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"We may not play Champions League games until 2018 due to some potential format changes" - Lagerwey— Sounder At Heart (@sounderatheart) December 19, 2016
http://diariometro.com.ni/deportes/109615-liga-de-campeones-concachampions-nicaragua-cupo/ Whoa! This is a huge deal! Eliminating the biggest gripe MLS has, and eliminating the rule that keeps MLX and MLS teams away from each other.
So apparently there will be a fall tournament with the Central American and Caribbean teams and later a spring tournament with 4 Mexican, 4 American and 1 Canadian team plus the five champions of CR, ES, GUA, PAN, HON, the champion of the Fall tournament and a Caribbean champion. That's a total of 16 for the big spring tournament. I like it.
The competition would be expanded from 24 to 31 teams, and would be divided into two phases: Autumn and Spring. Sixteen teams will take part in each tournament: In the Autumn tournament (from August to October), there would be thirteen Central American clubs and three Caribbean clubs. The champion would qualify for the Spring tournament. In the Spring tournament, there would be four Mexican clubs, four American clubs, one Canadian club, five Central American clubs, one Caribbean club and the winner of the Autumn tournament. The new format has not been confirmed by CONCACAF. There would be 4 groups of 4 teams in both the Fall and Spring tournaments.
St. Louis MLS stadium plan 'welfare for millionaires' - Missouri governor-elect ESPN Gov.-elect Greitens opposes public funding for St. Louis soccer stadium Miami County Republic USA to Play in Nashville, Tampa and Cleveland in Group B of 2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup U.S. Soccer
CONCACAF confirms 2017 Gold Cup sites ESPN FC CONCACAF announce 2017 Gold Cup venues, USA and Mexico ... MLSsoccer.com Reports: DC United, Sporting KC, Houston eyeing Latin American ... MLSsoccer.com Los Angeles selected as Knockout Round game date host city for ... LA Galaxy 2016 US Soccer Best of Awards - Best Individual Performance U.S. Soccer Fifa corruption crisis: Rafael Callejas & Alfredo Hawit get life bans BBC Sport Bevy of MLS, US, Canada stars nominated for CONCACAF year-end ... MLSsoccer.com MLS Considering Nashville for Expansion Market Athletic Business
Interesting to see Tampa and Nashville picked for group stage games in light of the expansion process. Cleveland instead of Cincinnati breaks the pattern though!
US Soccer apparently dislikes fake turf, and has told Concacaf as such. Hard to know where MLS's expansion thinking actually factors in with something like the Gold Cup. Both processes are money grabs, I suppose.
Knowing that CONCACAF and not USSF picks these sites I would guess that Tampa and Nashville made stronger bids because they 'need' the publicity for their bids more than Cincy does.
How would the transition be handled? If the next round for MLS teams isn't going to start until 2018 would that be the 2016 qualifiers or the 2017 qualifiers?
Depends on when they implement it. They would basically have to cancel the current format first, thus all teams who qualified for the current format would actually be screwed. Lets say they decided to start in 2017, then FCD would be out. The new format wouldn't actually start till August 2017, with the Fall Tournament. There is no MLS teams in the Fall Tournament, so no need for the current MLS qualifiers. MLS teams don't join until the Spring Tournament in 2018, and those would be the MLS teams that qualify during the upcoming season (2017)
http://www.onceametro.com/2016/12/1...ards-new-york-red-bulls-marketing-mls-youtube Fernando Gonzalez...Once A Metro… Don't think this is up yet…fascinating take on one piece of RBNY / Metro marketing… Once A Metro does some impressive work…from that several part gegenpress / Ralf Ball analysis to most recently this...
US Soccer could do a modified qualification process (for the transition to the new CCL format) and take "2 from 2016" and "2 from 2017." But no matter what Concacaf opts to do, I am confident US Soccer could come up with some solution that would be a travesty to some here.
As much as I hate to say it, if you're dropping 1 team the logical one to drop is Colorado (since we just inherited our spot). After that the 2nd team I think would be RBNY (winning the East is less than winning the USOC/SS or MLS Cup). I don't see how you decide between Seattle and Dallas so you either go 2 and 2 or you drop all 4 from 2017. If this happens though I think all 4 teams should still get the extra benefit allocation funds (and whatever else is given to CCL teams). Mainly because at least for now they're making plans for 2017 based on the reasonable assumption (until the last week) that they'll be in CCL and have those benefits.
A fair compromise would be to send this year's and next year's MLS Champions, and then send the team with the best combined 2 year point total from the West and from the East.
Otherwise known as the FCD Homegrown rule. Now FCD can add Vera and Terwege. And not surprisingly, FCD 2 will be launching shortly thereafter.