2016-17 CCL

[Levi Oakey]

23 hours ago, matty said:

Because MLS and Liga MX are the two best leagues and everyone else being there is "bullshit" to some. The MLS vs Liga MX narrative gets way more passion than Costa Rica vs MLS or Panama vs MLS in the US.

But what if a Haitian side wins the whole damn thing again.

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

1 hour ago, shermanator said:

So, where the hell are all the fans for the second leg? Pretty disappointing turnout given what's at stake.

I don't think Thursday nights are usual for Vancouver. Tigres should draw more unless they play down there first and don't get a result.

[matty]

Just now, Levi Oakey said:

But what if a Haitian side wins the whole damn thing again.

 

[SuperCanuck]

On 27/02/2017 at 8:08 AM, Ansem said:

 

Not since 2000 has a North American side won the tournament, with a Mexican team winning it for 11 successive years and counting. Mexico’s dominance over MLS in the CCL is now verging on humiliating. It could be the case that North American teams deliberately refrain themselves from going all through fear of committing too much and falling short – like a high school jock who doesn’t try too hard for fear of looking foolish when they fail.

 

Unless Mexico has emigrated to Africa, their teams are North American.

[SuperCanuck]

4 hours ago, shermanator said:

And yet, the Impact and Toronto FC drew double and triple the fans for this game at the same stage, in shittier venues. It's a pathetic crowd for one of the biggest games in the club's history (outside of the Southsiders section), period.

Yes, it was a pathetic crowd.  If Whitecaps have a marketing team, they do a horrible job.  

There's no shittier venue than BC Place.  

4 hours ago, shermanator said:

 

 

[Greatest Cockney Rip Off]

4 hours ago, SuperCanuck said:

Unless Mexico has emigrated to Africa, their teams are North American.

This is one of the thing that drives me mad about living in the UK. They refer to anything south of the US as South America. 

[C2SKI]

Great result! I hope everyone is healthy and fit for the semis. We'll need it. 

[Kent]

Does anybody know what the attendance was last night? I saw very little of the game, and I'm not seeing the number anywhere. I hate that when the numbers aren't good, they become a secret. Although holy crap, I just found on wikipedia that the game in New York was 3,231. Dallas' home attendance was 4,019. This is pathetic. I don't think those numbers were up there a day or two ago, so maybe I just have to be patient for the Vancouver numbers.

[TRM]

Attendance: 14,183 - Not as bad as some have made it out to be. Sure it would be great to have a sell out but first real game of the season in BC Place and a lot of the casual fans probably thought it was just a pre-season match because it wasn't a MLS match. 

Possession: Vancouver 27.4 % – New York 72.6 %
Shots: Vancouver 13 – New York 6
Shots on Goal: Vancouver 7 – New York 2
Saves: Vancouver 2 – New York 5

Wow. What a difference a good counter attack makes. Pray Manneh doesn't get hurt this year. 

Russ, Alphonso and MDJ start. Davies is still a work in progress but damn he is making a difference. Talk about taking a spot. Calm in front of goal and gets his first of many for both club & country I hope.

[Levi Oakey]

CCL is crazy. Why is it that we as Canadians take it so much more seriously than the MLS clubs? Seeing those NY and Dallas numbers is another major reminder. I agree about the attendance in Vancouver being disappointing but I think that comes down to Vancouver not marketing it well enough, and even then they still get 14k.

I still remember when TFC played the Galaxy in CCL and packed the Rogers Centre while the Galaxy had to play in a college stadium and still couldn't fill it even with free tickets. 

If the Caps push the game against Tigres I think the attendance will be huge.

[Grizzly]

5 hours ago, Greatest Cockney Rip Off said:

This is one of the thing that drives me mad about living in the UK. They refer to anything south of the US as South America. 

The divisions into continents has as much to do with politics as geography. While Africa for example is obviously a separate land mass from Europe, Europe and Asia are a contiguous landmass that is arbitrarily divided at the Ural Mountains (yes there are tectonic plates at mountain ranges but there are many other tectonic plates and the existence of one does not signify a different land mass). Likewise there is no good reason to not include the central American countries as part of North America. I think much of the division is due to it being easier to have poor exploited countries when they are not part of your family. Even Mexico while technically part of North America (probably because at the time of the division it was a wealthier country then it was today) is not really considered by most Canadians or Americans to be North American. It is a lot easier to think about let say Salvadorians as those "Central Americans living in violent poverty stricken countries" then as those "North Americans living in violent poverty stricken countries" because as Central Americans they are not part of our "we". I find it tragic how little contact and mix there is between the other North American countries and Canada and the US other than providing beach resorts and them sending us cheap labour both through the illegal immigration that keeps the US economy afloat and the "legal" cheap labour that keeps both Canada and US farms productive.

And to relate this back to soccer, one of the things I love about the CONCACAF Champions League is it is one of the few areas of cultural exchange between Canada and these countries something which I have personally benefitted from. Travelling to the soccer away games exposes you to the countries, the mentality of the people and the reality of life there in a way far more real than going to visit the beach resorts.

[SuperCanuck]

5 hours ago, Greatest Cockney Rip Off said:

 

 

1 hour ago, TRM said:

Attendance: 14,183 - Not as bad as some have made it out to be. Sure it would be great to have a sell out but first real game of the season in BC Place and a lot of the casual fans probably thought it was just a pre-season match because it wasn't a MLS match. 

Possession: Vancouver 27.4 % – New York 72.6 %
Shots: Vancouver 13 – New York 6
Shots on Goal: Vancouver 7 – New York 2
Saves: Vancouver 2 – New York 5

Wow. What a difference a good counter attack makes. Pray Manneh doesn't get hurt this year. 

Russ, Alphonso and MDJ start. Davies is still a work in progress but damn he is making a difference. Talk about taking a spot. Calm in front of goal and gets his first of many for both club & country I hope.

He sure doesn't look his age, both in stature and ability.

[SuperCanuck]

5 hours ago, Greatest Cockney Rip Off said:

This is one of the thing that drives me mad about living in the UK. They refer to anything south of the US as South America. 

With their knowledge of geography, they must have voted in favour of Israel and Kazakhstan playing in Europe.

That would drive me insane, even more so than Canadians who don't know which continent they live on.

[Kent]

24 minutes ago, Grizzly said:

The divisions into continents has as much to do with politics as geography. While Africa for example is obviously a separate land mass from Europe, Europe and Asia are a contiguous landmass that is arbitrarily divided at the Ural Mountains (yes there are tectonic plates at mountain ranges but there are many other tectonic plates and the existence of one does not signify a different land mass). Likewise there is no good reason to not include the central American countries as part of North America.

Yeah, setting aside the subcontinent of Central America, even counting the number of continents is not a single, agreed upon by everyone thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent

Look at the table in there. That shows 4 different ways to count the number of continents (two of them come up with 6 as the answer, but with a different list of continents). In another article, they mention 6 different ways to count the continents (http://www.citymetric.com/horizons/how-many-continents-are-there-it-s-surprisingly-difficult-question-2776).

So there is no universal truth to any of these distinctions.

 

[SuperCanuck]

31 minutes ago, Grizzly said:

The divisions into continents has as much to do with politics as geography. While Africa for example is obviously a separate land mass from Europe, Europe and Asia are a contiguous landmass that is arbitrarily divided at the Ural Mountains (yes there are tectonic plates at mountain ranges but there are many other tectonic plates and the existence of one does not signify a different land mass). Likewise there is no good reason to not include the central American countries as part of North America. I think much of the division is due to it being easier to have poor exploited countries when they are not part of your family. Even Mexico while technically part of North America (probably because at the time of the division it was a wealthier country then it was today) is not really considered by most Canadians or Americans to be North American. It is a lot easier to think about let say Salvadorians as those "Central Americans living in violent poverty stricken countries" then as those "North Americans living in violent poverty stricken countries" because as Central Americans they are not part of our "we". I find it tragic how little contact and mix there is between the other North American countries and Canada and the US other than providing beach resorts and them sending us cheap labour both through the illegal immigration that keeps the US economy afloat and the "legal" cheap labour that keeps both Canada and US farms productive.

And to relate this back to soccer, one of the things I love about the CONCACAF Champions League is it is one of the few areas of cultural exchange between Canada and these countries something which I have personally benefitted from. Travelling to the soccer away games exposes you to the countries, the mentality of the people and the reality of life there in a way far more real than going to visit the beach resorts.

Central America is part of North America.  It's a region, not a continent unto itself.

[masster]

4 hours ago, C2SKI said:

Great result! I hope everyone is healthy and fit for the semis. We'll need it. 

Teibert's yellow means he is suspended for the next game, which means he won't be playing in Mexico. That is unfortunate from a Voyageur's perspective.

[dyslexic nam]

FFS, I missed it again.  Goddamnit there has to be a better way to promote these games...

For reference, my post from last year...

 

On 9/29/2016 at 11:25 AM, dyslexic nam said:

I know the hardcore fans and club supporters know about upcoming matches, but I wonder if there is a way for this website to flag any upcoming games that people might not know about if they don't follow particular threads.  I am thinking of things like the CCL games, or Voyageurs Cup games that might not be on everyone's radar because they are outside the main offerings (MLS, CMNT/CWNT games, etc.).

 

[TRM]

1 hour ago, dyslexic nam said:

FFS, I missed it again.  Goddamnit there has to be a better way to promote these games...

For reference, my post from last year...

 

 

LMAO. Well judging by the "low" attendance of 14k you weren't the only one. I wish there was something like a mailing list from each club with their games sent out the day before. It would make it easier. 

[masster]

12 hours ago, SuperCanuck said:

Yes, it was a pathetic crowd.  If Whitecaps have a marketing team, they do a horrible job.  

There's no shittier venue than BC Place.  

The crowd was disappointing...no doubt. For those that are curious, let me try to explain some of the reasons why.

1) This match was not included in the season ticket holder package (stupid in my opinion). There was an extra charge, and season ticket holders were able to opt out. A lot of people did because of reason 2.

2) Many fans are turned off of the Champions League because of the way that the club has treated the competition up to this point. During their first run in the tournament 2 years ago, the club fielded a second string side virtually the entire group stage. Performances were very poor including a humiliating performance against rival Seattle. This season, lineups were second string in the group phase also, except that the Whitecaps reserves were better than the SKC reserves and the team managed to progress. So even though this was a quarterfinal match up, many people (foolishly in my opinion) expected that the club would continue to run out the reserves, even though the coach stated otherwise. Therefore, many people were leaning towards not going. That decision was made easier by reason 3.

3) Price. Even though it was against MLS opposition in a competition that has not captured the imagination of the city yet, this game was more expensive than a usual Whitecaps game. So if you had to choose a game, you wouldn't choose this one because of reason 4.

4) Schedule. The MLS season opener is 3 days away. Thursday night versus Sunday. Most people will choose Sunday. Despite that, all of these could have been overcome if it wasn't for reason 5.

5) Lack of buzz. Both for this competition, but for the team and season in general. The new car smell has definitely worn off on the MLS move. The disappointing results from last season and the perception that the front office is not doing all they can to improve the squad has turned a lot of people away. Plus the departures of Marc Weber, David Norman and Peter Schaad have meant that not only the amount, but the quality of mainstream media coverage has fallen off dramatically.

Not trying to excuse the crowd. It should be better. Just wanted to provide context for those that are not in BC.

[shermanator]

1 hour ago, masster said:

The crowd was disappointing...no doubt. For those that are curious, let me try to explain some of the reasons why.

1) This match was not included in the season ticket holder package (stupid in my opinion). There was an extra charge, and season ticket holders were able to opt out. A lot of people did because of reason 2.

2) Many fans are turned off of the Champions League because of the way that the club has treated the competition up to this point. During their first run in the tournament 2 years ago, the club fielded a second string side virtually the entire group stage. Performances were very poor including a humiliating performance against rival Seattle. This season, lineups were second string in the group phase also, except that the Whitecaps reserves were better than the SKC reserves and the team managed to progress. So even though this was a quarterfinal match up, many people (foolishly in my opinion) expected that the club would continue to run out the reserves, even though the coach stated otherwise. Therefore, many people were leaning towards not going. That decision was made easier by reason 3.

3) Price. Even though it was against MLS opposition in a competition that has not captured the imagination of the city yet, this game was more expensive than a usual Whitecaps game. So if you had to choose a game, you wouldn't choose this one because of reason 4.

4) Schedule. The MLS season opener is 3 days away. Thursday night versus Sunday. Most people will choose Sunday. Despite that, all of these could have been overcome if it wasn't for reason 5.

5) Lack of buzz. Both for this competition, but for the team and season in general. The new car smell has definitely worn off on the MLS move. The disappointing results from last season and the perception that the front office is not doing all they can to improve the squad has turned a lot of people away. Plus the departures of Marc Weber, David Norman and Peter Schaad have meant that not only the amount, but the quality of mainstream media coverage has fallen off dramatically.

Not trying to excuse the crowd. It should be better. Just wanted to provide context for those that are not in BC.

Thank you for the perspective.

[Complete Homer]

Interesting contrast with Montreal last year

Turns out if you treat a competition as major, people show up. If you act above it/downplay it's importance by starting a B team, people will follow your lead and think it's a minor competition 

[Blackdude]

I'm not surprised at the crowd or lack of. No TV, no Radio for both games. I think it's unfair to compare both situations because IIRC, all the Impact games in the CCL were on TV 2 years ago. I don't want to say that Montreal treated it better, because they had some problems. I can't comment on people, but going on Facebook to watch a CCL match isn't what I call excitement. I think it's also much easier for the Impact to sell something because there are 2 sports radio stations in Montreal and 2 different sports TV stations in Montreal. Vancouver has 1 sports radio station (maybe 2, but it's the same company, so I count them as one) and they didn't carry the game. 

Montreal has sports TV talk shows like l'Antichambre and Dave Morissette en Direct that just can't exist the same in Vancouver and I'd argue that even Toronto couldn't have a show like that where they could get a  player or soccer pundit to talk about it for 10-15 minutes.

 

[mtlfan]

Vancouver = MAJOR FAIL. 5 games away from a World Cup and hardly anyone shows up?

 

 

[Ansem]

Damn! Just realized that Whitecaps made the CCL semi-finals!!!

Congrats, but there's no way they beat Tigres who are currently 3rd in Liga MX behind Pachuca who are #2 (sorry Dallas)

[Raven]

Any word on TV schedule for this?