 Canadians (5.4%), 540 total.

5.4% / 48.5% = 0.1113.
Canada's 2013 population (35.16mil) / US 2013 population (316.5mil) = 0.1111.

So you were right on that front, my apologies. 

[-Hammer-]

Skewing to population size is one of the poorest arguments you can make. How does Iceland, with a popluation less then a million produce a national team capable of making and winning in the Euro. How do the majority of our CONCAAF rivals consistently out perform us? Hondouras, Panama, Jamaicia, Costa Rica, all superior teams with less population. Maybe because they all have their own pro-leauges? Maybe because most of their players either are playing out of their pro-leauge or at some point played in their pro-league and developed to move onto better paying clubs? Yet somehow China, with far more population then Canada has only made it to the Cup but once (and like Canada, only because of a local region host). Perhaps because their league only had 12 teams at some point, which doesn't remotely meet their population demands. Maybe because for decades their league system was a managerial mess and didn't focus much on development? Perhaps lilke us, they have been far too region specific, focusing mainly around Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou?

As far as the number of Canadians compared to Americans playing in MLS aligning with our populations, I can only say. Who cares? Who care's if the MLS has to offer lines up with our population. Is that somehow going to increase our development? Is that somehow going to make better Canadians not get passed over local US domestics? Does that somehow make everyone else in CONCAAF with their own leagues, less competative? The answers are all a resounding no.

The best you can say in MLS is doing as much as can be expected of them given our populations, which clearly still isn't enough. That's not a rip into MLS, it's not their job to produce Canadian talent on the scale we require and we can even go as far and say it's unreasonable for the CSA to expect more Canadian development out of them. Having 30 guys worth of players playing high end minutes isn't enough to produce meaningful development, espcially when these smaller countries have hundreds of guys playing in their own domestic leagues.

This is the thing that kills me the most, everyone, even the CPL naysayers agree we need more pro teams. Yet somehow starting a league to make more pro-teams is a bad idea, but further integrating with a league that has outright said "We are not putting any more top tier pro-teams in Canada." is somehow better.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

4 hours ago, -Hammer- said:

Is that somehow going to make better Canadians not get passed over local US domestics?

The near parity on roster content when normalized for per capita population (that still needs further research but the broad trends are clear) strongly suggests that this isn't actually happening to anything like the extent that you think it is and that the roster rules are probably only having a marginal effect. If there are Canadians being passed over, where are they exactly? You would expect Edmonton and Ottawa to be absolutely dominating the NASL with Canadian players, if that were happening to a lot of MLS quality players, but instead Edmonton is now using an import dominated team in an attempt to be competitive with Miami and the Cosmos. I suspect Issey Nakajima-Farran is a similar case to Nana Attakora in that he wasn't quite good enough to cut it MLS. He doesn't have a green card unlike Attakora, so can still use the roster rule as an excuse for not making the grade. If you learn one thing being involved with soccer competitively at any level, it is that you seldom meet a player who thinks they didn't make a team they tried out for, because they weren't good enough.

[Gordon]

17 hours ago, Viruk42 said:

Fair enough, it does seem to match up fairly closely to the proportion number of spots. I looked at wikipedia pages' "current roster" (which, it should be noted, does include people who have played 0 games for the team, like Laryea with Orlando, but I'm not so insane as to go through player by player to determine nationality per game played), and came up with these totals:

US teams: 238 Americans (52.2%), 3 Canadians (0.7%), 456 total
Cdn teams: 24 Americans (28.6%), 26 Canadians (31.0%), 84 total
MLS totals: 262 Americans (48.5%), 29 Canadians (5.4%), 540 total.

5.4% / 48.5% = 0.1113.
Canada's 2013 population (35.16mil) / US 2013 population (316.5mil) = 0.1111.

So you were right on that front, my apologies. 

Respectfully, I will remind you that there are lies, damned lied and statistics. Economics dictates that MLS clubs keeps local players at the bottom fringes of their roster it is a huge mistake to suggest that this reflects parity. MLS rosters are huge, and for any given game, 10 are not dressed, and 5-6 will never even make the bench at any point during the season (aside from friendlies and cup games). They are MLS players in name only.

[Viruk42]

4 minutes ago, Gordon said:

Respectfully, I will remind you that there are lies, damned lied and statistics. Economics dictates that MLS clubs keeps local players at the bottom fringes of their roster it is a huge mistake to suggest that this reflects parity. MLS rosters are huge, and for any given game, 10 are not dressed, and 5-6 will never even make the bench at any point during the season (aside from friendlies and cup games). They are MLS players in name only.

*cough*

17 hours ago, Viruk42 said:

(which, it should be noted, does include people who have played 0 games for the team, like Laryea with Orlando, but I'm not so insane as to go through player by player to determine nationality per game played)

 

[dyslexic nam]

So, this is settled then?

[Complete Homer]

39 minutes ago, dyslexic nam said:

So, this is settled then?

The league or extended debate about a topic only tangentially related to the topic?

Cause I'm expecting another ten pages of the latter at this rate

[dyslexic nam]

Definitely the debate.

 

At this rate, we will have to rename the thread "The Importance of the CPL"

[MtlMario]

On ‎2016‎-‎09‎-‎17 at 1:06 PM, -Hammer- said:

Anyways, another great video by Andrew Totera

 

I love this guy.

[-Hammer-]

6 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

The near parity on roster content when normalized for per capita population (that still needs further research but the broad trends are clear) strongly suggests that this isn't actually happening to anything like the extent that you think it is and that the roster rules are probably only having a marginal effect. If there are Canadians being passed over, where are they exactly? You would expect Edmonton and Ottawa to be absolutely dominating the NASL with Canadian players, if that were happening to a lot of MLS quality players, but instead Edmonton is now using an import dominated team in an attempt to be competitive with Miami and the Cosmos. I suspect Issey Nakajima-Farran is a similar case to Nana Attakora in that he wasn't quite good enough to cut it MLS. He doesn't have a green card unlike Attakora, so can still use the roster rule as an excuse for not making the grade. If you learn one thing being involved with soccer competitively at any level, it is that you seldom meet a player who thinks they didn't make a team they tried out for, because they weren't good enough.

To quote Macksam "If guys like Jacob Peterson, Dan Gargan and Chad Barret were Canadian, their careers would have ended the moment TFC gave them the boot." and guys like Jordan Hamilton, Mo Baboulli or similar players could have easily taken those spots and spots elsewhere from any number of less qualified US players, if they were domestic beyond three teams. Also your "Broad trends" fail to account that the majority of those Canadians aren't getting actual playing time, despite being on a roster.

As far as NASL is concerned, yeah, they are loading up on foreign players because they can. Any league which has a poor domestic requirement is likely to buy foreign talent because you get more out of your buck. It's not rocket science. That trending continuing however kills our national teams development.

As far as those individual players, there is literally no way of knowing, which is also a problem. If there is even a question if he might have made the team, if he were a domestic, then it further proves my point, because he could be making the team if they were treated as such.

You also seem to have cherry picked my post and are missing the core point of the argument. Who cares if MLS's Canadian content normalizes with population (of which your arguement is dubious). If suddenly the US's population expanded by 100 million, and we had the same number of Canadians in MLS it would change nothing. If you take 1/5th of one pie or take 1/10th of another pie twice as large, you still have the same amount of pie regardless. Saying, "Well MLS is being fair based on our populations" (of which the jury is out on that one) doesn't change that what may be fair by their standards is still not enough for us to succeed. It's not soley about Canadians getting passed over (although that is part of it as I stated) it's the fact that not enough Canadians play at a high level and are cohesive enough a squad to make our national team strong. MLS or otherwise.

Domestic slots exist to give local players opportunities. They exist because they force clubs to go out, and develop local talent, and if they don't their roster will have dead weight locals. It's that simple. Do you think for even a second that if MLS scrapped the domestic player rule entirely (of which yes I know they can't) and made it open season that there would be anywhere near as many US players playing in MLS? Of course there wouldn't be. Those domestic players who play at the high level, whose clubs are forced to develop them make their national team stronger, and yes the few Canadian players who get minutes in MLS also make our team stronger. The problem is that there aren't enough of them playing and the only two ways to have more of them playing, more local clubs (which MLS has stated they aren't interested in) or more domestic slots open to them where they do play. Be that in the form of making Canadians open to all domestic slots, or increasing the Canadian domestic requirement.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

58 minutes ago, -Hammer- said:

You also seem to have cherry picked my post and are missing the core point of the argument...

I have already responded many times to the various points you have raised. 

[Dub Narcotic]

Mediocre Canadians like Nana Attakora and Kyle Bekker got many MLS chances after leaving TFC, I've never considered that a great argument.

[Ruffian]

Something new

 

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Will be interesting to see whether that means they really do intend to force the MLS teams into it by withdrawing their sanctioning or it's the reserve teams that are involved. At least this all seems to be approaching some sort of resolution now.

[matty]

14 minutes ago, Ruffian said:

Something new

 

What ya'll think

1) TFC telling CSA they don't wanna join
2) TFC have asked the CSA for info on the GTA team
3) The GTA team wants to use BMO while a stadium is built
4) MLSE is in charge of the Toronto team
5) TFC want to know how they can help and plan on being friendly to the CPL

[Complete Homer]

I doubt it was 1), everyone who understands the ownership model knows it can't be done

I truly hope it is 2), 3), or 5

I fear it means the USL reserve sides will be in the league. IMO, it kills the chance to really make this division one soccer, even if the actual level of play doesn't change much, the perception will be evident. At the very least, if USL teams move over, I hope they rebrand to something unique.

[Shway]

3 minutes ago, matty said:

What ya'll think

1) TFC telling CSA they don't wanna join
2) TFC have asked the CSA for info on the GTA team
3) The GTA team wants to use BMO while a stadium is built
4) MLSE is in charge of the Toronto team
5) TFC want to know how they can help and plan on being friendly to the CPL

I'll go with 1, 2, 5.

3 wouldn't make sense if Lamport is available which is perfect size.

4 I would pray and hope not.

[Complete Homer]

Alternatively, they have stressed that they want to do their full due diligence...maybe it is just a meeting with TFC to check if they had any interest at all in owning a GTA-based team outside of TFC & TFCII. It would be a longshot, but if you're claiming to be all about due diligence, checking if the richest soccer ownership group in Canada is interested in a team is probably up there

Unfortunately, I'm betting it is USL to CPL, which would be a big shift in tactics and rather disappointing

[Kent]

On 17/09/2016 at 2:29 PM, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

There needs to be an entertainment product that people will want to pay to watch. Anthony Totera was involved with a league that didn't even come close to making it financially, because it completely failed to do that. Can understand why there is this seething anger and jealousy about Americans coming in and taking all our jobs from coaches, players and administrators that think they should have them instead as some sort of birthright, but I seriously doubt that many spectators will show up to watch Andrea Lombardo rather than Sebastian Giovinco out of a sense of patriotism and I will be very surprised if these guys can line up blue chip investors in the absence of the three MLS franchises being forced to play in CPL or closed down through having their sanctioning pulled. You can't eat your cake and have it too. Beyond that do you grasp that I would like the idea of the CPL if life was a utopia, but would prefer that the CSA gets on with dealing with reality warts and all, given that it is not?

Tangent question. Does your name mean you want TFC to change their name to Toronto Blizzard? Or does it just predate TFC and you never bothered to change it?

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

The latter.

[-Hammer-]

1 hour ago, matty said:

What ya'll think

1) TFC telling CSA they don't wanna join
2) TFC have asked the CSA for info on the GTA team
3) The GTA team wants to use BMO while a stadium is built
4) MLSE is in charge of the Toronto team
5) TFC want to know how they can help and plan on being friendly to the CPL

I'm inclined to think this is a sizing up meeting. Everything from MLSE saying "If you pull us from MLS expect to get sued" to "How can we make a compromise so you don't De-sanction us, which we know you aren't going to" to "I want our USL team to join, why can't it joint...it's pro..ish" to "We have market rights which we may or may not have." to "We're concerned that if our team starts to stink again, you'll steal fans from us" to "Sure, we'll run another independent team for giggles" to "BMO is ours, stay off the West Side"

There is just so much potential ground here, but I'm more inclined to think this is going to be TFC trying to size up what the CSA has in terms of the CanPL and gauging how much of a potential threat/opportunity/thing it may or may not be.

[rob.notenboom]

1 hour ago, -Hammer- said:

 

There is just so much potential ground here, but I'm more inclined to think this is going to be TFC trying to size up what the CSA has in terms of the CanPL and gauging how much of a potential threat/opportunity/thing it may or may not be.

If that was the case and I were the CSA, that would be a short meeting. It would be 'none of your business thank you very much' and out the door.