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2019 Voyageurs Cup


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Vaughan Azzurri book their place in next year's Voyageur's Cup by winning the League 1 One Championship game 2-0 over Woodbridge today, Saturday October 20th, 2018.  

It wouldn't surprize me if Vaughan is weakened next year by CPL teams raiding their roster for players to stock their own teams.  

Defender Shiquan Lowe earned maybe a tryout by going out to Winnipeg for the Thursday and Friday CPL trials and making the final cut then traveling back to Ontario to be on today's Vaughan roster.  He was an unused substitute this afternoon.     

Edited by Rocket Robin
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Mathematically (and I know this will upset people), the most sensible way is: 7 CPL (there's no 8th) + USL + 2 semi-pro in the first round, home and away.  That cuts it down to 5 teams, plus the 3 MLS.  So it's an easy quarterfinal/semi-final/final format after that.  I know people don't want to be giving the MLS teams any kind of "status", but it's the way that makes the most logical sense until you have season of CPL and a way to properly rank those teams.

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On 10/27/2018 at 12:02 AM, Watchmen said:

Mathematically (and I know this will upset people), the most sensible way is: 7 CPL (there's no 8th) + USL + 2 semi-pro in the first round, home and away.  That cuts it down to 5 teams, plus the 3 MLS.  So it's an easy quarterfinal/semi-final/final format after that.  I know people don't want to be giving the MLS teams any kind of "status", but it's the way that makes the most logical sense until you have season of CPL and a way to properly rank those teams.

Thats the most simple straight forward way for the time being. The only thing I would do is make the first round draw regional as I don't see it viable for the D3 semi-pro sides to go on a cross country road trip from a financial standpoint. 

East Pool

Forge (Hamilton)

York

Halifax

Ottawa

Vaughn

Blainville

West Pool

Pacific FC (Vancouver Island)

Edmonton

Cavalry FC (Calgary)

Valour FC (Winnipeg)

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

I have been anxiously waiting to find out what the format of the Voyageurs Cup will be next year with all the CPL teams involved, then it occurred to me this morning. We definitely won't hear any news on this while Ottawa's situation is up in the air. Sigh.

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2 hours ago, Blackdude said:

I'm waiting until we have schedules for all 2 (3?) pro leagues before thinking about having an announcement. Once those will be public, expect Soccer Canada to announce the schedule the week after.

Good point. I've never cared nearly as much about the format announcement in years past. I didn't really have a sense of when it usually comes out.

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Yes, I am very curious to see what format the CSA decides on, especially considering the condensed schedule that MLS will have moving forward. That could mean less open dates for the CSA to consider. I expect to hear more MLS whining about fixture congestion.

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6 hours ago, Ruffian said:

I expect MLS teams to get some preferential treatment in the qualifying for this tournament but I hope that each MLS team gets to play at least one CPL team. I hope TFC does not get a bye past rounds where they would meet a CPL team.

Why should TFC get a pass? VWFC were the top Canadian team last year. If the schedule necessitates a bye or easy match it should be Vancouver.

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4 hours ago, ardsa said:

Why should TFC get a pass? VWFC were the top Canadian team last year. If the schedule necessitates a bye or easy match it should be Vancouver.

When people on this forum have talked about teams getting a bye they usually think it should be determined by the previous Voyageurs Cup results rather than league play. So TFC as champs would fit the bill next season.

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1 hour ago, Kent said:

When people on this forum have talked about teams getting a bye they usually think it should be determined by the previous Voyageurs Cup results rather than league play. So TFC as champs would fit the bill next season.

Up to now, the number 1 seed in the Voyageur's Cup has been determined by league position the previous season. They may decide to chance things with the entry of the CPL teams. But if they do go the seeding route, using the previous seasons league results (whether it be MLS or CPL) is a good starting point. It adds value to league position as well.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This was in a CPL forum on new team speculation but this comment may be more appropriate here:  

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

MLS loaning some Canadians to the CPL?  Could happen.  

I wonder if that would be later in the season or with specific instructions NOT to use loanees in the Voyageurs Cup so as to not cap tie them.  From the list of Canadian MLS players returning and contracted for 2019, some may have time scraping together three Canadian starters (or if the rule changes to six Canadian starters to be fair to CPL teams)--that may be tough.   

 

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CSA has to create a format where every MLS team plays a CPL team. Publicity is what the CPL is after and three marquee matches fits the bill. In a year or two, it should go to a random draw that could have MLS teams matched in the quarter finals.

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21 minutes ago, Sébastien said:

Well, format has been announced! Kinda surprised, tbh.

https://twitter.com/CanadaSoccerEN/status/1083423301379284992?s=09

 

There is so much that is baffling about that.

Why would the CPL teams start at different stages of the competition?

On what grounds do 3 of the CPL teams get passes into round 2?

Why would the Fury get a pass until round 3?

Why would Fury be put on par with the team (Impact) that is loaning them players not good enough for the first team?

Why would TFC get a pass right to the SF stage (are there any other competitions where a team gets a buy into the medal round)?

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5 minutes ago, dyslexic nam said:

 

There is so much that is baffling about that.

Why would the CPL teams start at different stages of the competition?

On what grounds do 3 of the CPL teams get passes into round 2?

Why would the Fury get a pass until round 3?

Why would Fury be put on par with the team (Impact) that is loaning them players not good enough for the first team?

Why would TFC get a pass right to the SF stage (are there any other competitions where a team gets a buy into the medal round)?

I understand that Soccer Canada has split the CPL teams into those who were founded in 2017, and those who were founded in 2018. Odd, but that's an explanation.

In regards to the Fury and MLS teams coming in later rounds, I assume it's because, having existed prior to this season, those four clubs are seeded clubs in this competition, which CPL clubs aren't currently.

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Pretty terrible format, but at least it's only for one year.

I'm guessing it got complicated because of the weird number of participants and the CSA trying to appease the MLS clubs who don't want to play too many matches. So they were forced to bend over backwards to solve those problems at the same time and find a somewhat objective method of distributing the clubs.

So they went with last year's professional participants ---> pre-2018 CSA-member CPL clubs ---> 2018 CSA-member CPL clubs and D3 clubs.

Hopefully next year's format with 9-10 CPL clubs +/- Ottawa and potentially more D3 clubs will be a bit more sensible.

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I was able to suss out their logic for where they placed each team (and it's described in here https://canpl.ca/article/battle-of-the-north-canadian-premier-league-squads-learn-paths-to-2019-canadian-championship ) but I still don't like it.

The whole thing makes me feel icky. Some of the teams in our top pro league are starting in the same round as the semi-pro teams, while a team in the second tier gets to enter 2 rounds later. And yeah, TFC starting in the semi final round, skipping more than half the tournament, is pretty crazy.

Is this really better than letting 3 more semi pro teams join to make it an even 16 team tournament?

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3 minutes ago, Zem said:

Pretty terrible format, but at least it's only for one year.

I'm guessing it got complicated because of the weird number of participants and the CSA trying to appease the MLS clubs who don't want to play too many matches. So they were forced to bend over backwards to solve those problems at the same time and find a somewhat objective method of distributing the clubs.

So they went with last year's professional participants ---> pre-2018 CSA-member CPL clubs ---> 2018 CSA-member CPL clubs and D3 clubs.

Hopefully next year's format with 9-10 CPL clubs +/- Ottawa and potentially more D3 clubs will be a bit more sensible.

For the first bold portion above, I'd rather they go to single knockout to relieve the load than to give byes to them.

For the second bold portion above, does anybody else get the feeling that this format demotivates Ottawa from moving to CPL? It seems by moving to cpl they would run the risk of getting a lower seeding in the tournament.

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Here's a similar format that is way better. Only give byes to the 3 MLS teams. Then you've got 10 teams in the first round, 5 advance to join the three MLS teams to give you 8 total. Then you are set. If 6 games are too much for MLS team, make it single knockout and the most they would play is 3 games.

Then you only have 1 optics problem of seeding the American league D1 teams over the Canadian league D1 teams. You get rid of the problem of having some CPL teams seeded higher than others, an American league D2 team seeded higher than Canadian league D1 teams, and having American league D1 teams at different seedings as well. See how easy it was to go from 4 problems down to 1?

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7 minutes ago, Kent said:

For the first bold portion above, I'd rather they go to single knockout to relieve the load than to give byes to them.

Yes, I'd prefer this as well. It's bound to happen eventually, but with the format they chose it kind of needs to be aggregate series this year since otherwise TFC only needs to win two games to win the VC.

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5 minutes ago, Kent said:

Here's a similar format that is way better. Only give byes to the 3 MLS teams. Then you've got 10 teams in the first round, 5 advance to join the three MLS teams to give you 8 total. Then you are set. If 6 games are too much for MLS team, make it single knockout and the most they would play is 3 games.

Then you only have 1 optics problem of seeding the American league D1 teams over the Canadian league D1 teams. You get rid of the problem of having some CPL teams seeded higher than others, an American league D2 team seeded higher than Canadian league D1 teams, and having American league D1 teams at different seedings as well. See how easy it was to go from 4 problems down to 1?

I agree. I didn’t realize what exactly what they were working with at first, but I counted teams and figured the same schedule you just meantioned... It make WAY more sense. Pretty disappointing.

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