https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2017...nces-league-nations-competition-starting-2018 More details to come but the gist in this article (and the others you can get to by clicking links from this article) is that: National teams will compete in a three tier league system within CONCACAF with pro/rel among the tiers. The games will largely (but not entirely) replace friendlies. This system will be used to assist in qualification for the Gold Cup and World Cup. Two thoughts: I wonder what weighing these games will have in the FIFA rankings calculation? It will be important for Canada not to slip in the FIFA rankings in the next little while to ensure we start in the top group of this tournament and then to ensure we stay there. Otherwise I fear we will face a tougher road in future WCQ.
We're currently ranked 10th and probably won't venture very far from there in either direction over the next year. With 41 teams split into three levels, I'd imagine the top tier will have about 12 teams so in that respect I think that we're safe to make the top tier. Even if we don't I won't be too bothered. We'd stand a good chance for promotion reasonably soon.
I'm curious about the Gold Cup qualifying. Right now, Canada, Mexico, and the US get automatic entries. I wonder if that will end?
It should end. One of the reasons we get screwed by the WCQ draw every cycle is because we have almost no meaningful games to improve our FIFA ranking. . No GC qualifiers = reduced FIFA rankings points from friendlies = lower seed = Honduras again. I would welcome a GC qualifying process that includes everyone.
I'd be okay with it ending, especially if it ended for everyone. (Although CONCACAF continually takes steps to ensure Mexico and the US are advanced, presumably for financial reasons.) I'm not sure our problems with Honduras are due to our FIFA ranking. We'll have to beat them at some point regardless of how FIFA says the teams stack up on paper. More meaningful games would help improve our team, though.
They can't have more than 4-5 teams per group if they plan to complete the league in each calendar year - there are only 5 international breaks. So I see Tier I being 12 teams (3 groups of 4), Tier II having 15 teams (3 groups of 5) and the rest being in tier 3. The league would definitely be given a greater weighting that mere friendlies, which should help with CONCACAF's FIFA ratings across the board.
The UEFA league of nations will be on a 2 year cycle, I would imagine the same for CONCACAF. FWIW, here's how Europe will be doing it. I imagine that there will be significant similarities in North America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Nations_League
Honduras was a stand-in for "best pot B team". Better to be in Pot B ourselves and avoid one of those teams in the first group stage. We don't get extra credit for degree of difficulty, and anything that makes the road easier improves our odds. For instance, being in Pot B for 2018 WCQ could have given us a group with Mexico, Haiti and El Salvador instead of Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador. Trinidad & Tobago qualified for the 2006 hex on just such a break* when they got St. Vincent and St. Kitts in the same group, while we had Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala. Once you're in the Hex, anything can happen. If nothing else, getting there incentives players who are on the fence to commit to Canada, because they can see a direct path to the World Cup. If we were playing meaningful qualifiers this year, maybe we keep Tomori. * Coincidentally, the rankings chosen to seed that draw were the ones that benefited T&T the most because they were after CFU cup, but before the Gold Cup... But I'm sure Uncle Jack had nothing to do with it.
Apparently USA , Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, Trinidad &Tobago and Panama will be in group A of the CLoN. From September 2018 to March 2019 Concacaf will organize a tournament to certify the new ranking of the area. http://www.elvocero.com/deportes/lo...cle_5a177e7e-02aa-11e8-9e68-6fd2abf23431.html
Bunch of announcements out today. A couple of Wikipedia links here show a lot of the relevant details for Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_CONCACAF_Nations_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_CONCACAF_Nations_League_qualifying Some key points: No more automatic qualifying spots for the Gold Cup. CNL results will be used to determine qualification (with a bit of fudge factor for the first go round). A one off qualifying schedule to sort the teams into pools for the CNL with pro/rel to take over after that. Canada has a favourable draw in the CNL qualifying. We should be able to qualify for League A (top pool) in the actual CNL and should certainly be able to qualify for the Gold Cup (which will include the upper teams from League B).
This is good. More competitive games, we really need that. And it's fair, I never liked that we had a free walk to the Gold Cup, even though we have pretty much always clearly been a top 12 team in CONCACAF. With the new format, we'll have to have a pretty bad go to miss the GC.
You could beat U.S. Virgin Islands, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, and French Guiana. Although CONCACAF didn't say this, I'm wondering if the qualifying will determine the Nations League A seeding. Nations League A will have 3 groups of 4. Maybe (this is my speculation) Pot 1 for that draw will have the top four from the Hexagonal, Pot 2 will have the bottom two from the Hexagonal and the top two from Nations League Qualifying, and Pot 3 will have third through sixth from Nations League Qualifying. If that is how CONCACAF does it, USA will not be in the top pot for Nations League A, and Canada could be in as good a pot as USA.
I'm assuming you meant to say 4 groups of 3 given the rest of your post? Interesting idea, but I can't imagine CONCACAF would roll out their fancy new rankings system and then not use it for the Nations League. Mexico, USA, and Costa Rica would be seeded in that instance, with the 4th spot seemingly down to Panama and Honduras. Panama 1700, Honduras 1669, Jamaica 1516, Canada 1448 If I understand the rankings formula properly, I don't think either Jamaica or Canada are able to catch Panama by the end of qualifying. The formula is P = K * (R – E) P= points K= match importance (35 for CONCACAF matches) R= actual result (win 1, draw 0, loss -1) E = expected result (100% win = 1, perfectly balanced opponents = 0, 100% loss =-1) Since Canada is expected to win all of these games, R-E will never be more than 1, meaning each win net Canada less than 35 points in the rankings for a maximum of <140 points total (much less). We can estimate E value for Canada's opponents if we guess how likely a win is against each of them. E = Probability of a win - Probability of a loss French Guiana E = P(win) 0.5 - P(loss)0.20 = 0.3 P= 35*(1-0.3) = 24.5 St Kitts E= 0.7-0.1 = 0.6 P= 14 Dominica E= 0.85-.05 = 0.8 P= 7 USVI E=0.95-0=0.95 P = 1.75 Total points = 47.25 Obviously the points go up if you want to be more charitable to the teams. I tried to be fair, but I may have over-inflated Canada's chances. Regardless, it doesn't look like the Nations League seed is up for grabs unless the 2019 Gold Cup comes into play. I don't think CONCACAF will do that, since there's only 2-3 months between the Gold Cup and the first Nations League games. If I'm right, I think it's a two horse race between Honduras and Panama.
I can't see it referenced anywhere. I wonder if CNL games will count as friendlies for FIFA ranking purposes or with a higher weighting.
https://concacafnationsleague.com/en/article/concacaf-launches-new-ranking-index I think the NL qualifying counts as "Official CONCACAF matches", especially since they double as a Gold Cup qualifier.
You're correct. Thanks for working on the math. Kingston was asking about weighting for the FIFA Rankings, not CONCACAF rankings. FIFA will have to make a decision about the weights for Nations League games in UEFA and CONCACAF.