Nope you misconstrued my point. IMHO... the reason FMF has a dominant record over the Argie league.. is because the Mex league has a higher standard of play... it is clear than just about any Mex team can dominate an Argie team home & away... and that INCLUDES Boca and whoever is the current Argie champion... next time FMF participates in Libertadores or Sudamericana I will burn some Copal to Quetzalcoatl and eat a White Skinned Girl out in his honor so that in Semi Finals we (and yes I will even root for the Yellow Bellied Chickens against non-Mex teams)... get a knockout against an Argie team instead of a Brazilian team. However... credit where credit is due... Boca is THE BEST player factory on the continent, they are usually incredibly deep, talented & play with cojones. With regards to Brazil vs. Argentina... yeah Argie teams match up well against Brazilian teams... they know how to take the trophies.. its not the only case of inferior teams beating superior teams... Italy does it often.. the U.S. has had Mexico's # on U.S. soil etc..... but the Brazilian league imho has a much higher standard of quality than the Argie league. I don't mean it to be caustic... just putting a reference you all know... people sometimes debate how good Landon Donovan is... among players of his position is he Top 25, 50, 100, 200? Man when I watch the Brazilian league games the quality of forwards are amazing... just in the Brazilian league alone there has to be 100 forwards / strikers that more talented, skillful & physically superior to Donovan. So in conclusion... you have your opinion... I have mine... and it is that FMF >>> Argie League top to bottom (even if it can't put together a team that will win the Libertadores)... Brazil > FMF, Brazil > Argentina.
First off, I doubt there are 10 strikers in Brasil that are better than Donovan and would love to hear who they are. Second off, Donovan plays mostly in the midfield. And finally, you made the arguement that the Mexican national team is better than the US even though the US beats them on US soil. Historically the US has eliminated Mexico in 2 World Cups and 1 Copa America and never been eliminated by Mexico on neutral ground. Yep, 1934 WC play in game, 1995 Copa America QF, and the 2002 WC second round. This is beyond weird. The US has simply been better than Mexico from 2000 on and you are going to make the argument that the US beats Mexico even though Mexico is better as if its a fact. Not sure how you can be taken seriously when you make such mind blowingly silly claims. Are Mexico and the US close competitors? Yeah. Are there many forwards in Brasil that are about as good as Landon Donovan? Yeah. (although you could have said keepers...) Does any of this have anything to do with this thread? No.
Goff has an interesting excerpt relating to the CCL, and a Dynamo mention, from Don Garber's address yesterday:
The Dynamo could have easily won that last game away and advanced if they hadn't played Eddie Robinson. On the other hand Eddie Robinson has to have some venue to get games so that Dom can see if he can contribute in the playoffs. As far as advancing further than that in the CCL. As soon as MLS teams can report to camp a month prior to their first CCL game AND in the Dynamo's case they can make their "moves" before the CCL instead of midseason it would be a big difference. Sure the easy answer is to raise the salary cap by 1 million or 2 million or whatever, but that doesn't address all the problems. Right now Dynamo bench players essentially don't get games... Of course, the Dynamo will play in Superliga next year instead of the CCL.
I agree. I'm just glad at this point to see that the league recognizes that the CCL actually functions as a disadvantage for MLS teams instead of pretending that there's no impact. I'm all for finding ways to help MLS teams compete more effectively in the CCL, but the more important issue in my view is how competing in the CCL damages MLS teams' ability to compete in MLS. Most solutions that would address the former would also probably help the latter, but let's see if the league actually comes up with some solutions. In the meantime, at least acknowledging that there's a problem is an essential step along the way.
I'll believe it when I see it. Garber and Co. have been bitching for a while now about how a MLS team needs to win it yet what did they do in 2009? They took away the reserve league and cut roster limits. Their actions speak far louder than their words as far as that goes. If MLS is really serious about giving their teams a chance to compete in CCL they need to expand the overall roster and the senior roster, bring back the reserve league and incentivize the CCL. I mean if you think CCL is so important, then make it worth the player's while. Make the bonus for winning at least as big as the SL but ideally, make it bigger.
Ditch SuperLiga, reinstate the reserve division and play against the new rebel USL league's reserves/youth, and for sure align MLS's start earlier with a dedicated Summer Window/Break for transfers and rest. This is a start that requires the ending of a money grab fake Cup, a badly needed reserve set up and what most MLS head honchos don't get is a longer season actually means less grind on our players. The players must come first in a growing league cuz if the sport on the field is bent, broke, MIA on FIFA duty or any of the 3 combined like we suffered through this year....the entire footballing display is for sure not going to be Div-1 standard.
Not that we have to worry about it, but here is the draw for the Quarterfinals and beyond: QUARTERFINALS First Leg - March 9-11 Second Leg - March 16-18 QF1: *Comunicaciones vs. Pachuca QF2: *Columbus vs. Toluca QF3: *Marathon vs. Pumas QF4 :*Arabe Unido vs. Cruz Azul SEMIFINALS First Leg - March 30-April 1 Second Leg - April 6-8 SF1: *QF3 winner (Marathon-Pumas) vs. QF4 winner (Arabe Unido-Cruz Azul) SF2: *QF2 winner (Columbus-Toluca) vs. QF1 winner (Comunicaciones-Pachuca) FINALS First Leg - April 20-22 Second Leg - April 27-29 *SF1 winner vs. SF2 winner *First leg at home
What about increasing the cap for teams that will play CCL?, If they are afraid this will give them an advantage, they can make it a rule that with the extra cap they will hire players eligible only for CCL. Libertadores lets you use players that can´t play on your domestic league as long as they have a contract with you. How about letting them rent players from USL or the new league just for CCL games? There are things MLS can do, but that will never change that it doesn´t matter if it is Libertadores, UEFA Champions League, CCL, if you a play an extra tournament, it will hurt you, the more reason it was impressive to see Barcelona winning League, Local Cup, Champions League, Campeon de campeones, and La Liga´s checkers tournament.
2 problems with that: 1) There aren't enough CCL games to make it worth it. 2) CCL isn't financially worth it for the clubs.
I don't think renting USL players is the answer. How do you integrate those players into the squad in time for CCL without actual games? As discussed in many other threads, we've got a player or two on this roster that hasn't adopted yet, and it's been several months now, and lots of games. Even if you give each MLS team $250K to spend on CCL games, that is at most 8 games in one season, and maybe only 2 more the next. Not exactly a recipe for success for a USL player. And foriegn players aren't going to want to come get scraps in MLS while playing in a tournament few care about (and one that probably won't get them signed to a league contract, in MLS or otherwise). I just don't see it. If MLS is going to help out, they should just increase the rosters again and give the young players more PT in a real Reserve League. As Dre (I think) said, Garber, et al, haven't done much to help out their squads besides splitting up the SuperLiga/CCL commitments (a huge positive).
I remembered Mexican teams doing something similar for Libertadores their first years on the tournament, but with players from other FMF teams. It was something very weird, players playing for a FMF team for league tournament, and then playing for another FMF team for Libertadores. They trained with their league team and then would travel to play with their Libertadores teams without really training with them. Now that I think about it, it was the type of players that can perform without training, I think you are right, it would not work with USL players.
Chalk that up to another advantage that the FMF has over us: enough players to do that sort of thing. Those types of players are rare in this league.
Wasn't quite sure where to post this, so here it is. I understand that some on this board have grown fond of Club de Futbol Pachuca, and though you might enjoy the following: Virtual Tour of Pabellon Joseph Blatter