See, this is why I don't call things early: Santos Laguna made hard work of the second leg, but Querétaro could only manage a 3-0 win in the second leg, so the last top seed for the 2015-16 CCL remains in Torreón.
Holy Sh*t they changed the pots!!!! From what I can make out: CRC1, HON1, GUA1, PAN1: A to B MEX3, MEX4, USA3, USA4: B to A GUA2, PAN2: C to B SLV1, CAN1: B to C
This guy has amazing assistants. Whole draw procedure looks very professional, I hope we'll see more movements in improving the competition.
Full draw: Group A W Connection (TRI) Deportivo Saprissa (CRC) Santos Laguna (MEX) Group B Isidro Metapán (SLV) Herediano (CRC) Tigres UANL (MEX) Group C Verdes FC (BLZ) San Francisco (PAN) Querétaro FC (MEX) Group D Central FC (TRI) Comunicaciones (GUA) LA Galaxy (USA) Group E Walter Ferretti (NCA) Motagua (HON) Club América (MEX) Group F Vancouver Whitecaps (CAN) Olimpia (HON) Seattle Sounders (USA) Group G Santa Tecla FC (SLV) Municipal (GUA) Real Salt Lake (USA) Group H Montego Bay United (JAM) Árabe Unido (PAN) DC United (USA)
Looks to me less like an ordered A/B/C (i.e. pots rated by strength) and more like what they do with the WC where teams are simply grouped by region - no country in the current draw is split between two pots.
I also was wondering what they were doing with the pots, during the draw. This throws away any incentive to try to get a higher seed, since all teams from one country / region end up in the same pot. Maybe they're still spooked from that time where they had to re-do the entire draw. No possible clashes in this format! UEFA has implemented a change where the top 8 seed go to the champions of the (top 7 + titleholder) or (top 8) countries. This is closer to what Concacaf did with their old pot seedings (top 6 countries, plus second teams in MEX and USA).
Really? Maybe a bit. How do you explain PAN and GUA having a Pot A team and Pot C in the old format. If they are a top 6 country, shouldn't the 2nd team in that country go to Pot B? It's the lack of transparency that bugs me. How does CONCACAF rank the member associations? Everyone is guessing. Maybe it is "payments"?
I'm honestly guessing there just aren't "rankings" to begin with, hence the odd splits in the previous pot system, or at least not formalized rankings since there was a general sense of A-B-C before.
So now that, seedingwise, the USOC Champ and Mexican subchamps are equal to their league's champions, maybe Paul will apply the 1-4 distinction according to the order they qualify for Concachampions. e.g., the first Mex team to qualify for December's league Final will be MEX1, and the other will be MEX2. It's not like higher seeds had an advantage in previous years anyway, one season's champ might suck the next while its subchamp may rise the next season. So it was hit or miss every time.
The seeding still matters with respect to hand-me-down situations, so we'll keep track of qualifiers the same way.
Which would have pushed CAN-1 and SLV-1 into pot C. You could say that it is the same philosophy, where the #1 team of those two countries get the highest seed that would be reasonable. (You certainly couldn't do that for BLZ-1 nor NCA-1, but you could argue that for CFU-1.) So you basically have five teams to choose from for the last two Pot B slots; take your pick.