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Gold Cup 2019


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I wouldn't mind Group C for us actually. Good competition and it would keep us on the US side of the draw for the elimination rounds. Based on the Nations League draw, I'd assume we won't be put into a group here with the US, so if they don't give us C, we'll be on Mexico's side of the draw for the elimination rounds.

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21 minutes ago, jtpc said:

I wouldn't mind Group C for us actually. Good competition and it would keep us on the US side of the draw for the elimination rounds. Based on the Nations League draw, I'd assume we won't be put into a group here with the US, so if they don't give us C, we'll be on Mexico's side of the draw for the elimination rounds.

We won’t be in Group C that is a given we will either be in a group as the second seed with Costa Rica, Mexico, or the US. I would love to be in a group with Costa Rica but I got a gut feeling we will be with Mexico since we play the US in Nations League, and we were in Costa Rica’s pool in the 2017 Gold Cup.

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16 hours ago, Blackjack15 said:

Canada should have  co hosted this year's gold cup like the 2015 edition

I had a chance to ask Vic about the GC ever being hosted completely in Canada or somewhere else and he straight up said no. Co-hosting is fine but ultimately it's a joke the US and Mexico have a homefield advantage at every tourney.  And this current co-hosting is kind of dumb because it's not like Mexico will have to play in Jamaica or anything like that.

Edited by Vince193
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On 4/2/2019 at 5:49 PM, jtpc said:

I wouldn't mind Group C for us actually. Good competition and it would keep us on the US side of the draw for the elimination rounds. Based on the Nations League draw, I'd assume we won't be put into a group here with the US, so if they don't give us C, we'll be on Mexico's side of the draw for the elimination rounds.

Pardon my ignorance on the Gold Cup....

If we are in the same group as Mexico and finish 2nd after group stage.... Shouldn't we cross over to the other elimination side of the bracket?

Most FIFA tournaments(well all tournaments with a group stage) work this way. This way, if you finish 2nd in your group, you won't play the other team from your group unless it's the tournament final. Does the Gold Cup set it up differently?

Edited by apbsmith
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1 hour ago, Vince193 said:

I had a chance to ask Vic about the GC ever being hosted completely in Canada or somewhere else and he straight up said no. Co-hosting is fine but ultimately it's a joke the US and Mexico have a homefield advantage at every tourney.  And this current co-hosting is kind of dumb because it's not like Mexico will have to play in Jamaica or anything like that.

I thought Canada co-hosting was dumb tbh. 

If you cant host the whole thing, what does 2 games really do. 

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For me, the Gold Cup is what it is.

Would I like it to be rotated like the Asian Cup, Euro, etc? Yes of course, but I get the practical reasons not to. It comes down to money, and the reason it makes so much money in the USA is because of demographics. Canada or Mexico could host it, but the Mexicans don't have the demographic diversity, which we have, but we don't have the sheer numbers that Mexico or the US do. 

At the end of the day, does this idealized format, which we all want, really matter?Is there any tangible benefit that Nations League won't provide us with? We will host games, play away in Concacaf, so I don't think it matters much at the end of the day.

 

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1 hour ago, Vince193 said:

And it was brutal. the 2015 GC was the height of Floroball.

And the timing was horrid. It was about 8:45 pm on a Tuesday night, in the middle of the 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games. Two days earlier the Canadian Men's Pan Am team played Brazil, and 2 days later then played Panama. And the day before  the senior women's team had played Ecuador! The media was very pre-occupied ... and if that wasn't enough, the game was at the same time as the Baseball all-star game in Cincinnati!

I'm amazed that they got 17K out anyways!

Edited by nfitz
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18 minutes ago, Obinna said:

For me, the Gold Cup is what it is.

Would I like it to be rotated like the Asian Cup, Euro, etc? Yes of course, but I get the practical reasons not to. It comes down to money, and the reason it makes so much money in the USA is because of demographics. Canada or Mexico could host it, but the Mexicans don't have the demographic diversity, which we have, but we don't have the sheer numbers that Mexico or the US do. 

At the end of the day, does this idealized format, which we all want, really matter?Is there any tangible benefit that Nations League won't provide us with? We will host games, play away in Concacaf, so I don't think it matters much at the end of the day.

 

Depends. 

Does the USSF make a disproportionate amount of money by hosting the tournament or is the funding distributed across CONCACAF participants in a fair way once hosting costs are recouped?

Dose the hosting cost flowing to their infrastructure as a result of constantly hosting give their federation an unfair advantage?

Does home field advantage during every single continental "championship" give the US an unfair advantage?

These sorts of things matter - at least to me.  Would as much money be made if we hosted?  Admittedly, no.  But it would potentially be a fairer process if the tourney was rotated among willing and able countries.  The US currently has pretty exclusive capacity to host the tournament, and this seems to be solely about money.  That would be fine if the main purpose of it was to generate revenue - and maybe that is true in the eyes of our regional governing body.  But for some naive folks like me, the tournament should be first and foremost about establishing a regional champion.  It is, after all, not just a friendly invitational.  And if its primary purpose is to be a fair regional sporting event, allowing the US to host it endlessly seems to miss the mark. 

All of this may very well be an "idealized" view of the GC, but it is one I still maintain.  If it is nothing more than a regional revenue generator, lets at least call it what it is. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, dyslexic nam said:

Depends. 

Does the USSF make a disproportionate amount of money by hosting the tournament or is the funding distributed across CONCACAF participants in a fair way once hosting costs are recouped?

Dose the hosting cost flowing to their infrastructure as a result of constantly hosting give their federation an unfair advantage?

Does home field advantage during every single continental "championship" give the US an unfair advantage?

These sorts of things matter - at least to me.  Would as much money be made if we hosted?  Admittedly, no.  But it would potentially be a fairer process if the tourney was rotated among willing and able countries.  The US currently has pretty exclusive capacity to host the tournament, and this seems to be solely about money.  That would be fine if the main purpose of it was to generate revenue - and maybe that is true in the eyes of our regional governing body.  But for some naive folks like me, the tournament should be first and foremost about establishing a regional champion.  It is, after all, not just a friendly invitational.  And if its primary purpose is to be a fair regional sporting event, allowing the US to host it endlessly seems to miss the mark. 

All of this may very well be an "idealized" view of the GC, but it is one I still maintain.  If it is nothing more than a regional revenue generator, lets at least call it what it is. 

 

 

Forget the Federal Reserve...Audit the USSF! 

Edited by Obinna
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The US advantage is that they get the extra FIFA ranking points for winning/drawing at a continental championship but the rankings don't account for the fact all their matches are at home.

Canada gets a bit of advantage from the experience of playing away matches but we really benefit much more if it was played in Mexico, Costa Rica or Jamaica.

Moneywise, it is best for CONCACAF since ticket sales will be in US$ and they can charge the highest prices in the US than in Canada or Mexico.

Edited by red card
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38 minutes ago, red card said:

The US advantage is that they get the extra FIFA ranking points for winning/drawing at a continental championship but the rankings don't account for the fact all their matches are at home.

Canada gets a bit of advantage from the experience of playing away matches but we really benefit much more if it was played in Mexico, Costa Rica or Jamaica.

Moneywise, it is best for CONCACAF since ticket sales will be in US$ and they can charge the highest prices in the US than in Canada or Mexico.

This is technically true, but in reality a game against Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala do not give them a solid advantage in the stands, where it really matters. We could say they have the benefit of being in their home country off the field during the tournament, but I don't think this counts for much, especially in terms of comparing their advantage to us. As a Canadian, I feel almost as much at home in the US as I do in Canada. There is no major language or cultural challenge for our players in the Gold Cup. I think their home field advantage is unfortunate from a sporting fairness point of view, but it's not that big of a deal in my eyes.

Edited by Obinna
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3 hours ago, Obinna said:

This is technically true, but in reality a game against Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala do not give them a solid advantage in the stands, where it really matters. We could say they have the benefit of being in their home country off the field during the tournament, but I don't think this counts for much, especially in terms of comparing their advantage to us. As a Canadian, I feel almost as much at home in the US as I do in Canada. There is no major language or cultural challenge for our players in the Gold Cup. I think their home field advantage is unfortunate from a sporting fairness point of view, but it's not that big of a deal in my eyes.

You mean the American fans won't be clanging drums outside our hotel, blocking streets on the way to the stadium and throwing bags of piss once we're there? Not that other countries would do that, of course...

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On 4/4/2019 at 12:09 PM, apbsmith said:

Pardon my ignorance on the Gold Cup....

If we are in the same group as Mexico and finish 2nd after group stage.... Shouldn't we cross over to the other elimination side of the bracket?

Most FIFA tournaments(well all tournaments with a group stage) work this way. This way, if you finish 2nd in your group, you won't play the other team from your group unless it's the tournament final. Does the Gold Cup set it up differently?

The Gold Cup does it so that the only way US/Mexico can meet is in the finals.

A+B are on one side and C+D are on the other side.

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21 hours ago, Obinna said:

This is technically true, but in reality a game against Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala do not give them a solid advantage in the stands, where it really matters. We could say they have the benefit of being in their home country off the field during the tournament, but I don't think this counts for much, especially in terms of comparing their advantage to us. As a Canadian, I feel almost as much at home in the US as I do in Canada. There is no major language or cultural challenge for our players in the Gold Cup. I think their home field advantage is unfortunate from a sporting fairness point of view, but it's not that big of a deal in my eyes.

This got me curious. So I dug up the USA's last 4 Gold Cup results against Central American and Mexican teams and compared with their results in away matches against Central American and Mexican teams in the last 3 WCQ campaigns.

Gold Cup - 9 wins, 2 draws, 2 losses
Wins against Nicaragua, El Salvador x2, Costa Rica x2, Honduras x2, Belize, Panama x2
Draws against Panama x2
Losses against Panama, Mexico

World Cup Qualifying - 3 wins, 5 draws, 6 losses
Wins against Panama, Guatemala, Honduras
Draws against Mexico x2, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador
Losses against Guatemala, Costa Rica x3, Honduras, Mexico

So yeah, I think that's a pretty significant advantage for the USA. Not to mention the fact that it's helped them grow the game as a spectator sport for the last 25 years or so.

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46 minutes ago, Kent said:

This got me curious. So I dug up the USA's last 4 Gold Cup results against Central American and Mexican teams and compared with their results in away matches against Central American and Mexican teams in the last 3 WCQ campaigns.

Gold Cup - 9 wins, 2 draws, 2 losses
Wins against Nicaragua, El Salvador x2, Costa Rica x2, Honduras x2, Belize, Panama x2
Draws against Panama x2
Losses against Panama, Mexico

World Cup Qualifying - 3 wins, 5 draws, 6 losses
Wins against Panama, Guatemala, Honduras
Draws against Mexico x2, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador
Losses against Guatemala, Costa Rica x3, Honduras, Mexico

So yeah, I think that's a pretty significant advantage for the USA. Not to mention the fact that it's helped them grow the game as a spectator sport for the last 25 years or so.

Good work. A few things though.

1) I am going to disregard Costa Rica and Panama when I look at this. These countries do not have big populations in the US like the others. That is the reason I purposely excluded them. 

2) I will also exclude Nicaragua and Belize in this GC versus WCQ comparison, since you did not bring them up for WCQ (probably a lack of data there - neither are very good).

So that leaves us with:

Gold Cup - 4 wins, 1 losses
Wins against El Salvador x2, Honduras x2,
Losses against Mexico

World Cup Qualifying - 2 wins, 5 draws, 3 losses
Wins against Guatemala, Honduras
Draws against Mexico x2, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador
Losses against Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico

Take aways:

- the USA went 0-2-2 overall against Mexico

- 2-0-1 against Guatemala overall

- 3-0-1 against Honduras overall

- 3-0-0 against El Salvador overall

This suggests the USA is simply more talented than Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, and not as good as Mexico, which we'd all agree with.

Percentage of GC games against Mexico 25%

Percentage of WC games against Mexico 30%

PPG in GC 2.25

PPG in WCQ 1.11

Conclusion:

Based on this sample size, USA does have more of an advantage in GC than I expected, but at least some of that can be attributed to playing Mexico less.

Kent, can you pull up the same results but include the WCQ homes games instead of away games? I'd be curious to see what the results look like.

Ps: thanks again, it was fun to look at these results.

Pss: I wonder what our match results look like against Central America in GC versus away in WCQ? One could argue those nations have a home field advantage over us in the GC, they definitely have an advantage in the stands, although we have an advantage of being generally comfortable in the US, I suspect. 

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