CONCACAF Nations League - A new competition for national teams

Just to clarify... the EURO Nations League is a once every 4 cycle event, my guess is CONCACAF does something similar. So depending on how far a team goes and how many teams are in your group a team will play anywhere from 4 games to 10 games every cycle.

A team in a 3 team group if eliminated plays 4 games every cycle
A team in a 4 team group if eliminated plays 6 games every cycle

Group winners play an additional 4 games for the League playoff (assumes a 4 team playoff)

 

Interesting... Since EURO's is every 4 years I assumed the UEFA Nations League would be every 4 years too. So they could have a EURO A tourney and B Tourney. The A tourney will win qualification into EURO's and the B Tourney or off year tounrey the winners of the leagues dont get anything?

Like this?

2018 WC
2018 Nations League
2019 Nations League Playoff (League playoff winners go to EURO's)
2020 EURO
2020 Nations League (off Year)
2021 Nations League Playoff (League playoff winners get nothing)
2021 Confed Cup
2021 WCQ
2022 WC

 

I see, so if there are 4 playoff spots for EURO WCQ then the 4 Nation League winners could be awarded these 4 spots.

 

I think I read somewhere that it would be like that, where the Nations League could offer a back door WCQ entry (ie. highest placed team that hasn't already qualified through the separate WCQ process)

 

Seeing Jamaica as well as other CONCACAF teams in this Gold Cup (Canada, El Salvador) that didn't qualify to this current HEX makes me more interested and excited about the LoN and can't wait for it to start. I can see these countries making for some interesting LoN scenarios as they fight to get 'promoted' to the top league where the powerhouses of the region would be.

 

The article posted in this thread back in April said CONCACAF was planing on deciding on a structure for this competition in their April meeting. I am surprised we have yet to hear anything about the structure of this thing yet.

 

UEFA announced recently the format for their LoN. I'm guessing CONCACAF will have a similar format as well; the only difference I see is that there will less leagues per division. Maybe the bottom division would have a couple of leagues (the league winners would be promoted) while the higher ones would have less; the top one I guess would only be one league unless they would want some sort of final four playoff to determine the LoN Champion (like UEFA) instead of just crowning the league winner the Champ.

Either way, I'm pretty excited for this to start... whenever that will be. Hopefully, this will clear up any (and not made more) confusion that anyone had so far.

 

So CONCACAF could look like this:

41 members
Ranking: http://en.fifaranking.net/concacaf/ranking.php

League A
Mexico, Costa Rica, United States, Haiti, Panama, Jamaica, Honduras, Curacao, Canada, Trinidad & Tobago

League B
El Salvador, Nicaragua, Suriname, St.Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Guatemala, Guyana, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico

League C
Belize, Barbados, Dominica, St.Vincent and the Grenadines, St.Lucia, Aruba, Cuba, Bermuda, U.S Virgin Islands, Montserrat

League D
Turks and Caicos Islands, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Bahamas, Anguilla, Martinique, French Guyana, Guadeloupe, St.Martin, Sint.Maarten

 

That's up to CONCACAF to solve the issue. I'm guessing some form of subsidy would have to be implemented to help the smaller nations travel and with their infrastructure.

That's what Victor Montagliani campaigned on to win the election

 

Posting someone else idea for the format

Division A

• 4 groups of 3 (random draw)
• Winner of each group advance to playoffs semi-finals for the nation league
• Bottom team is relegated to Division B
• All 12 teams qualifies for Gold Cup

1. Mexico
2. Costa Rica
3. United States
4. Haiti
5. Panama
6. Jamaica
7. Honduras
8. Curaçao
9. Canada
10. Trinidad & Tobago
11. El Salvador
12. Nicaragua

Division B

• 4 groups of 4
• Winner of each group qualifies for Gold Cup
• Winner of each group advance in promotion playoffs
• Bottom team is relegated to Division C
• Winner of Division B promotes to Division A

1. Suriname
2. St. Kitts and Nevis
3. Antigua and Barbuda
4. Guatemala
5. Guyana
6. Grenada
7. Dominican Republic
8. Puerto Rico
9. Belize
10. Barbados
11. Dominica
12. St. Vincent and the Grenadines
13. St. Lucia
14. Guadeloupe
15. Martinique
16. French Guiana

Division C

• 4 group of 3/3+1 or single table
• Winner or each group or top 4 advance to promotion playoffs
• Winner of Division C promotes to Division B

1. Aruba
2. Cuba
3. Bermuda
4. U.S. Virgin Islands
5. Montserrat
6. Turks and Caicos Islands
7. Cayman Islands
8. British Virgin Islands
9. Bahamas
10. Anguilla
11. Saint-Martin
12. Sint Maarten
13. Bonaire

 

In the end, they could just divide up that league into 2 divisions where both the divisional winners are promoted or they play a home and away playoff for promotion.

 

USA, Mex and CR should not be wasting even more FIFA dates playing the crap which exists in this region.

It'll be almost impossible to schedule friendlies vs quality Euro and South American teams now. That's what the US needs, not more games vs region lightweights.

I wouldn't want any of our Euro based players traveling for this crapola. And that hurts the NT.

 

The Europeans are doing the same, so good luck getting friendlies with them.

 

Division C needs an incentive like Division B has. Something like the UEFA Nations league has with EURO's. Each Division is awarded 1 EURO spot.

In the B & C division they could have a 4 team playoff like they do in the EURO version to decide the 2 GC spots (2 for each Division).

Example:
Lets say Aruba, Cuba, Bemuda & US Virgin Islands win their groups. Then these 4 teams participate in a playoff, the top 2 are awarded the GC spots. Also, I would do away with the promotion/relegation playoff. 4 group winners advance 4 group losers are relegated.

So Divisions would look like this...

Division A

• 4 groups of 3 (seeded by FIFA rank, eventually maybe a CONCACAF Coefficient could be used for seeding)
  
• Winner of each group advance to playoffs semi-finals for the nation league winner (Most likely this would be US, MEX, CR and 1 more team)
  
• Bottom 4 teams are relegated to Division B
• All 12 teams qualify for Gold Cup

Division B

• 4 groups of 4 (seeded by FIFA rank)
  
• 4 group winners have a playoff to determine the top 2 for the GC
  
• Winner of each group are promoted to Div A
  
• Bottom 4 teams are relegated to Division C

Division C

• 4 group of 3/3+1 or single table (seeded by FIFA rank)
  
• 4 group winners (or 4 winners) have a playoff to determine the top 2 for the GC
  
• Winner of each group or top 4 are promoted to Div B

 

Not everything is about the United States. It's about the whole confederation a

You do make a valid point in giving more incentives to other divisions. Hopefully CONCACAF unveil their format soon

 

UEFA will be using FIFA dates for their LoN so there won't be hardly any more "friendlies" with Europe for the US. As far as South America and the other regions, they'll eventually have their own LoN and will use their FIFA dates for that. Bottom line, whether one likes it or not, the whole purpose for this is for the bottom countries in each region to get better... in a matter of speaking, for each area to have its own Iceland as UEFA does or something. I think it was the president of CONCACAF or someone who phrased it better.

 

Last I heard it was tabled in the last CONCACAF meeting.

 

This is the quote I was talking about; Montagliani said it:

“When we in CONCACAF create our own Iceland, our own Wales, we will just be a better confederation for it. Our big boys on the block, Mexico and the U.S., will be better for it as well.”

 

I wonder if FIFA has stated how they plan to treat these LoN games in the FIFA rank. Having more meaningful matches for our region could boost the ranking of our teams. Depending on how they rank these games.

 

As far as I understand, they will be treat the UEFA LoN matches as it were a WCQ match so I'm guessing the same would follow suit for CONCACAF.