I said it was possible but I never said it was likely. I have said that it would probably take CONCACAF getting rid of one of the GOLD Cups which I said would never ever happen.
I don't see it as payback mode although there could be a little bit of that involved. I see it as finding a new source for their sugar. And If/when that new sugar mommy stops supplying the dough then you know who they will probably go back to in the future.
Was there ever a possibility of a 16-team Copa in 2019 though, given that the Gold Cup happens around the same time? Unless you mean for 2020?. The 30 match group-stage is awfully watered-down though. The Copa never really did amazing with attendance during the group stage, even when there were only 18 group stage matches to get people to go to (6 to 15k was a typical crowd size in Chile '15). Now they're just diluting it more. I know/assume most of the money comes via TV revenue, but it sure doesn't look good when your feature competition only has ~10k people in the stands most matches, whether you're among those 10k fans or watching from TV . But I know, nobody cares about the fan experience... Also its annoying because I have often advocated for the Copa to just do away with the mickey-mouse invitees and have two groups of 5. The counter-argument that I kept getting thrown-back in my face was "two group of 5 is super awkward", "too many games", etc. Which I didn't disagree with, but I just thought 2 groups of 5 was the least-bad format (note 3 groups of 4 with an odd number of teams advancing to the KO stage isn't great either). Now they've gone with two groups of 6! haha.. even longer with more dead-rubber matches than what I have been proposing, while still selling their integrity by inviting guests. The worst of both worlds!
No, I did mean 2019 and for some reason CONMEBOL thought it all could fit. They surely did not plan to invite 6 asian teams.
CONCACAF not keen to allow Liga MX back into Copa Libertadores: http://www.espn.com/soccer/major-le...al-over-liga-mx-mls-copa-libertadores-reports The two Americas confederations are definitely not on good terms.
We see that Luis Suarez will miss the end of the season for Barca because he elected to have optional surgery this week to be healthy in time for Copa America. Just an e.g. of the impact that having a Copa America practically every summer has on club football.
Who knows if it will even pay off - I still shudder thinking about how I picked Uruguay to win it all in 2016 in my family pool, and I ended up dead last
Uruguay should be good at the WC, the leading candidates to win it in my opinion. They were the best Conmebol team at WC18, the loss of Cavani took away a great chance at actually winning the tournament.
You mean World Cup or Copa America? I had them as second favorites behind Brasil for the Copa but if Suarez is not 100% all bets are off.
He hasn't looked 100% all season but that's what the surgery is supposed to fix (I assume). According to the timeline of this type of surgery (4-6 weeks) he has time to get fully fit for Copa America. But yeah, I could easily see URU going out in the group-stage or going all the way to the final. Touch team to call.
Takes time to get back into rhythm and form in that time frame. But there is a chance he can still be effective. We shall see.
He may be an interesting player but we all know Suarez is the heart and soul of that team. If he is not ready I don't think they have any chance of lifting the Cup unless they get a lot of lucky bounces.
Unlike Argentina's need for Messi, Uruguay still manages to do well without Suarez. During the WCQ for Russia I recall Uruguay playing some of their best futbol without Suarez for many of their games. While no one can deny the impact of not having Suarez at 100%, Tabarez still manages to squeeze out so much out of his players and has manageable group stage opponents in Ecuador, Chile and Japan.
The first part of WCQ went well...but they had an underwhelming 2015 Copa América (Jara's shenanigans aside) and a disaster the following year.
None of what you said disproves anything I have said. No matter how well they can adjust during qualifying and playing in long tournaments without Suarez it will be much more difficult to win a Cup in my eyes. He just adds a little more ganas and obvious cold blooded scoring they need to be the best.
Socceroos reportedly invited to play in 2020 Copa America: https://www.foxsports.com.au/footba...a/news-story/26335a152522668d5845d0db19b67d5a Is it too early to early to rename the competition Copa Asia-America?
What a farse ! and with two groups of 6 ? 4 of them qualifying to the next round ? where is the exciting thing about that ? If in itself the attendance was low now it will be worse because of the boring format. I can't believe Concacaf 's Gold Gup has a better format than Copa America
4 teams out of 6 going through, is lots more competitive than having 3 teams going through from groups of 4, as in the present times Mickey mouse gold cup.
Yes, that changed for this specific edition (2019), but they did that by adding a few other teams whom it is lots questionable if they even know how to play the game, into the mix. For the case being, Conmebol at least invites teams that have won their respectful confeds in the last years. Not so long ago, Conmebol was also inviting the teams that actually won that mickey mouse cup. The one thing that Conmebol can't do much about, is that our confed has only 10 teams in it, where even the worst team in it, happens to be better (in skills and rank) than most of the mid table teams of almost any other confed, that actually take part in their continental tournaments (only exception to this, happens on respect to Uefa).
More games = more $$$$ ...yeah, that's about it. I still can't believe more of a fuss isn't being made over the eventual winner having to play eight games, when FIFA got raked over the coals for even suggesting the same for the WC finals. It's literally just as competitive, with 8 of 12 going through. The best sides will be home-and-dry before the last matchday, the next-best (e.g. Colombia, Chile) will have to put in a bit of effort, and any drama in the group stage will be near the bottom (e.g. Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela and the guest fighting for survival). Wasn't the case with Jamaica in 2015, or Qatar this time (they just happened to win the Asian Cup after the invite).
Not the same as in groups with more teams in them, teams will have to play more matches, and to go through to the next stage will have to be better than 2 other teams in the same group. Less dependable on a lousy draw, which puts easy opponents in your same group, almost giving a guarantee on going through. At the end in context, yes it's about the same, as both formats eliminate the same amount of teams. Given the level existent in Conmebol, at present times, there is no guarantee for any team to actually make it through. You're making a very big mistake by giving very poor credit to what some teams may do, while give too much of it to others. As how things are in Conmebol, distance between top teams to lower teams is very short. At any time a lower ranked team can beat a higher ranked one. True for the case of Jamaica, but that was due to the fact that the team that actually had won the previous mickey mouse cup (USA in 2013), rejected the original invitation, reasons why they got replaced by Japan, whom also rejected the invitation, and the Chinese FA was invited instead, whom accepted originally to come, but as some of their WC qualifier dates (for the next WC) were going to be the same, they also had to pull down their invitation and the chilean FA had to find another invited team. I'll give you the point on respect to Qatar, although at the time Conmebol was planning a 16 team tournament which originally was to also include Concacaf's 2 or 3 best teams. Concacaf not only wanted all invited teams to be from Concacaf, but also to host it, again (which they still insist on it, till now).