masster Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 Article from ESPN with some interesting quotes from Concacaf saying that MLS didn't want knockouts in the fall because it would interfere with the playoff chase and decision day. I guess we know where their priorities are.http://www.espnfc.us/concacaf-champions-league/story/3044900/concacaf-champions-league-unveils-new-format-without-group-stage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masster Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 Another interesting article with a breakdown of the positives and negatives of this change.http://www.totalmls.net/blog/2017/1/23/concacaf-reformats-champions-league-adds-7-more-teams-and-restructures-schedule So as of now, Toronto FC, which won the Voyageur's Cup in 2016, will not play in the Champions League until February/March 2018. People are calling this a negative, which it is. However there is an easy solution. If we do not award a Champions League spot to the winner of the Voyageur's Cup for one season (skip one year), we will be on a much tighter timeline than we were before. So... 2017 Voyageur's Cup winner = no champions league participation 2018 Voyageur's Cup winner = 2019 knockout round 2019 Voyageur's Cup winner = 2020 knockout round and so on The arrival of the CPL and an extra Canadian spot for that league though may change things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kent Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 1 hour ago, matty said: I get why we didn't and agree with the logic but Canadian teams have performed very strongly in this tournament and canadian ccl home games draw a high number of spectators. With the cpl seemingly on the horizon, introducing a second canadian spot now and allocating to the vcup finalist for a short term period of time would arguably be easier than removing a spot from cfu or creating a playoff. I think the easiest would be to have a coefficients system. Then when Canada has enough pro teams, the coefficient system would no doubt reward Canada with another spot and it wouldn't be personal for whichever country lost their spot. They seem to hint at something like a coefficient system in one paragraph in the release, but everything else about the news contradicts that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ansem Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 2 hours ago, matty said: I think when they do enter the cpl champ we'll see them enter in phase 1 in one of the cfu spots. That would be somewhat of a bad optic... Every other leagues in Central America and North America reward both champions of the domestic cups and league cup. I doubt CPL/CSA would put up with that precedent especially since Canada has performed so well for this tournament. The runner ups of both V Cup and CPL Cup should enter stage 1. Anyway you put it, CPL will force the CCL to reformat/expand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matty Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 2 minutes ago, Ansem said: That would be somewhat of a bad optic... Every other leagues in Central America and North America reward both champions of the domestic cups and league cup. I doubt CPL/CSA would put up with that precedent especially since Canada has performed so well for this tournament. The runner ups of both V Cup and CPL Cup should enter stage 1. Anyway you put it, CPL will force the CCL to reformat/expand I think the cpl entering in the fall cup is fair at least until it's proved it's worthy of moving to the spring cup. I do like your idea of 4 canadian teams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ansem Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 22 minutes ago, matty said: I think the cpl entering in the fall cup is fair at least until it's proved it's worthy of moving to the spring cup. I do like your idea of 4 canadian teams. I don't think it's about proving their "worth". It more about at what level they are being sanctioned, hence NASL champions not being invited and MLS being awarded a spot even when the level of play was atrocious. CPL will be D1, thus they their champion should be there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matty Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 17 minutes ago, Ansem said: I don't think it's about proving their "worth". It more about at what level they are being sanctioned, hence NASL champions not being invited and MLS being awarded a spot even when the level of play was atrocious. CPL will be D1, thus they their champion should be there. You can apply logic to this but i don't think it's gonna be that simple. There will be resistance to a new league with zero history and only 6 to 8 teams entering from others especially if it endangers their spots and if the cfu pissed offness is as bad as it seems. There could be some dividends for this league to pay. Adding to that Belize isn't being given a spot in phase 2 so there's no lock for the cpl getting one either. Now the csa could decide to give their phase 2 spot to the cpl and downgrade the vcup spot but i don't see that happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gopherbashi Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 41 minutes ago, matty said: Now the csa could decide to give their phase 2 spot to the cpl and downgrade the vcup spot but i don't see that happening. Yeah, I really don't see the CSA downgrading the only entry for our MLS teams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ansem Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 For now it's a good format but once CPL starts and hits 10-12 teams, this makes more sense to me. Phase 2 CFU Champions (0): The CFU tournament should be to establish which 3 teams makes it to Phase I, not giving it's champion an automatic berth. Sorry, but they are way too weak for phase II. And if they end up leaving CONCACAF, then that frees 1 spot. Costa Rica (2): I view them as the 2nd strongest league in CONCACAF. They should have been allowed to keep 2 spots in Phase 2. (champions of both tournaments) Mexico (4): Only Federation deserving of 4 automatic spots USA (3): I think 3 is fair. I get they reward the US Open Cup and MLS Champions but they would have to choose between Supporter's Shield (that doen't mean much in the end) and MLS Cup runner-up (who deserve their playoff run to be rewarded). Supporter's Shield could go to CCL if a Canadian Club ends up winning the MLS Cup or being the finalist. Central America (4): Panama, Honduras, Salvador, Guatemala, 1 spot each Canada (2): V Cup Winner and CPL Champion Phase I Champion (1) Phase 1 As is Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister215Guy Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 The US MLS teams should enter in Phase 1 until they prove they're actually better than the Caribbean leagues. Last year DC United struggled against a Jamaican side! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kent Posted January 24, 2017 Share Posted January 24, 2017 This article talks a bit more about the "index". http://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2017/01/24/concacaf-champions-league-format-ccl-change-mls-liga-mx Relevant part from the article: CONCACAF is working on creating an “index” similar to UEFA’s coefficient system designed to assist in the seeding process. Using and weighing results from the past nine CCL seasons, the governing body will measure the relative strength and performance of regions (North America, Central America and Caribbean), leagues and even individual berths. How does the Open Cup winner do, for example? Or the runner-up in the Liga MX Apertura? CONCACAF hasn’t announced which measurement it will prioritize, or if it will include commercial or logistical considerations in the bracketing. It will have to announce a decision by late May, when it will conduct the draw for the fall tournament. The same indexing/seeding procedure will be used for the 2018 CCL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coppercanuck Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 Agree the countries that get the spots in each phase need to be determined more transparently. The "index" is a start. I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HfxCeltic Posted August 2, 2017 Share Posted August 2, 2017 I'm not a huge fan of the knockout round type format for the Champions League portion of the tourney. I agree the CONCACAF League should be a knockout format as it's more of a qualifying tournament than anything, but would really like a group stage format for the Champions League portion. 4 groups of 4 would be perfect, with the top 2 teams in each group making it to a round of 8 and have knockout introduced then. Seems more fun and each team would play more games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kent Posted August 2, 2017 Share Posted August 2, 2017 2 hours ago, HfxCeltic said: I'm not a huge fan of the knockout round type format for the Champions League portion of the tourney. I agree the CONCACAF League should be a knockout format as it's more of a qualifying tournament than anything, but would really like a group stage format for the Champions League portion. 4 groups of 4 would be perfect, with the top 2 teams in each group making it to a round of 8 and have knockout introduced then. Seems more fun and each team would play more games. Yup, that would be best. They did it like that from the 2008-9 tournament through the 2011-12 tournament. They got rid of that format because teams complained there were too many games. Sigh. Minimum games for a team per tournament: 2008-9 through 2011-12 era: 6 games against 3 different teams 2012-13 through 2016-17 era : 4 games against 2 different teams 2018 and beyond era: 2 games against 1 team I still hate this! Really looking forward to TFC getting drawn against an MLS team so that one of those teams' entire CCL run amounts to a pre-season home and away against an MLS rival. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ansem Posted August 4, 2017 Share Posted August 4, 2017 Olimpia are winning 2-0 on Alajuelense Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ansem Posted August 4, 2017 Share Posted August 4, 2017 Entertaining game. Montagliani magic at works here? Enjoying the live streaming of the CONCACAF League on Youtube (minus empty stadium for this game I'm about to watch) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kent Posted September 27, 2017 Share Posted September 27, 2017 With Toronto leading the League/East and Vancouver leading the West, I got to wondering how USA is allocating their CCL spots. So I looked it up and found something interesting here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018–19_in_CONCACAF_club_competitions#Teams So first of all, the 2018 CCL teams have already been determined based on 2016 results. The short story for 2019 CCL is that they are using the US Open Cup champions from 2017 and 2018, and the MLS Cup champions for 2017 and 2018. Then there is a note for what happens if a Canadian team wins MLS CUP in 2017 or 2018. "If a team qualifies through multiple berths, or if any of the MLS berths are taken by a Canada-based MLS team, how berths will be reallocated have not been confirmed." Yikes!!! Get it together USSF! Are you going to hand pick a team after MLS Cup is handed out? It would look really bad if, say, TFC wins the Cup and they have to essentially decide between the top point getter in the regular season (say, NYCFC) or the MLS Cup finalist (say, Seattle). They absolutely need to figure this out ASAP or else it will look like they are playing favourites. Could you imagine what it'd look like if the top 3 regular season teams end up being TFC, Vancouver, and SKC (who have already qualified with their US Open Cup win) and TFC plays either Vancouver or SKC in the MLS Cup final? I'd kind of love to see that happen to watch the madness unfold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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