He wasn't that good going on the attack, that's why Roma got Nainggolan and why they rather played Strootman & Pjanic in games where they didn't expect to do much defending.
Since Xolos and Club America failed to advance to the Liguilla final last night they won’t return in 2019. The 2019 CCL representatives from Liga MX will be: - Tigres UANL - CF Monterrey - Santos Laguna - CD Toluca A MLS team may get the chance to play at the newly renovated Estadio Nemesio Diez: Así lució el infierno ayer por la noche.Fotos de @MVazquez71. pic.twitter.com/2q2hpyeR9x— Estadio Nemesio Diez (@EstadioToluca) May 14, 2017
Santos Laguna vs Toluca for the Liga MX Final---both teams with a history of winning championships. I give a slight edge to Santos Laguna since they just eliminated one of the best teams in the tourney--Club America. However if Toluca were to win the Liga MX championship it wouldn't surprise me at all.
In theory CONMEBOL should be on par or dare I say even better than UEFA. Only problem is that all the teams in CONMEBOL get dismantled easily year after year. CONMEBOL is a hot bed for supplying players all over the world. Teams like Boca, River Plate, Gremio etc aren't as strong as they used to be. Every players dream is to go to Europe even if that means going to a "lesser" team sometimes. Then you have the Chinese league, the Mexican league and now recently MLS who are willing to pay top money for South Americans which in turn depletes those clubs. I think CONMEBOL is slowly losing its place as the second best confederation, club wise, and AFC will soon take its place.
The only Champions League continental championship bereft of South Americans is the African one. Otherwise, in Asia, Europe, North America have a lot of South Americans, and more in percentage the more the tournament advances. Even the OFC's usually has one or two. This season's top scorer is the Argentine Emiliano Tade, for the already eliminated(!) Auckland. The champs, Wellington, have the other South American: Mario Barcia.
Interestingly, Santos eliminated Tigres and then America in almost identical fashion and scoreline as Toronto did in CCL. Both Santos and Toronto had inferior talent but made up for it with good organization and lethal counterattacks. I'd guess Toluca wins a close one though.
What stage of the CAF Champions League? If you include all the clubs in the preliminary rounds, you'll typically find three or four South Americans there too. At least a couple of the North African clubs in any given edition of the CAF Champions League will have South American imports, a few play in the South African league, and a few more play in the various Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries in Africa.
You're right. In the group stage, Wydad Casablanca (one of the stronger teams in CAF) has the Argentine Alejandro Quintana. The South African Mamelodi Sundowns has Ricardo Nascimento (Brazil) and Gaston Sirino (Uruguay). And Etoile du Sahel has the Brazilian Diogo Acosta. All three clubs are expected to make it out of group, too. So South Americans present in all six Champions Leagues. And in UEFA, AFC & CONCACAF, in large numbers.
I don't know about inferior talent with Toronto don't know enough about Santos squad to make that claim. I think Tigres are good but not what they were a yr or two ago (overrated) \__/ You can get past one more talented squad than you with a lesser team once, to do it b2b then you obviously have equal or better talent on a whole as the teams you are playing. They obviously ran out of gas after their gauntlet against Tigres & America. Chivas being the old guard "Big Club" they are capitalized despite being meh in Liga MX. Hope they rep the continent well.
Your solipsistic excuse-making aside, would you say Greece in 2004 was equal in talent to France and Portugal? Why can't you just be happy that MLS has improved to the point of competitiveness? Don't ruin it with delusions of grandeur.
You are ruining it with making excuses while your team was beat on home /away. Just man up and state that my team was beat over 2 legs by a better or equally talented side. Chivas fans can talk all the smack they want they have tons of talent on their team and enough of it to beat TFC I'm not a TFC supporter btw. Home and away takes the we were more talented but they one on a fluke excuse away. Greece could use that to get out of the group stages but to do it in the knock out stages showed they had enough talent whether it was critically acclaimed at the time or not to win the 04 Euros. It'd be nice if fans of both leagues realized they are just about equal in talent now even though I give still give the slight edge to Liga MX. Don't confuse styles of play with better talent the two leagues are different there like every league. Lets just give each league its due and move on. TFC beat two of the best teams in Mexico the past two or three seasons but a equally talented and tactically superior Chivas took the title over them on PKs. There is no need to add opinions of what we WANT to believe. all that matters is the current results of this year and they speak for themselves. You'd need delusions of grandeur yourself or are living in the past dominance of yesteryear to think otherwise. We'll agree on its better to have a fun competitive CCL and it would be better if we could get away from the pseudo soccer National Identity dominance that we both know has a strong presence in this tournament Let the individual team play do the talking. It's ok to do it in trash talk, but its to the point that people from both sides make dipshit comments based in ethnic pride that try to use the games as a means to settle a score, prove worth or dominance. Just leads to a bunch of pettiness. I will talk soccer with you or anyone all day up until you stop denying reality of what just happened and replace it with the Mexican Pride stupid US spazzo crap Nothing wrong with having cultural pride but when it's used as a way it gets used in BS its over the top. This is coming from a black person of (carribean/hispanola descent).
Over two legs Toronto played better and deserved to advance. I have not denied that. But that doesn't suddenly make them equals on talent. It's sports. The better team doesn't always win. That's what makes the playoffs so exciting (except for the NBA). You do realize that America has about 10 or 11 players who would be DPs in MLS? I could see Giovinco starting for America. But who else could from Toronto? Be honest, and pick what player you would be displacing as well. Edit: I replied before your edited third paragraph. It sounds like you are imbuing a lot more into my post based on your presumptions. It has nothing to do with Mexican pride. I was rooting for Toronto to beat Chivas and Tigres.
Ok fair enough. No way on the 10-11 America's player being DPs maybe for small clubs like San Jose, and Minnesota see Quintero who is at most a TAM player =1.5 mil max. Maybe 5-6 true DP level for MLS that's pushing it. I'm sure you'd know more about Liga MX like I do MLS so the names won't mean much. But I believe you are over inflating America's players worth based off what they mean to fans in Liga MX and not CCL where it counts.
That's more than I expected, mostly because I didn't realize the group stage had been expanded to 16 teams.
Chivas won the CONCACAF Champions but not one player of theirs made the Mexican NT for the World Cup. Even Pizarro, their best player, was left out. Surprising.
Plus Chivas was arguably the least talented team in the Semifinals, yet they made it pass 2 superior talented teams to win the title. Sometimes the lesser team wins, Chivas is proof of that.
Santos is talented, their goal scorer was injured for game 2 if I remember correctly, so their best player was missing for the second leg, I will give you that. I do get your point, Tigres, America and Monterrey are the 3 most talented teams based on brand name players in LMX. So the other 15 teams by default are less talented.
If you look at the salary thread Toronto has 5 players over a Million, and 1 other at 800K, so ignoring TAM/GAM, that is 6 DP level players. https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/mls-player-salaries-2018.2083377/ https://mlsplayers.org/resources/salary-guide
I respectfully disagree Chivas was more talented than Seattle. Toronto was equal on much talent as Tigres and America the difference where they were just better tactically. IT'S CLEAR to see why Liga MX fans don't want to admit it. It makes them feel better thinking they had the better talent than having to come to terms that a MLS team with equal talent beat two of the best teams Liga MX has had to offer as far as talent in results the past 2-3 seasons. I mean how could you have watched the TFC legs against both Tigres and America and not thought well yeah they are good. Just admit it. I will give Chivas their due they have alot of young talent and it showed. Were you say Chivas was less talented I will say maybe only slightly less than Toronto but by far the biggest deterrent for Toronto was they just ran out of steam and lost harshly on pks after playing and beating two of the best teams in Mexico the past few years. You don't luck up and tactic your way to leg wins against America and Tigres, you have to be just as talented which they were IT SHOWED with Toronto getting the job done on away legs in Azteca and El Vulcan.
But that makes my point even more, Chivas then made it past 3 teams that were arguably more talented than them, Toronto made it pass 2 of them and drew (lost on PKs) vs a lesser talented team. Giovinco is IMO the best player currently playing in concacaf, but Tigres and America over all (along with Monterrey) have the most talented 11 on average (and perhaps top 18 average) players in all Concacaf.
You can't be the least talented and win five cups (including CCL) in the last 2 years. T Giovinco is talented but calling him the best player in Concacaf is a stretch. I'd still put Gignac over him. Look at the difference Gignac made in game 2 when he started against Toronto. They were eliminated thanks to an own goal. You wouldn't be making these statements if Tigres went through.
5 cups? I remember 3, are you talking about the FMF-SUM money grabbing games in the USA (those campeon de campeones games). Chivas is a good cup team, but even in Liga MX when the semester that they won the league they were not a top 4 team during the regular semester season, they are like Liverpool, they do better in elimination tournaments than in league play. Gignac is bad ass, but may Giovinco is also a beast, that is why Chivas did the smart thing and put a player to cover him all over the filed, shit even when dude was taking a piss he had the Chivas player next to him. Giovinco is like a more consistent Ruben Sambuesa, they both have bad tempers and can get into trouble with the refs, but they are very talented. Also they are both marginal National team players, Gignac is at most a French NT bench player that I don't think will make the World Cup team, but was called up for the Euros, Giovinco gets called up once in a while but usually does not make the Italy team, I doubt that he would be in the Italy team if they had made the World Cup. So we can argue on who ever is better, the difference is not large for sure. Man, I looked at table to drop (it is being eliminated if I remember correctly) Chivas will be #13 when the season starts.