CPL General

[matty]

29 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

The unstated message appears to be vote this guy out or the Flames leave town. I doubt pro soccer would be happening under that ownership until that saga gets fully resolved, so I suspect if there is a team #6 in July 2018 if all the pieces slide neatly into place elsewhere after an NASL death spiral it would be in one of the very few markets that have a stadium that is ready to go pretty much as is with an stadium owner that is easy to deal with in a hurry. That leaves Swangard, OSA Soccer Centre in Vaughan, Claude Robillard, Moncton and St John's. Given where likely interested soccer loving owners with more money than sense when it comes to investing in their sporting passion are most likely to live due to recent immigration patterns, and given where CPL HQ has set up shop I suspect there would be a team with Toronto in its name at launch. We'll find out very soon if this is happening as the timeline is so tight they probably only have another month to six weeks maximum to go public on a 2018 launch and leave time to make a reasonable first impression as the winter transfer window is the key for securing the services of North American based players.

Mostly agree, unless the Stampeders operate on their own or one of CSEG owner's does it solo I can't see them being behind the team right this second but stranger things do happen.

[Ansem]

14 minutes ago, matty said:

Mostly agree, unless the Stampeders operate on their own or one of CSEG owner's does it solo I can't see them being behind the team right this second but stranger things do happen.

Than again, no one likes giving up a monopoly. Them owning every relevant sports team in town is telling on what to expect next...

[Rheo]

In "BOOM" news, Totera is doing a CPL fantasy draft with a handful of people (including Rollins and Sandor) on his show tonight for those of you interested.

[Rheo]

Also Rollins' take on the pricing for the Hamilton friendly and the possible implications to the CPL

http://www.canadiansoccernews.com/forums/topic/46512-ticket-prices-and-the-canpl/

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

24 minutes ago, Rheo said:

Also Rollins' take on the pricing for the Hamilton friendly and the possible implications to the CPL

http://www.canadiansoccernews.com/forums/topic/46512-ticket-prices-and-the-canpl/

...or maybe a rich Canadian Benfica fan called Fernando Pacheco decided he wanted to bring his favourite team to the Golden Horseshoe and Rangers got roped in with the offer of a big appearance fee as their finances aren't the greatest at the moment and their manager and several prominent first team players are Portuguese and it really is only indirectly connected to CPL and would have been played at BMO Field if there had been no Argos game that weekend. Do we even know for sure that "Canadian SUM" wasn't simply something negotiated between the CSA and MLS given the backdrop of a joint WC 2026 hosting bid?

{Edit: think he is right to be worried about the crowd as I suspect the promoter is going to lose a lot of money, but is underestimating how many Rangers and Benfica fans there are in easy driving distance of Hamilton who are passionate about their teams and the extent to which they and only they are the target market}

Edited September 13, 2017 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[Tigers]

Idk, I told my Portuguese manager about it after I got the email for the presale, he jumped on it and bought 7 tickets, and sent it to his brother in law who bought 6 more of some of the pricey ones. 

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Have you ever met a Portuguese person in Canada who isn't a Benfica, Sporting or Porto fan and reasonably fanatical about it? I haven't.

[matty]

40 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Have you ever met a Portuguese person in Canada who isn't a Benfica, Sporting or Porto fan and reasonably fanatical about it? I haven't.

I have! LOL her name is Cassaundra and she's an emo goth lady I went to school with who now makes buttons for my film fest. She has a Benfica patch on her coat and cheers for them in UCL and Europa but has zero clue what's happening in the league or who is on the team. She said it's fun to cheer for them every few weeks but it's stupid to follow them like her dad did.

[RickC]

2 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

...or maybe a rich Canadian Benfica fan called Fernando Pacheco decided he wanted to bring his favourite team to the Golden Horseshoe

You must mean another Fernando Pacheco than this guy: 

The type of booze Fernando Pacheco drinks comes with a dire warning label—"ingestion will result in severe gastrointestinal disturbance, unconsciousness, and death."

Pacheco, 50, a Portuguese Canadian who grew up in Vancouver and lives in the Downtown Eastside, consumes rubbing alcohol compound, aka isopropyl, on a regular basis. A "drink" for him is about one-third of a 500 ml bottle mixed with water. The effect is practically instantaneous.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

I may be adding two and two and getting five about the Fernando Pacheco mentioned in this Hamilton Spectator article about the game:

https://www.thespec.com/sports-story/7544616-european-soccer-clubs-to-play-friendly-in-hamilton-next-month/

...The Eusebio Cup is being promoted by Elite Soccer Entertainment of Brampton, with organizational and game-day support from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

"I hope it will be a full house," Elite Soccer Entertainment president Fernando Pacheco told The Spectator Friday. "You couldn't ask for a better opportunity to promote soccer in Hamilton. The field is beautiful."...

{Edit: If it's anything to do with these people:

http://www.bramptonelitesoccer.com/

my money would have been on some sort of Boavista angle judging by the jerseys}

 

Edited September 13, 2017 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[Kent]

I think Rollins view is very plausible in terms of this being a test run for Canada SUM. I'm sure most people here got an email about tickets as well but when I got mine from the ticats I thought the only reason why I got this is because I gave my email address to the CanPL website. Not because of CMNT tickets I have bought in the past because those go to a different email address. Plus, lets not forget that there was that game in Regina earlier this season. Hopefully they sell a lot of tickets for this game and it helps the league forge ahead.

[matty]

God what if Benfica are the European team owner and they use this to launch their team. That would be some dumb shit

[Gopherbashi]

15 minutes ago, matty said:

God what if Benfica are the European team owner and they use this to launch their team. That would be some dumb shit

Benficanada?

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

6 hours ago, Kent said:

I think Rollins view is very plausible in terms of this being a test run for Canada SUM...

Do we have any solid evidence that isn't simply between MLS and the CSA given it is the MLS owners that run the original SUM and the CSA recently also launched Canadian Generation Adidas with them? From what I have seen over the years Rollins has been wrong about a few things (True North rather than the Bombers in Winnipeg etc), so he may not be quite as in the loop as you guys think he is. The whole piece reads to me as the musings of a small town Ontario Bob and Doug McKenzie type who can't quite wrap his head around the concept that he lives in a huge metropolitan city that is full of recent immigrants that haven't fully assimilated into the mainstream Canadian way of doing things, many of whom will still pay top dollar NHL type money to watch the teams they followed (a second followed can even be added in Rangers case) in Europe even when it isn't an English Premiership team like Manchester City that is involved. That's the demographic along with their children and grandchildren that drove the success of TFC to a huge extent back in 2007 even though that's not how it is conventionally explained in the media, so it's definitely not a bad idea for CanPL to use an event like this to raise awareness of what they are doing, but I seriously doubt it's more than a case of hopping onto the bandwagon in this particular case.

6 hours ago, matty said:

God what if Benfica are the European team owner and they use this to launch their team. That would be some dumb shit

That thought had crossed my mind as well but I think PB said something along the lines of they hadn't been approached on that sort of thing yet and would cross that bridge when they come to it on a recent podcast when asked about that particular rumour. Would be interesting to see how some of the more nationalism driven posters on here would respond to a Sport Toronto e Benfica franchise, but I seriously doubt we are going to find out any time soon. This friendly is usually played in Lisbon and was originally supposed to involve the Brazilian team that had the plane crash, so it looks more like something that was organized at the last minute by Benfica fans in Canada.

Edited September 14, 2017 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[ironcub14]

Nice article making its round.

https://the11.ca/what-a-canpl-will-mean-for-us-canadian-players-speak-up/

[Rheo]

7 minutes ago, ironcub14 said:

Nice article making its round.

https://the11.ca/what-a-canpl-will-mean-for-us-canadian-players-speak-up/

Thanks for the link, interesting first line though "As the Canadian Premier League moves closer to going from dream to reality, with meetings ongoing this week in Toronto..."

[Rheo]

For anyone interested here's the CPL fantasy draft from last night

 

[Ansem]

15 minutes ago, ironcub14 said:

Nice article making its round.

https://the11.ca/what-a-canpl-will-mean-for-us-canadian-players-speak-up/

Interesting comments regading how biais PDL is towards Americans.

Not saying it isn't normal as it's an American League, it just stress the need for the CSA to establish strong leagues at all level of the Canadian pyramid to phase out the USSF.

It's good that CPL announced their intention to look at occupying the D2 tier in the future. D3 needs a major push in other provinces and replicate L1O.

[ironcub14]

8 minutes ago, Ansem said:

Interesting comments regading how biais PDL is towards Americans.

Not saying it isn't normal as it's an American League, it just stress the need for the CSA to establish strong leagues at all level of the Canadian pyramid to phase out the USSF.

It's good that CPL announced their intention to look at occupying the D2 tier in the future. D3 needs a major push in other provinces and replicate L1O.

I'm sure it's a huge goal for CSA to push D3 into other provinces, but saying it and accomplishing it often has a lot of hurdles in between. The BC RT3 thing was pretty damning, I'm not sure what the current status is, but I do hope BC tries again in the near future.

I think the comments in the article were more about American NASL and USL clubs by the way, about PDL players in Canadian finalist clubs unable to sign at those leagues. No doubt, each player has their own unique circumstances, but CPL clubs will definitely be a huge damn boost in getting more of these Canadian players signed to pro contracts, no doubt.

Edited September 14, 2017 by ironcub14

[Kent]

7 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Do we have any solid evidence that isn't simply between MLS and the CSA given it is the MLS owners that run the original SUM and the CSA recently also launched Canadian Generation Adidas with them?

No, I don't believe we have solid evidence that CSUM isn't for MLS rather than CPL, but we also don't have any evidence that it IS for MLS rather than CPL. I don't remember exactly, but I felt at the time of it's mention that the context made it seem like it was CPL related, and I would say the fact that MLS hasn't announced an exciting partnership with CSUM that it likely isn't an MLS thing. The fact we know so little about it makes it seem more likely that it's related to the league we know so little about (CPL).

[ChrisinOrleans]

12 minutes ago, Rheo said:

For anyone interested here's the CPL fantasy draft from last night

 

I'll admit, I knew like 10% of these guys. Then again, outside of French-Canada, I'm woefully ignorant of our depth.  

If I had to pick 10 guys to come play for a team in CanPL, I'd go with:

Olivier Occéan (Odds), Maxim Tissot (San Fran), Karl Ouimette (San Fran), Pierre Rudolph-Mayard (AS Blainville), Wandrille Lefèvre (Ottawa), Jérémy Gagnon-Laparé (AS Vitré), Haidar Al-Shaibani (Le Puy), André Hainault (FC Magdeburg), Phillipe Davies (CS Longueuil) and... if he's still willing to play Jonathan Beaulieu-Borgault (somewhere in the PLSQ?). 

Kind of fun to fantasize, I guess.  

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

32 minutes ago, Kent said:

...The fact we know so little about it makes it seem more likely that it's related to the league we know so little about (CPL)...

When I see somebody reasonably mainstream other than Rollins peddling this CSUM to fund CanPL thing, I'll start believing it's more than just a speculative pet theory on his part. I haven't heard Paul Beirne mentioning this angle so far and he has spoken at reasonable length on how he sees the league unfolding. The main driving force for SUM revenues tends to revolve around working closely with the USSF to link access to USMNT and Mexican national team or top club team games played in the United States to those of MLS in a way that boosts the value of the latter. Unfortunately, the CSA and CMNT really aren't an effective vehicle for doing something similar in Canada at the moment and it's not obvious what demographic group in Canada could consistently provide a gold mine that draws another national team to play huge numbers of home games outside their own country like 35 million plus Mexican Americans.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/soccer/la-sp-mexico-soccer-20150328-story.html

....The national team has a four-year agreement with New York-based Soccer United Marketing (SUM), which guarantees Mexico $2 million a game to play no fewer than five exhibitions in the U.S. each year. It's about three times what the team makes for a friendly at home, said Hector Gonzalez, director of national teams for the Mexican soccer federation.

The Mexican federation also gets money from other U.S. events such as tournaments, like the upcoming CONCACAF Gold Cup, and friendlies it negotiates outside its deal with SUM. Gonzalez said the money earned in the U.S. funds all 11 of its national teams, which include the men's and women's World Cup teams and a beach soccer team.

"The Mexican national team exists in a commercial environment," said Jose Manuel "Chepo" de la Torre, a former player and coach for the national team. "It's something that's necessary for the federation because it provides for the other teams that don't have the same way of making money."

The U.S. has a Mexican American population of more than 35 million, accounting for more than 65% of a U.S. Spanish-speaking marketplace that is increasingly attractive to advertisers. The most popular team is the Mexican national team, which is why SUM has been able to get major corporations such as Wells Fargo, Unilever, Allstate, Castrol, Makita and Home Depot to sponsor U.S. tours....

{Edit: could the El Salvador game in Houston be the first example of a Canadian SUM angle where the CMNT is concerned?}

Edited September 14, 2017 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[Rheo]

1 hour ago, Rheo said:

Thanks for the link, interesting first line though "As the Canadian Premier League moves closer to going from dream to reality, with meetings ongoing this week in Toronto..."

More on the meetings, on the new Footy Soldiers pod they mentioned them as well, describing it 10-12 hour meetings with the owners in Toronto going a couple of days.  

[Rheo]

Don't mind me obsessed with the meetings, tweeted Sandor and Footy Soldiers about it and Sandor replied that he thought it was common knowledge.  Really probably just an inadvertent tease fueled by a lack of info but I find it interesting...

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

2 minutes ago, Rheo said:

Don't mind me obsessed with the meetings, tweeted Sandor and Footy Soldiers about it and Sandor replied that he thought it was common knowledge.  Really probably just an inadvertent tease fueled by a lack of info but I find it interesting...

It would be very surprising if they hadn't had a meeting like that because if they can get Edmonton and Ottawa on board before the composition of the NASL and USL next summer is firmly fixed, they have a genuine shot at a July 2018 launch in the aftermath of the World Cup. They probably wouldn't have 10 staff in an office in Toronto at the moment if they weren't gearing up in anticipation of that possibly happening.