Improvements to the Gold Cup

[DoyleG]

Originally posted by Sachin


I agree. Top 3 teams and best second place finisher advance to semi-finals.

Rotating hosts with minimum criteria of 3 stadia seating 20,000 and 1 of which seats 30K.

Sachin
I agree with how the tournament should be conducted. hope the 2003 Gold Cup is like that.

I don't agree with the stadium criteria. Most countries in CONCACAF don't have the ability to meet those standards. Trinidad and Tobago would be a good host, but wouldn't be considered because it's stadiums aren't big enough.

[Juan Luis Guerra]

where will be the Gold cup play next year?

[Sachin]

Originally posted by Juan Luis Guerra
where will be the Gold cup play next year?

Where else? USA (Miami and LA again most likely)

Sachin

[sidspaceman]

The Gold Cup finals will take place in the USA from 12 – 27 July 2003, in venues to be announced.

[Juan Luis Guerra]

Originally posted by sidspaceman
The Gold Cup finals will take place in the USA from 12 – 27 July 2003, in venues to be announced.

I'm sure some games will be played in the Galaxy new stadium.

[DoyleG]

Originally posted by Juan Luis Guerra


I'm sure some games will be played in the Galaxy new stadium.

More likely it would be in the Rose Bowl. Ego reasons.

[Mel Brennan]

All aspects must be improved, steadily and simultaneously:

Marketing (InterForeverSports needs to crawl in a hole and die!)

Promotion (see IFS, above)

Television (at least the semis and the final for God's sake!)

Prize Money (with a relationship created between preceived "A" team participation and prize money allocations, i.e. the more teams bring what CONCACAF determines is an "A" team, the higher tier of prize payout)

Format (NO GUEST TEAMS, 12 teams (with 3 groups of 4), or 16 teams (4 groups of 4; how will bad teams get better without playing???)

Venues (D.C., NYC, Columbus, Boston, and various in Canada as REAL options as well now that the tourney is in the summer)

[efernandez9]

bump

[Concacaf]

I for one don't have a problem with inviting teams to the Gold Cup, specially if they are from South America and with a high level of play. We also get invited to play in their tournament and thats is a good trade.

Colombia won the last Copa America and Brazil's U-23 is better than most of the National teams in our conference. Their inclusion will rise the level of play and help our team's quality improve and see different styles of football which will come handy when the World Cup comes around.

I don't have a problem either with the USA hosting the tournament as long as venues located in cities with a high population of latinos are used thus not giving a home field advantage to any particular team.

With all due respect to some of you saying the CUp could be held in Canada.. why really? As far as I know the sport is even less popular there than in the USA.. then take away the high immigration which is present in cities such as Miami and LA.. not much appeal to held the CUp there, at least this is my view. The large southern USA cities are the perfect places to host the games.

I don't like the idea of Mexico hosting their group, it is just too big of a home field advantage. Mexico will host all their games until the semis, what are the chances of they not making it all the way there?

3 teams will always be there Canada, USA and Mexico. Costa Rica, Honduras and T&T or Jamaica will also be there every single time if something very strange doesnt happen. What are the chances of one of these teams not winning the Cup in an all Concacaf tourney? I rather see a couple of good teams with chances and enough quality to take the Cup and improve the quality of play.

Perhaps some of you just think in term of your own national teams and dont look at the issue from the stand point of a conference as a whole. Mexico doesnt take this tournament as seriously as before because they now play the Copa America (soemthing they rightly deserve) and that after the WC are their priorities. USA has the money to pay the top teams in the world to come on over and play friendlies with them all the time, this is the main reason why they have improved so much in such a short time. The rest of the conference either doesnt have enough money or football appeal to bring the top teams in the world to play, so this is why I like the idea of bringing the couple of invited teams. OK so Barbados, Panama, or Nicaragua will have their places taken over by Colombia but for the Conference as a whole this is better.. improving the level of the top teams will eventually also bring the level of the bottom teams up.. but we need to play the best teams in the world to do so.

[RoverMax]

I would make it CONCACAF only. Also, I think 3 groups of 4 would be better than 4 groups of 3.

[DoyleG]

Originally posted by Concacaf
I for one don't have a problem with inviting teams to the Gold Cup, specially if they are from South America and with a high level of play. We also get invited to play in their tournament and thats is a good trade.

Colombia won the last Copa America and Brazil's U-23 is better than most of the National teams in our conference. Their inclusion will rise the level of play and help our team's quality improve and see different styles of football which will come handy when the World Cup comes around.

It's all fine and dandy as long as the South Americans don't win it all. What do you think the world's opinion would be of CONCAlaugh if a guets team won it all.

Originally posted by Concacaf
I don't have a problem either with the USA hosting the tournament as long as venues located in cities with a high population of latinos are used thus not giving a home field advantage to any particular team.

That basically strikes out most US cities.

Originally posted by Concacaf
With all due respect to some of you saying the CUp could be held in Canada.. why really? As far as I know the sport is even less popular there than in the USA.. then take away the high immigration which is present in cities such as Miami and LA.. not much appeal to held the CUp there, at least this is my view. The large southern USA cities are the perfect places to host the games.

Than what you know is little at best. Soccer is now bigger in Canada than hockey is. The fan support is here for a tournament to be a sucess.

Originally posted by Concacaf
3 teams will always be there Canada, USA and Mexico. Costa Rica, Honduras and T&T or Jamaica will also be there every single time if something very strange doesnt happen. What are the chances of one of these teams not winning the Cup in an all Concacaf tourney? I rather see a couple of good teams with chances and enough quality to take the Cup and improve the quality of play.

A tourney full of surprises is always the best.

Originally posted by Concacaf
Perhaps some of you just think in term of your own national teams and dont look at the issue from the stand point of a conference as a whole. Mexico doesnt take this tournament as seriously as before because they now play the Copa America (soemthing they rightly deserve) and that after the WC are their priorities. USA has the money to pay the top teams in the world to come on over and play friendlies with them all the time, this is the main reason why they have improved so much in such a short time. The rest of the conference either doesnt have enough money or football appeal to bring the top teams in the world to play, so this is why I like the idea of bringing the couple of invited teams. OK so Barbados, Panama, or Nicaragua will have their places taken over by Colombia but for the Conference as a whole this is better.. improving the level of the top teams will eventually also bring the level of the bottom teams up.. but we need to play the best teams in the world to do so.

The again, teams don't tend to send their best over to play against the Americans (ie. the Welsh in San Jose).

[Concacaf]

Originally posted by DoyleG
It's all fine and dandy as long as the South Americans don't win it all. What do you think the world's opinion would be of CONCAlaugh if a guets team won it all.

Oh I see.. its OK if they come but dont win.?!?! I couldnt care less what the world's opinion would be if Brazil was to win our tournament.. chances are they would win their tournament too. Do we have the Gold Cup to win a popularity contest or to improve the level of play in our Conference and represent well in the World Cup?

That basically strikes out most US cities.

Read the whole post! I said southern cities with high density of latinos! I take that back and now say any city with a high density of latinos.

Than what you know is little at best. Soccer is now bigger in Canada than hockey is. The fan support is here for a tournament to be a sucess.

Ohh.. soccer is bigger than hockey in Canada. WOW.. well you are the Canadian and I surely dont live there.. this is the biggest surprise of my day.. I do however have friends from Canada and from what they have told me I remain, to say the very least, very skeptictal about this. Isnt it perhaps wishful thinking at best?

A tourney full of surprises is always the best.

Well if Colombia, Mexico, USA, Brazil or Costa Rica dont win it would be a surprise. Still enough teams to have a nice Cinderella story.


The again, teams don't tend to send their best over to play against the Americans (ie. the Welsh in San Jose).

Oh come on.. look back at the last 8 years and see which teams the USA has played against. Granted as you say sometimes they might not bring their A teams but those B teams are better than most A teams all of the other Concacaf (with the exception of Mexico) have played against. Would you as a Canadian like to trade off the teams Canada has played in the last 10 years with the ones the USA has played?

[Crazy_Yank]

The US has improved its program in every single aspect. The USSF is now weathly due to marked improvement of our program and players. To suggest the main reason we've improved is because we can pay high profile opponents to play us is naive.

[efernandez9]

respected oponents?

well thanks to the mighty dollar!

reason why many conmebol or concacaf nations run their friendlies in MIami or lax

[Concacaf]

Originally posted by Crazy_Yank
The US has improved its program in every single aspect. The USSF is now weathly due to marked improvement of our program and players. To suggest the main reason we've improved is because we can pay high profile opponents to play us is naive.

I know many aspects have been improved, MLS has been a great part too. I still hold my ground and say playing the best teams in the world has been the main reason why the level of play has improved so much. I dont see how it is naive to think playing several times teams such Brazil, Argentina, England and other top flight teams will not result in a very fast increase of the level of play.

[SJJ]

Originally posted by efernandez9
bump

God, Moderators just make me laugh sometimes. Why would a mod BUMP this thread, after eight months of non-use? (At least, a bump should give the reason WHY it's being bumped.) This is the kind of thing that when any normal shlep like any of us do, we get the hand of God coming down on us.

OK, seriously. One way to improve the Gold Cup just may be to get rid of it, replacing it with a true Pan-American Cup. There is another thread for this idea on the Fifa board. A true 16-team tournament from the total 45 federations would be tremendous in both qualifying and the finals. (Although in my version, the top four teams in each country automatically qualify, and the other teams play out for the other 8 spots.)

Pan-Am Tournament Idea Thread: http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49664

[DoyleG]

Originally posted by SJJ
God, Moderators just make me laugh sometimes. Why would a mod BUMP this thread, after eight months of non-use? (At least, a bump should give the reason WHY it's being bumped.) This is the kind of thing that when any normal shlep like any of us do, we get the hand of God coming down on us.

OK, seriously. One way to improve the Gold Cup just may be to get rid of it, replacing it with a true Pan-American Cup. There is another thread for this idea on the Fifa board. A true 16-team tournament from the total 45 federations would be tremendous in both qualifying and the finals. (Although in my version, the top four teams in each country automatically qualify, and the other teams play out for the other 8 spots.)

Pan-Am Tournament Idea Thread: http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49664

CONCACAF wouldn't be in favour of a "Tournament of the Americas" since such a torunament would be for the big boys.

[futbol571]

Very simply the Gold Cup and CONCACAF (Warner & Blazer) need to go.

CONCACAF & CONMEBOL need to merge and have a bigger and better Copa America and Copa Libertadores. Anything else, is just a waste of time and lining the pockets of Warner & Blazer.

[sidspaceman]

What would CONMEBOL gain out of merging with CONCACAF?

[DoyleG]

Originally posted by sidspaceman
What would CONMEBOL gain out of merging with CONCACAF?

NNNNNNOOOOOOOOTTHHHHHHIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!