2024 CONCACAF Champions Cup

[narduch]

Cavalry's tweet about the match v Orlando mentioned location TBD.

I thought that was weird or cryptic. 

Or am I reading too much into that?

 

 

Edited December 14, 2023 by narduch

[Kent]

8 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Three from Canada and not one single club from Honduras and El Salvador is another possible criticism.

Yeah, that's a fair criticism too. I have always advocated for the number of spots to be calculated year to year based on a formula from past results. If CONCACAF decrees how many spots each country gets, there will always be controversy.

The CPL does get a sweet deal that they get 2 spots in the tournament guaranteed, but they are also the only league that has no possible route to earning a bye into the 2nd round.

[SpursFlu]

I think Central America should be 1 league anyways so I like that they just include the teams that earned their way in and in theory the best teams. I just think there should be a few more teams from Central America 

[Watchmen]

On the one hand, a few Central American leagues should have their league champions qualify directly to the CL.

But on the other hand, Fuck Honduras.

[SpursFlu]

14 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

On the one hand, a few Central American leagues should have their league champions qualify directly to the CL.

But on the other hand, Fuck Honduras.

I think the challenge Concacaf has is make the tournament as big as you can without making uncompetitive match ups 

I believe this year is a trial to see if they can add 5 more non MLS LigaMX teams to round it out to a perfect 32

For instance if next year the have 9 teams come out of the Central American Cup and Honduras can't produce 1 team  why would anyone feel sorry for them?

Edited December 14, 2023 by SpursFlu

[Kent]

18 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

I believe this year is a trial to see if they can add 5 more non MLS LigaMX teams to round it out to a perfect 32

Interesting point/idea. 5 is the perfect number for adding the champions of the somewhat competitive Central American leagues (Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, and Guatemala). Maybe they eventually get those 5 spots, but that would mean the existing spots that are getting a bye, will lose their bye. They might be hesitant to do that because it seems to be that those are the positions they want to incentivize more (to get people watching the Leagues Cup, Central American Cup, Caribbean Cup, and to appease Mexico and MLS).

[SpursFlu]

53 minutes ago, Kent said:

Interesting point/idea. 5 is the perfect number for adding the champions of the somewhat competitive Central American leagues (Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, and Guatemala). Maybe they eventually get those 5 spots, but that would mean the existing spots that are getting a bye, will lose their bye. They might be hesitant to do that because it seems to be that those are the positions they want to incentivize more (to get people watching the Leagues Cup, Central American Cup, Caribbean Cup, and to appease Mexico and MLS).

Also a very good point. I guess the incentive would be regardless of your ranking you would go in to pot 1. So you'd likely avoid a MLS or LigaMX team in rd 1

Actually probably even more of a reward for just say Robinhood and Alujuanse because it's better to win a rd and lose in rd 2 than to get a bye to rd 2 and lose

Edited December 14, 2023 by SpursFlu

[Kent]

39 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

Also a very good point. I guess the incentive would be regardless of your ranking you would go in to pot 1. So you'd likely avoid a MLS or LigaMX team in rd 1

Actually probably even more of a reward for just say Robinhood and Alujuanse because it's better to win a rd and lose in rd 2 than to get a bye to rd 2 and lose

Yeah, going into the draw I didn't have any clear favourite opponents for Canadian teams to be drawn against, but I was hoping they would be drawn into B2 (in particular) or B5, because then if they managed to get past the first round, they would have a good match up for the second round. I fully expect Robinhood to lose their match up, since Caribbean teams typically don't advance (last year was the first time a Caribbean team made it past the first round in the groupless era of the Champions League, and they never made it past the first round in the 3 team group era). The 2nd most recent appearance of a Caribbean team in the 2nd round was in the 2008-09 Champions League when the Puerto Rico Islanders made it to the semi finals.

[JamboAl]

Looks like Cavalry’s home game against Orlando City will be played in Langford.

[SpursFlu]

24 minutes ago, JamboAl said:

Looks like Cavalry’s home game against Orlando City will be played in Langford.

Bummer

[narduch]

29 minutes ago, JamboAl said:

Looks like Cavalry’s home game against Orlando City will be played in Langford.

They turned the comments off on the Twitter post confirming this 

[SoccMan]

On 12/14/2023 at 12:14 AM, Shway said:

I've called bullshit on this so many times...

I hate how's there's soooo many American MLS clubs. Philadelphia, New England, and Orlando don't deserve to be in this tournament. 9...9!! American MLS clubs, and not one single club from Honduras or El Salvador. 

This is the first installment, but it needs to be changed immediately. Leagues Cup has given MLS and LigaMX wayyy too much power over Concacaf.

They spend the most money running their teams building infrastructure building stadiums paying their players decent salaries . They are the biggest and strongest leagues in CONCACAF. I don’t see what the problem is . At least in soccer these smaller leagues have a chance to play in a real competition against these big boys . Does the NBA, NHL or even MLB offer these lower leagues a chance to compete is any meaningful competition against the big boys ? Not a chance yet we are complaining that too many MLS or Liga Mex teams are in it .

Edited December 15, 2023 by SoccMan

[longlugan]

5 minutes ago, SoccMan said:

They spend the most money running their teams building infrastructure building stadiums paying their players decent salaries . They are the biggest and strongest leagues in CONCACAF. I don’t see what the problem is . At least in soccer these smaller leagues have a chance to play in a real competition against these big boys . Does the NBA, NHL or even MLB offer these lower leagues a chance to compete is any meaningful competition against the big boys ? Not a chance yet we are complaining that too many MLS or Liga Mex teams are in it .

So you're comparing the MLS to the NBA, NHL and MLB? That's sort of laughable. Where you should be looking is at the other Champions Leagues around the world. The Premier League is widely acknowledged as the strongest league in Europe and yet you don't see half the teams allowed to participate in the Champions League because of it. Yes the UEFA Champions League is top heavy but not nearly to the extent that CONCACAF's is. I hope this is just an initial experiment because long term it becomes farcical...in my humble opinion. 

[SoccMan]

15 minutes ago, longlugan said:

So you're comparing the MLS to the NBA, NHL and MLB? That's sort of laughable. Where you should be looking is at the other Champions Leagues around the world. The Premier League is widely acknowledged as the strongest league in Europe and yet you don't see half the teams allowed to participate in the Champions League because of it. Yes the UEFA Champions League is top heavy but not nearly to the extent that CONCACAF's is. I hope this is just an initial experiment because long term it becomes farcical...in my humble opinion. 

Where am I comparing? I bring those leagues up because they don’t allow any smaller leagues to compete with them in any other competition . All I was saying that at least in soccer these smaller leagues are given the opportunity to compete in a real meaningful competition like this one even though the MLS and Liga Mex has more teams that qualify .

[Shway]

4 hours ago, SoccMan said:

Where am I comparing?

Let's see what you mean...

4 hours ago, SoccMan said:

I bring those leagues up because they don’t allow any smaller leagues to compete with them in any other competition .

There it is lol.

Making reference too is synonym for comparing. You exactly that by referring to those leagues as examples.

4 hours ago, SoccMan said:

All I was saying that at least in soccer these smaller leagues are given the opportunity to compete in a real meaningful competition like this one even though the MLS and Liga Mex has more teams that qualify .

Like @longlugan said, compare or refer to the other like tournaments whether it's UEFA, AFC, CAF or CONEMBOL, you will see the obvious similarities in qualifying vs what you see Concacaf do.

Making reference to American leagues like the NHL, NBA, or MLB is egregious for many reasons, as they are considered anomalies to what the rest of the world does with their top leagues. There's a "champions league" for Hockey and in Europe,  and for basketball FIBA has it every continent...(even the CEBL had a representative). 

MLS isn't NHL, NBA, or MLB even in the best comparison that it's nowhere near the best league product in the world, where those leagues are milllllleesssss ahead anything else. 

[Shway]

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/mls-plans-to-be-represented-by-mls-next-pro-clubs-in-2024-us-open-cup

And there you have it, MLS making more of a mockery of things.

Edited December 16, 2023 by Shway

[Kent]

36 minutes ago, Shway said:

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/mls-plans-to-be-represented-by-mls-next-pro-clubs-in-2024-us-open-cup

And there you have it, MLS making more of a mockery of things.

For a league that I am sure knows a lot about people being snobby against their league and I am sure are sensitive to that, they really are snobby about playing "lower" leagues. They create the Leagues Cup and drop the US Open Cup, and are always trying to avoid having to play Central American and Caribbean teams in Champions League/Cup, to the point of having 33% of the spots in 2024. Too bad they don't stop and think what it would be like if Liga MX did that to them.

[Kent]

I wonder what this part means. "MLS remains committed to working with U.S. Soccer to evolve and elevate the Open Cup for everyone involved in the years ahead." I'm guessing it means MLS wants a bunch more money, and they want their 26+ American teams to get a bye into the round of 32.

[RS]

12 hours ago, Kent said:

I wonder what this part means. "MLS remains committed to working with U.S. Soccer to evolve and elevate the Open Cup for everyone involved in the years ahead." I'm guessing it means MLS wants a bunch more money, and they want their 26+ American teams to get a bye into the round of 32.

It's simple: The Leagues Cup is a cash cow for MLS (and Liga MX) that won't be ending anytime soon, so something had to give.

LAFC apparently played 53 competitive matches this year and suffered for it at the end of the year. MLS looked at the U.S. Open Cup as the easiest way to cut that number down.

What's shocking is the USSF going along with it. You'd think the federation would fight MLS on this, and maybe they still are behind the scenes.

However, what worries me is the precedent this sets for the Voyageurs Cup. It's already been devalued by the many, many other ways for Canadian teams to get into the Champions League Cup, and I could see MLS ordering its teams to pull out in the near future.

[RJB]

14 hours ago, Shway said:

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/mls-plans-to-be-represented-by-mls-next-pro-clubs-in-2024-us-open-cup

And there you have it, MLS making more of a mockery of things.

Shameful.

[RJB]

25 minutes ago, RS said:

LAFC apparently played 53 competitive matches this year and suffered for it at the end of the year. 

So, they were fine for 52 games but only "suffered for it" in the final?  That's a lot of games, sure, they made the cup final and lost.  That's hardly suffering. 

[RJB]

I think that what is happening in MLS with the bossing of concacaf and the withdrawal it seems from the open cup is what happens when you have franchises instead of clubs.  These are businesses first and not football clubs.

[RS]

16 minutes ago, RJB said:

So, they were fine for 52 games but only "suffered for it" in the final?  That's a lot of games, sure, they made the cup final and lost.  That's hardly suffering. 

They were horrible for much of the final third of the season but often won out on superior talent. It was most obvious in the final that they were running on fumes, but there were lots of warning signs before that.

It's MLS' own fault for their restrictions on squad sizes, but instead of relaxing some more of their roster rules they took the path of least resistance and eliminated the competition that they don't control revenues on.

12 minutes ago, RJB said:

I think that what is happening in MLS with the bossing of concacaf and the withdrawal it seems from the open cup is what happens when you have franchises instead of clubs.  These are businesses first and not football clubs.

Good point. Real football clubs in Europe never try to bully their respective federations and leagues.

The only actual difference here is that Concacaf is very weak in comparison to UEFA. The fact that MLS is a franchise system has almost nothing to do with it, because the "real" football clubs in Europe have constantly tried to pull the same shit (Super League, anyone?) but get rebuffed by a confederation with a backbone (with the help of FIFA).

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

20 minutes ago, RJB said:

I think that what is happening in MLS with the bossing of concacaf and the withdrawal it seems from the open cup is what happens when you have franchises instead of clubs.  These are businesses first and not football clubs.

You missed the whole Super League thing over in Europe?

[Watchmen]

1 hour ago, RS said:

LAFC apparently played 53 competitive matches this year and suffered for it at the end of the year. MLS looked at the U.S. Open Cup as the easiest way to cut that number down.

They only played 2 U.S. Open Cup games, and one was against Monterey Bay where I don't think they dressed their full strength side.

To be clear, we're on the same side.  I think it's shameful MLS is trying to pull out and I'll be interested to see if there's fan backlash to it.  My understanding is that's it became viewed as a big opportunity for the mid-tier clubs to win something meaningful.  Houston winning it this year, for instance.  I'd much prefer MLS tweaked their rules to allow greater flexibility with call ups FROM Next Pro, rather than just entering the Next Pro team directly.  Give the clubs the flexibility to treat the tournament how they want, the same way they do in Europe.