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Ottawa CPL Club


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I think the stability of USL and CPL are interesting. I'd agree that short term USL is the safer bet in terms of answering the question of "will this league still be here in 5 years". Then longer term I think the script gets flipped. If CPL is able to get through it's first few years OK and is doing alright (and improving) then I think it will be the more stable long term. The main reason for USL's success right now I think is because it essentially has a weird promotion system up to MLS. Once MLS hits 30 or 32 teams I'm guessing it will stop expanding (or maybe as high as 40, if they intend to have separate 20 team conferences that maybe play separate "balanced" schedules, only to meet in a World Series style championship at the end of the playoffs). Once MLS stops expanding, a lot of motivation would leave USL and I think it would rebound downwards a bit and try to find a AAA baseball type of a niche. At that point CPL would be more stable I would think.

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I find the argument of the USL being a "stable league" is pretty disingenuous. In 3 years, will USL still exist? Probably. But teams keep being added and removed from the league, with a huge number of them going to D3 next season, and many of them existing only as MLS farm teams. Its only form of stability seems to be its existence.

Edited by Sébastien
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12 hours ago, Ams1984 said:

The fly in the ointment for me, is that your assuming that Ottawa would be uncomfortable presumably spending a bit less, and still possibly improving in stature in a new national league, and of course that’s assuming that the CPL cap will be lower than their current expenditure of which I’m not convinced. To me, that theory doesn’t end up holding water because either a) the Fury would be able to lower expenditure and simultaneously be a better team relative to the new competition if such were the case, or b) the expenditure isn’t materially different and it has nothing to do with their decision.

To me, it’s more likely that Ottawa doesn’t want to bet on the success of the new league because it doesn’t believe in it. Their calculus might be that their better off staying where they are because a brand new league is a high risk venture, and joining it would require them to leave a situation that they appear to be comfortable with. 

In my opinion, this is a serious miscalculation though. I believe that the CPL will succeed, it has realistic financial goals and it sounds like the clubs will be keeping overhead reasonably low for the first few years while the league gets established. 

Sure, the Fury could lower their player expenditures and still field a league-winning team, but the problem is that the fanbase as the championship team team of 2015 to use as a yardstick measuring team quality. I went to the Canadian Championship game between the Fury and AS Blainville and found the soccer hard to watch with the missed passes, flubbed dribbles, and lack of finishing. I don't think many but the hardcore fans would put up with that much of a quality drop for very long.

I'm not sure they don't believe in the new league, as I'm sure they would have jumped if the financial calculus had pointed out it was the better option. As I've said repeatedly, there has to be some revenue stream we don't know about that is keeping the Fury in USL.

Edited by Initial B
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1 hour ago, Sébastien said:

I find the argument of the USL being a "stable league" is pretty disingenuous. In 3 years, will USL still exist? Probably. But teams keep being added and removed from the league, with a huge number of them going to D3 next season, and many of them existing only as MLS farm teams. It's only form of stability seems to be its existence.

I agree and have made that point before. But I figure within the context of a single team, if they know they are just burning through money while playing in the league, but that they also intend to do so for, say, 10 years, they can be reasonably sure that USL will be there for those 10 years, even though the list of teams in the league will likely change drastically in that time.

With CPL however, you would be less sure that you could plan for 10 years of the league existing.

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21 hours ago, Kent said:

I think the stability of USL and CPL are interesting. I'd agree that short term USL is the safer bet in terms of answering the question of "will this league still be here in 5 years". Then longer term I think the script gets flipped. If CPL is able to get through it's first few years OK and is doing alright (and improving) then I think it will be the more stable long term. The main reason for USL's success right now I think is because it essentially has a weird promotion system up to MLS. Once MLS hits 30 or 32 teams I'm guessing it will stop expanding (or maybe as high as 40, if they intend to have separate 20 team conferences that maybe play separate "balanced" schedules, only to meet in a World Series style championship at the end of the playoffs). Once MLS stops expanding, a lot of motivation would leave USL and I think it would rebound downwards a bit and try to find a AAA baseball type of a niche. At that point CPL would be more stable I would think.

Agreed, that’s why I think that Ottawa has made a miscalculation. They’ve bet on the wrong horse. 

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20 hours ago, Initial B said:

Sure, the Fury could lower their player expenditures and still field a league-winning team, but the problem is that the fanbase as the championship team team of 2015 to use as a yardstick measuring team quality. I went to the Canadian Championship game between the Fury and AS Blainville and found the soccer hard to watch with the missed passes, flubbed dribbles, and lack of finishing. I don't think many but the hardcore fans would put up with that much of a quality drop for very long.

I'm not sure they don't believe in the new league, as I'm sure they would have jumped if the financial calculus had pointed out it was the better option. As I've said repeatedly, there has to be some revenue stream we don't know about that is keeping the Fury in USL.

I get what you’re saying, but that was one of the alternative possibilities I provided and isn’t really my opinion. I actually think that the player expenditures in the CPL will probably be higher than USL. I also think that CPL will be a better league than USL basically right away. Ottawa have made a misjudgment in my opinion, the bit about them being able to lower expenditure and still field a winning team was actually meant to rebut the idea that they chose not to change leagues so as to keep a higher wage bill. It just didn’t make sense to me. 

As I just said though, I actually think that the real reason Ottawa didn’t switch is that they wanted to ‘play it safe’ by staying where they are. That’s a huge mistake to me though. 

CPL will be the third best league in Concacaf, and will be substantially better than USL. Ottawa will be stuck in some increasingly irrelevant (to the Canadian scene) division, while the CPL entrenches itself. 

If the league will still have them, the Fury will be very lucky to get into the league in a year or two with their tails between their legs. If another Ottawa club is created to join the CPL, I feel like that’ll be a huge threat to the Fury’s continued existence.

i know it’s a bit old, but to me this article does a great job of explaining how the league’s will stack up. 

http://www.northernstartingeleven.com/stacking-up-early-predictions-of-the-canadian-premier-leagues-on-field-quality/

 

Edited by Ams1984
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1 hour ago, Ams1984 said:

...I also think that CPL will be a better league than USL basically right away...

That seems unlikely given the domestic content requirements. Ottawa has stockpiled many of the best available Canadian players that are not involved with MLS or an overseas league at the moment and are only midtable in USL this season with a team that Ottawa sources close to the Fury front office claim would have to be almost completely dismantled for financial reasons if they made the move to CanPL.

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57 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

That seems unlikely given the domestic content requirements. Ottawa has stockpiled many of the best available Canadian players that are not involved with MLS or an overseas league at the moment and are only midtable in USL this season with a team that Ottawa sources close to the Fury front office claim would have to be almost completely dismantled for financial reasons if they made the move to CanPL.

'Completely dismantled' is an exaggeration on what I've seen, even from the most adamant Fury supporters. Regardless, I expect that they'll have a hard time holding on to all those player for next season anyways. Also, it's no surprise to me that the team has struggled considering the roster turnover.

Edited by C2SKI
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3 hours ago, C2SKI said:

'Completely dismantled' is an exaggeration on what I've seen, even from the most adamant Fury supporters. Regardless, I expect that they'll have a hard time holding on to all those player for next season anyways. Also, it's no surprise to me that the team has struggled considering the roster turnover.

That still doesn't address the original point of them having stacked the team with a lot of Canadian talent, only being a middle of the road team in USL, and thus the CPL almost certainly starting out at a lower quality point than the USL.

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30 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

That still doesn't address the original point of them having stacked the team with a lot of Canadian talent, only being a middle of the road team in USL, and thus the CPL almost certainly starting out at a lower quality point than the USL.

Sure it does. The side with the more talented players doesn’t always win. I wouldn’t automatically attribute Ottawa’s poor results to other USL sides having more talented squads. Ottawa has undergone tremendous disruption throughout the season. That is one possible factor in Ottawa’s disappointing season. 

Unless you are implying that all CPL squads will be brand new and therefore likely won’t have the cohesion of established USL sides. I guess it depends what you mean by quality.

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1 hour ago, C2SKI said:

Sure it does. The side with the more talented players doesn’t always win. I wouldn’t automatically attribute Ottawa’s poor results to other USL sides having more talented squads. Ottawa has undergone tremendous disruption throughout the season. That is one possible factor in Ottawa’s disappointing season. 

Unless you are implying that all CPL squads will be brand new and therefore likely won’t have the cohesion of established USL sides. I guess it depends what you mean by quality.

Sure, some roster disruption would account for some of Ottawa's results.  I won't disagree with that.  But more to the point, if Ottawa has gathered a fair number of the Canadian players already, it means the other 6/7 teams will be scrambling to find Canadian players.  This isn't a bad thing (a point of the league is to unearth new players), but it does mean that they're likely getting 2nd choice on players who are willing to play at that the approximate level of the CPL/USL.  If the first choice of players are in Ottawa and Ottawa is a middle of the road USL team, then it stands to reason that the second choice players won't be good enough to carry the CPL to a level above USL. 

And to be clear: this isn't a dispute over whether it's a good or bad thing to be better than the USL in the early years.  The point of the league is to help grow the sport in Canada, both in terms of more people being able to watch live games and more Canadian players getting a chance to play. I just think people need to scale back their expectations on what the quality of the league will be, especially early on.

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1 hour ago, Watchmen said:

But more to the point, if Ottawa has gathered a fair number of the Canadian players already, it means the other 6/7 teams will be scrambling to find Canadian players.  This isn't a bad thing (a point of the league is to unearth new players), but it does mean that they're likely getting 2nd choice on players who are willing to play at that the approximate level of the CPL/USL.  If the first choice of players are in Ottawa and Ottawa is a middle of the road USL team, then it stands to reason that the second choice players won't be good enough to carry the CPL to a level above USL. 

Why not wait for the rosters to fill up before insisting the quality will be above or below a certain level. You willingly did so in the CPL General thread when asked to compare CPL with other Concacaf leagues. What's different with USL? 

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18 hours ago, C2SKI said:

Why not wait for the rosters to fill up before insisting the quality will be above or below a certain level. You willingly did so in the CPL General thread when asked to compare CPL with other Concacaf leagues. What's different with USL? 

Well, because the discussion has revolved around a current USL team moving to the CPL or having it's players dispersed within that league, as well as bringing more USL players currently on American rosters back to Canada.  There's a better basis of comparison between the USL and CPL than between the other Central American leagues.

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On 9/15/2018 at 5:05 AM, Ams1984 said:

If another Ottawa club is created to join the CPL, I feel like that’ll be a huge threat to the Fury’s continued existence.

There is certainly not enough room in that market for two professional teams ATM.

We can dream of the day when two or more teams from that area could compete and have derbies, but that is a loooong way off.

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4 hours ago, Ansem said:

The CSA could turn around and end their sanctioning in USL. Then it would get interesting.

Doesn't look like they will make that move this year but if the Fury again decide to remain in USL for yet another season next Sept then they very well could make that decision.

 

I think the Fury knew for quite a while they weren't moving to CPL and delayed communicating that until the last minute and wouldn't be surprised if it happens again next year. Despite their narrative lately, they don't want to spend more on a roster and its not about salaries but instead they made a decision 2 years ago to pay $5 million to enter USL, a fee they may very well be paying over a 10 year period apparently. There's also termination fees in USL to exit. It will cost them to jump to CPL and they would still be paying fees to USL for years.

In the end, they might have been better off to have stayed another year in NASL and left with a tiny exit fee there and spent 2018 preparing for CPL like FC Edmonton has.

 

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2 minutes ago, CDNFootballer said:

Doesn't look like they will make that move this year but if the Fury again decide to remain in USL for yet another season next Sept then they very well could make that decision.

 

I think the Fury knew for quite a while they weren't moving to CPL and delayed communicating that until the last minute and wouldn't be surprised if it happens again next year. Despite their narrative lately, they don't want to spend more on a roster and its not about salaries but instead they made a decision 2 years ago to pay $5 million to enter USL, a fee they may very well be paying over a 10 year period apparently. There's also termination fees in USL to exit. It will cost them to jump to CPL and they would still be paying fees to USL for years.

In the end, they might have been better off to have stayed another year in NASL and left with a tiny exit fee there and spent 2018 preparing for CPL like FC Edmonton has.

 

Goudie has said that their deal with the USL allows them to leave at anytime with no cost.

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https://www.sportsnet.ca/960/pinder-steinberg/tommy-wheeldon-jr-calvary-fc-cpl-tour-across-canada-got-game-open-tryouts/

Just caught a small detail in this interview from yesterday with Tommy Wheeldon Jr. where he mentioned that at the last league meeting they discussed player contracts, drafts, dispersal rules.

It sounds like at that last meeting in Toronto (was it a month ago?), they still fully expected Ottawa to be on board. I am not sure what else dispersal rules can refer to. But it also seems to suggest, at least at that point, that Ottawa wasn't going to be keeping its squad together.

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27 minutes ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

https://www.sportsnet.ca/960/pinder-steinberg/tommy-wheeldon-jr-calvary-fc-cpl-tour-across-canada-got-game-open-tryouts/

Just caught a small detail in this interview from yesterday with Tommy Wheeldon Jr. where he mentioned that at the last league meeting they discussed player contracts, drafts, dispersal rules.

 It sounds like at that last meeting in Toronto (was it a month ago?), they still fully expected Ottawa to be on board. I am not sure what else dispersal rules can refer to. But it also seems to suggest, at least at that point, that Ottawa wasn't going to be keeping its squad together.

Dispersal doesn't mean Ottawa. It could be how to split a list of players who would be signed by the league. I think it's more for foundational and up-and-comers probably that we're talking about dispersal. 

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7 hours ago, youllneverwalkalone said:

The pitch at UQO in Gatineau looks like it could have CPL potential. Is that also their Canadian Football field or could those lines come off?

From what I can tell, they're not even part of CIS? So if they play handegg-football, they don't play it at a high level, I guess? But I don't follow handegg-football at any level, let alone university sports. 

Completely agree on the potential though, found an article about it's opening in 2010, so it's relatively new. And, as an Ottawa resident who can't drive, it looks like it wouldn't be hard to get to. 

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27 minutes ago, Viruk42 said:

From what I can tell, they're not even part of CIS? So if they play handegg-football, they don't play it at a high level, I guess? But I don't follow handegg-football at any level, let alone university sports. 

Completely agree on the potential though, found an article about it's opening in 2010, so it's relatively new. And, as an Ottawa resident who can't drive, it looks like it wouldn't be hard to get to. 

It's used by a local CGEP program.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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On 9/15/2018 at 9:37 AM, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

That seems unlikely given the domestic content requirements. Ottawa has stockpiled many of the best available Canadian players that are not involved with MLS or an overseas league at the moment and are only midtable in USL this season with a team that Ottawa sources close to the Fury front office claim would have to be almost completely dismantled for financial reasons if they made the move to CanPL.

The Fury coach saying that he hopes he can transform the roster between now and the start of next season, and blaming its current composition for the lack of success this season.

Doesn't sound like a team too worried about keeping their roster intact to me.

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