What's wrong with say Costa Rica level? Last time they met, they gave the USA a huge beating... What about Panama level? They proved today more than able to handle the US. It's amusing how much you put MLS on a pedestal. It's a good league, but far from being a "measuring stick". Come down to earth please.
Canadian Premier League nabs Hamilton soccer chief John Gibson https://www.thespec.com/sports-stor...eague-nabs-hamilton-soccer-chief-john-gibson/ Hamilton's John Gibson, who has been working behind the scenes advising the league, has been appointed director of interprovincial affairs for the CPL. Mitchell also said of a widely-expected 2018 debut for the CPL: "That's the focus."
Funny you should say that, when a 16 year-old MLS academy player had more goals in that game. Never mind Jakovic's MLS experience either.
MLS is a good league, I'm annoyed at "MLS is the measuring stick" rhetoric. We have pelnty of examples around to refute that
The top teams in Costa Rica and Panama (where most of their players that aren't in foreign leagues come from) are very competitive with MLS teams.. It is also something that I've said previously in this discussion. The reason why MLS is being used is because it is, currently, the top league in Canada and is the league that everyone in this discussion is familiar with...
I am also not sure what having (or not having) a CPL has to do with convincing "paper Canadians" like Scott Arfield to play for Canada. (side note: if your best player is going to be a guy that couldn't squeeze his way into the Scotland side.....well no league is gonna improve you internationally ). I am actually done with this thread.....the league will be what it is......I hope it's a success.....I wil attend the odd match if there is a team reasonably close to me.....initially I had hopes.....lately, what I have been reading gives me doubts....but we will see. But, as I said, the thread has run its course, and, frankly, I am tired of someone reading CSL and TFC into every post I make none of which had anything to do with those entities. So good luck CPL, I'll reconnected with you when the rubber hits the road.
Regina's #CanPL ownership group will meet with supporters for first time on July 21, the night before Valencia v NY Cosmos. Congrats #Sask!
And what about the Jamaica Premier League? They have a good national team, yet some of their players comes from their domestic league, same for Haiti. Just to show you that Canada will be no different by calling players from a mixture of top leagues...CPL included. The MLS as a bare minimum is BS argument. Why wouldn`t CPL be very competitive with MLS in your mind? Crazier things deemed impossible have happened before... Canada stunned the basketball world by beating USA in semis at FIBA U19 World Cup http://www.bardown.com/canada-stunn...g-usa-in-semis-at-fiba-u19-world-cup-1.800045 Canada earns historic U19 men's basketball World Cup title http://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/canada-italy-fiba-world-cup-final-1.4196895 Canada Beats the U.S. at Its Own Game http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/sports/sportsspecial/canada-beats-the-us-at-its-own-game.html Unless Canadians are genetically engineered to be bad at soccer and inferior to Americans, there`s absolutely no reason for CPL not to grow to become a very competitive Division 1 league within CONCACAF and in the Champions League.
We can talk all we want, but until there is another announcement, we may as well just wait to see what the next revelation will be.
https://juneof86.com/2017/07/10/regina-to-host-cpl-info-night-about-sask-team/amp/ Solid piece of information about the league: No one knew until today that they were already part of the CPL group of ownership back in May 6th. This reinforces Montagliani claim saying that there was indeed interested owners, fitting the profile set by the league and that the secrecy was due to legal & confidentiality agreements with potential owners. The league clearly has a plan and are much more advance then they are letting on, seems they are very good at controlling the information. Very little information is known about his private firm but this article highlights that this person who might very well be the main financial backer of the team, fits the `deep pocket` profile https://agmetalminer.com/2017/02/08...group-bids-on-mountain-pass-rare-earths-mine/ According to the Wall Street Journal, a Swiss investment fund linked to Russian-born billionaire Vladimir Iorich is part of a buyout group that has made an offer to take over Mountain Pass. Pala Investments Ltd., Iorich’s investment firm, is a partner in a buyout group’s $40 million offer for the assets. Joining Pala is Novatrek Capital GmbH, a private-equity firm founded by Pala alumnus Joseph Belan, as well as Sole Source Capital of Los Angeles, according to filings with the bankruptcy court. More about his interest in soccer The St. Catherine’s, Ont. product is also a former Canadian youth international who played alongside Jason DeVos at the 1991 PanAm Games in Cuba. He also played in the 1992 CONCACAF under-20 championships. Belan joined the Winnipeg Fury as a teenager and won the 1992 Canadian Soccer League title. They were the final CSL champions before the league folded. With his professional career in limbo, Belan earned a Business Administration degree from the University of Western Ontario and began a career as an investment banker. An owner who's passionate about soccer and who came from the CSA system is an additional benefit to the league as a long term owner. Seems "willing and able" to lose money early on to build the asset so the league grows to become a major league in Canada for the long term. Seems this partner will be excellent as the team main executive and he understands the Sasktchewan market. The team averaged 11k in attendance at their first year and then 14k at the 2nd year. This looks very promising If all the team's ownership are of this caliber, CPL will indeed progress to become a true competitive Division 1 league within CONCACAF in it's own right.
I think there's a bit of a disconnect in some of the discussions surrounding the level of play of the CPL (which spills over into other topics like its impact on the NT roster). I'm not looking to put words into anyone's mouths. It seems to me, however, that most of the people who view the CPL a bit more dispassionately tend to focus on the expectations for the first couple of years. Most of the people who are more enthusiastic seem to also take into account their expectations of where the league might be in ten years. So, as above, we have a disagreement in part because of a difference in perspective. People (including me) are using MLS as a measuring stick not because it is the world's top league but because it is a league we all know and that has bearing on CONCACAF teams. That's today. To say that the CPL when in launches in 2018 will have a lower standard of play than MLS will in 2018 doesn't seem to be something anyone would contest. So if I (or whoever) say we wouldn't want to stock the NT with CPL players because we want at least MLS-starter level players on the NT, I don't think that's so surprising because we are thinking of next year. If someone on the other side is implicitly looking ahead ten years and saying, "Well, the CPL will grow into a top league so why wouldn't we want NT players who play in the CPL?" we aren't really discussing the same thing. I notice the same sort of disconnect in, for example, the Canadian content discussions. One side focuses on the fact that the league will be import heavy when it starts. We therefore don't see it as generating a huge boost to the Canadian talent pool. The other side is looking ahead a decade to when the imports have presumably been dialed back and the majority of CPL starters are Canadian. So they say, "It will too have a huge impact on the Canadian player pool!" Fundamentally, I think this is because those of us who are more reserved about the CPL want to see if it will actually survive as a first step. Enthusiasts seem to take booming success for granted and are looking ahead to future benefits.
I want to see it succeed but I have my doubts. Most of my musings are the long term implications of a successful program. If it fails, I think we all know what to expect for the next two decades until we try again.
Actually, that is perhaps the back up silver lining with the CPL. When the CSL failed way back, we were left with almost nothing. If the CPL fails, we will still have the MLS teams and their academies, which are already delivering talent and will only improve. On top of that, we will have whatever portions of the CPL that were successful including teams, ownerships, and stadia. So we could end up with three or four very popular teams in the USL (or whatever D2 league exists then). Maybe its just a comment on how underdeveloped pro soccer is in Canada right now, but the wreckage of a failed CPL would likely be better than the two non-MLS teams we have now.
the difference between CSL owners and CPL owners is night and day. Just keep that in mind before speculating on the "premature" death of the league
Oh, I'm not speculating on the league's success or failure right now. Just saying that, even if it did fail, it could still leave Canadian soccer farther ahead.
We're not that good, and we tend to be a lot better when there are fewer local RSPL (that is the Jamaican top tier's actual title now) players in our team. On occasions when we've gotten our best results in recent years, the local-based players have either played less and/or been fewer in number in the squad. A good example of this is the recent Caribbean Cup (concluded in June) where Jamaica lost the title game to Curacao 2-1. The Caribbean Cup team was heavily RSPL-based: 8 of the 14 players we fielded were from the RSPL. 5 of the starting 11 were RSPL-based. Fast forward to just a couple of days ago and Jamaica is facing Curacao in the Gold Cup - a re-match. Curacao fields exactly the same team, but Jamaica makes a bunch of changes after bringing MLS players into the squad (Blake, Mattocks, etc). Jamaica's starting lineup included just 2 RSPL players, and only 3 of the 14 players Jamaica fielded the whole game were RSPL based. Jamaica won this game 2-0, putting in a VASTLY better overall performance than they did against Curacao 2 weeks earlier with a more RSPL-heavy team. The RSPL is a semi-pro league that is not good enough for us to get results consistently when we rely heavily on its players against more fully professional sides. My understanding is that the CanPL will be fully professional, so that should be a different situation. Canada will probably be better able to rely on those players against more fully professional opponents than we can rely on RSPL guys.
Group plans to bring pro soccer to Saskatchewan http://ckom.com/article/1698571/group-plans-bring-pro-soccer-saskatchewan Can't say I like the fact they view the whole province as theirs but nothing prevents: another group to set up shop in the next city (Regina or Saskatoon) after the success of that group Regina or Saskatoon could be a potential D2 team
I'd love to see Saskatoon get a team. They'd be like Halifax and have the whole summer professional sports scene to themselves. There's a big enough space next to the Persephone Theatre in the downtown entertainment district that they can probably fit a stadium footprint. A Regina club would be competing for local wallets with the Roughriders.
Would the Roughriders owners be involved? If so, it could work out fairly well as they could fill more dates in the stadium, the CPL team will start with a fully formed sales and marketing team, and have access to the Roughriders customer database. For Atlanta and Seattle having access to a NFL FO was huge, not just from a ticket sales and marketing position, but it was easy for them to ask Seahawks/Falcons sponsors if they would be interested in adding in a sponsorship for the Sounders/United. Obviously the massive overlap between the CFL and CPL is a disadvantage that the NFL and MLS doesn't really have, but the other advantages could overcome that?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't pretty much all of Jamaica's best players develop under the RSPL system? I think that's more the point.
I read his post to mean "players who come from the RSPL" to be players who are actually RSPL based. Yes, most Jamaican players (even the ones who spend time in the NCAA) spend some time with RSPL clubs. The issue is that the better players among them usually leave fairly quickly to start pro careers abroad. Those who move tend to become the players we rely on, and a stronger Jamaican squad thus tends to field only a handful (2-5 at most) RSPL players. When we rely primarily on guys who have not moved, we do not perform as well. This is because the level of play in the RSPL, as a semi-pro league, just doesn't cultivate the kind of quality players need to season themselves for higher levels of football against professionals. As I said earlier, the CanPL will be a fully professional league, so I presume that it should not have as big a problem with this as the RSPL does. I think Canada will be able to rely more readily on CanPL based talents than we can rely on RSPL ones.
An Italian business man has been making noise/claims that: He wants to bring CPL in Toronto Partnering with the CFL Toronto Argonauts and that they already met him and are interested in the project The team would play at BMO Field. People are already working on it to debunk the story, even I don't buy it
Interesting news: Representatives of the City of Regina are expected to hear a soccer pitch today http://leaderpost.com/storyline/rep...ina-are-expected-to-hear-a-soccer-pitch-today