Your situation is highly contrived and even more unlikely, on multiple levels, so definitely a strawman argument... But possible. Since no system is perfect, I would say yes - an incredibly rare and unlikely disbenefit does not outweigh the general strengths of a system. Besides, it's just one round of difference. Not to mention you have the setup wrong, since the different between the preliminary round and the full R16 is based on domestic qualification, not on ranking - so if a defending champion gets put into the preliminary round, it's because they failed within their domestic league, and not because the ranking system gives points to slots instead of to teams.
You say that like it's a bad thing. This is what a draw would have looked like for 2019 CCL if they used smarter rankings. It's ludicrous that Monterrey got a top seed for no reason other than the fact that the Apertura runner-up did well in previous CCLs.
What sense does it make for USA4 to be higher-ranked than USA1? One tweak that could make some sense would be to credit the results of the highest-finishing USA and MEX teams to USA1 and MEX1, respectively.
This somewhat makes sense - the team that performs the best gives their points to USA slot 1. I do like how it sounds. However, if you dig into that idea more, it gets wonky: what team benefits from that slot next year? Why should the defending MLS Cup champion get the points from another qualifier if the Cup champions tend to not do well?
No, not really. It's up to Costa Rica how they allocate their spots so if Saprissa qualified as CRC3 again then they'd start in the preliminary round. Slot allocation is an item for any country with more than one.
Costa Rica doesn't have any slots--they qualify through CONCACAF League. Under the current system, if they win CONCACAF League this year and then go on and win CCL, their ranking points would be assigned to SCL1. Then next year, if they finish second in CONCACAF League, they go into CCL as SCL2 and some other team is SCL1 and gets the benefit of their performance.
Beyond the fact that the tournament winner should get an automatic berth the next season, I don't. When a club enters the tournament should be based on how they qualify. How they're ranked/seeded in the tournament should be based on their own past performance.
The issue is that the slot system isn't meant to have the level of resolution of differentiating among teams from one country. It's meant as a more granular way to sort teams from different countries (or regions).
That's the CCL, which is a different issue. The situation that was posed and being discussed was the different between the preliminary round and byes to the main R16 - which is the CL, and those entries are country-based slots. That said, I do agree that using SCL1/2/etc. in the CCL itself is a bad idea. Just keep the country slots - e.g. if CRC2 wins the CL, they enter the CCL as CRC2, not as SCL1. Now that we have six CL teams making the CCL, it mitigates the problem that a narrow one-team filter (like we had earlier) produces.
I was referring to Costa Rica's slots in the CONCACAF League. The SCL slots are problematic for the reason you mention above. Still, they give a general indication of the SCL teams as compared to teams from other countries/regions. If the SCL teams collectively start dominating the tournament, their slots will rise. It's not far different from how the LMX slots are at or near the top because LMX teams (regardless of which particular ones each year) are at or near the top.
2019 CONCACAF League Round of 16 Home team first, times are ET Thursday results: First Leg Tuesday, August 20 SV Robinhood (SUR) 1-1 CA Independiente (PAN) Santa Tecla FC (SLV) 0-0 AD San Carlos (CRC) Managua FC (NCA) 1-2 FC Motagua (HON) Wednesday, August 21 Comunicaciones FC (GUA) 2-1 CD Guastatoya (GUA) Deportivo Saprissa (CRC) 2-0 CD Aguila (SLV) Thursday, August 22 Waterhouse FC (JAM) 1-1 CS Herediano (CRC) Forge FC (CAN) 1-0 CD Olimpia (HON) Alianza FC (SLV) 2-0 Tauro FC (PAN) Second Leg Tuesday, August 27 CA Independiente (PAN) v. SV Robinhood (SUR) 8:00 pm AD San Carlos (CRC) v. Santa Tecla FC (SLV) 8:00 pm FC Motagua (HON) v. Managua FC (NCA) 10:00 pm Wednesday, August 28 CD Guastatoya (GUA) v. Comunicaciones FC (GUA) 8:00 pm CD Aguila (SLV) v. Deportivo Saprissa (CRC) 10:00 pm Thursday, August 29 Tauro FC (PAN) v. Alianza FC (SLV) 8:00 pm CS Herediano (CRC) v. Waterhouse FC (JAM) 8:00 pm CD Olimpia (HON) v. Forge FC (CAN) 10:00 pm The Quarterfinals start on September 24.
My point about the SCL slots can also be applied to the USA slots. Imagine the four USA qualifiers for 2020 are these: USA1 Real Salt Lake (MLS Cup) USA2 LAFC (Supporters Shield) USA3 Atlanta (other conference winner) USA4 Minnesota (US Open Cup) These are not my predictions, just making up a hypothetical. Then in CCL 2020, Minnesota shocks everyone and wins the whole thing, while RSL bombs out in the first round. This would give a lot of points to USA4, while USA1 drops to Pot 2. Then Minnesota continues to have a magical year, and wins a 2020 treble with the US Open Cup and MLS Cup. Their reward in the 2021 CCL is the Pot 2 slot for USA1, while USA4, which would be a backfill qualifier from the regular season table, gets the benefit of the the 2020 points that Minnesota earned.
Hmm... your post had made me realize that I think the root of this "problem" is less how C'CAF is ranking slots (instead of ranking teams) and more how USSF is allocating its slots. In that scenario, if MNUFC wins the treble, it would make sense for USSF to give them the best CCL spot that they qualify for, as opposed to auto-preferring USA1 and MLS Cup champions. (It's not like USSF hasn't already been allowed to shuffle around their four qualifiers before.) And on that note, the fact that any team even can qualify for three different slots simultaneously muddies the waters more than it should. If the MLS Cup champions are routinely not the best USA rep in the CCL, then it's not fair to double- or treble-winning teams that the "best" slot they default to isn't actually that good. Side note: the situation you describe certainly sucks for MNUFC themselves, but the backfill slot (which would be #3 or #4 in the regular season table) certainly wouldn't be a bad addition too Pot A. I would think that the #4 team in last year's table is much more likely to make a deep CCL run than, say, a random USOC winner. Also, let's look at the opposite situation. Say a strong US team (doesn't matter which slot, but let's say it's USA1 or USA4 - one of the cup slots) manages to win the CCL - maybe even without dropping a single point - and brings in a ton of ranking points. Next year, they're still a strong team, and finish as runner-up to everything, thus missing out on CCL. Their CCL rankings points vanish entirely* if the ranking is team-based instead of slot-based, providing little to no benefit to the teams that bested them. And the teams coming in may or may not have CCL history, so even though they bested last year's CCL champion to qualify, they're *more* likely to drop to pot B with team-based ranks (versus slot-based ranks), and that's just silly. *okay, maybe vanish 3/4
It's a strength issue. A strong team from a strong league shouldn't be seeded below a mediocre team from a weak league just because the former rarely qualifies while the latter nearly always wins their league. This is a major sticking point for me because it creates some massive problems in the UEFA Women's CL, which uses the same coefficient system as the Men's but is a purely KO competition, i.e. it doesn't have a group stage in the competition proper like the men's CL does (and the qualifying group stage is only 3 matches, not 6). Considering that the CCL is more like the UWCL than the UMCL in this sense, the problem is a lot more obvious here as well. With the team-based ranking system, you get some absolutely ridiculous first-round pairings, and some really bad second-round pairings as well.
Agree to disagree on that, then. I don't support the idea of rewarding teams with top seeds based entirely on the history of other teams. Those seeds should be earned in continental play.
Couple thoughts: I think my dad's hometown team Santa Tecla blew it by not scoring at least one at home, but I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised tomorrow. I don't follow the new Canadian league, is Forge FC the "good" team from that league? They seem to be holding up well against foreign competition so far.
Forge was the 2nd place team in the short spring CPL season to Calgary. They are currently in 1st in the fall season after 7 games. So they are definitely one of the two best CPL teams so far.
So what do you want to do with a team that only qualifies for continental play every five years or so? I get the idea of linking rankings to actual teams but, five years on, is it even the same team anymore? (Even for MLS teams we often see substantial roster changes between qualification and the CCL.)
Letting the club in line for USA1 getting the best USA spot regardless of its number is a good idea. As for ranking points vanishing, a ranking that uses more than one season won't make clubs lose their ranking points for failing to qualify once. MLS isn't the only league with big roster changes. From 2013-2014 to five seasons later in 2018-2019, Barcelona had 3 players in the top 11 on the club in both seasons, and Real Madrid had 6. That's 9 of 22 (40.9 percent) who were among the most used 11 both times. I didn't use 2019-2020 because it's a small sample.
Okay. So is using the performance of teams from the same country such a bad proxy for an individual team then? It doesn't seem so. It may even be a better reference than performance from the same team a long time ago.
What I do here. Each club's base is a percentage of the national coefficient and that gets added to by earning results in continental play. That isn't the issue. It's how they use just the weird slot thing. USA1 doesn't help USA3 at all, and there's no reason for that, because the exact method of qualification in each of those slots doesn't remain consistent from year to year.
So far, Cavalry and Forge are the best teams in the league. Odds are very high that both teams will face each other in the Premier League Championship Winner qualifies for next year's CONCACAF League
I suppose, but really that's a problem with the USSF. They know how the slots work so, if they want to keep things consistent, then they need to stop messing around with how they allocate their slots. Big picture: There are lots of ways the tournament could allocate things and none are going to be perfect. I don't see the alternatives as being so much better that what we have now that it would be worth the hassle of switching.