International Champions Cup

Actually the women's tournament will be help in Miami, FL, not NY. It's just the NY Times reporting it. It was posted in the NWSL forum yesterday right after the article was first published.

An quick summary of what's under the link, for those who stay here on the forums:
The tournament will be two double-headers - two semi-finals on the 27th, then the 3rd-place and final matches on the 29th.
The ICC organizing board plans to greatly expand the tournament next year, as they had nearly a dozen of the normal ICC men's teams interested in adding their women's sides to the new women's tournament. They just wanted to start with a four-team tournament as a test run.
The three Euro teams in this year's tournament will have a training camp in Portland, OR before flying back to the east coast for the tournament. (Not under the link, but tidbit from Twitter: The Portland Thorns should be involved in next year's tournament.)

Obviously not an official Women's CWC, but if this can get a bit more traction than the mobcast Cup did, that would be a great step toward it.

 

Well, ICC almost always aims for playing in gigantic stadia... It's infrequent that they play anywhere that holds less than 50k. As to why Miami Gardens in particular, I don't know... The tournament went to Miami Gardens in its first two years, but hasn't been back until this year (and it'll be a big MG schedule - the first two women's matches on the 27th, Bayern vs ManCity men on the 28th, the second two women's matches on the 29th, and ManU vs Real Madrid on the 31st). But having some games in the Southeast is expected since the ICC tries to cover as much of the US as possible with games.

 

BTW it was apparently confirmed that Chelsea will be with 4th team. I was hoping for someone from a 4th country.... Ah well.

 

Would this inaugural edition proves to be successful one in terms of audience both live and TV (and I think that it will) in next year I can see number of foreign clubs making the call. This kind of visibilty it's what intrest and draws club sponsors.

 

We missed saying it here, but Chelsea was replaced by Lyon for the 2018 edition of the tournament.

And remember how we thought the 2019 edition might have 12 teams? Well, that number is already being bumped up to 16 apparently, mostly by NWSL inclusion:
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports...nt-germain-manchester-city-nwsl-20180531.html
8 foreign teams (including AUS and MEX reps) vs 8 NWSL teams in 4 cities. I think that's really, really ambitious - and probably going to water down how good NWSL looks versus the rest of the world. X-D

Also, we now have an answer to @hotjam2 's earlier question of "Why Miami?" : one of the guys running ICC also owns the NFL team that plays in said stadium. X-D

 

A 16 team tournament with 8 NWSL teams would be fantastic.

 

Let’s see if I got this right...

They chose Miami because of the big stadium to make a big splash the first year...
In a state that drew 8K for the NWSL finals last fall? And less than 2K for the NCAA final?

And on a short marketing window?

 

My older post that you just quoted was more speculation based on what the ICC generally does, from my view. Nothing I guessed about in that post was said with the intent of making a splash.

In fact, previous posts said that this was going to be a test-run of the idea. They specifically restricted the tournament to just four teams, even when they had far more interest, to keep it small in its first year.

I think, from the newer article I just posted, that picking Miami for the first edition of the women's ICC was simply because of the fact that the Dolphins guy runs the ICC and it "made sense" to have the one-location, four-team event right in his backyard since Miami is the "home location" for the ICC.

As for Florida state being soccer-exhausted at the moment... I can almost guarantee that the big-name Euro squads will be a draw on their own, even if people don't (and maybe especially for people who don't) know the WoSo landscape. They won't be huge attendances like the men's games, but if the Women's FA Cup final can draw 1/2 of what the Men's FA Cup final draws and even half of that ratio translates to the friendlies here in the US, it could pass five digits.

 

Interesting to see that they've bumped the SFs up from the 27th to the 26th.

I'm not a big fan of their blurb for the Courage... they mention the 2011 and 2012 titles, but nothing since then? And they don't show the picture of a single player like they do for the other three teams? Geez

Very cool to hear that the final will be on ESPN2!

 

Bizzare to have the weakest team European team PSG v Courage and then City V OL. Would have thought Courage v OL and City v PSG would have made more sense.

 

All of the men's games are in the evening too. Evening attendance bump (especially in FL) + better US TV audience >> having Euro TV audience

Also, the quick overturn between the SFs and the Final means that who is in the final will have very little effect on in-person attendance as well, since a lot of the ticket sales will have to come from before the SFs happen. Not to mention it's the second match of a double-header, so people who buy tickets early will be banking on just watching good games more than on having "their" team in the final (and if they have a particular team they want to see, they'll get to see the team either way).

It's only bizarre if you assume NC is the weakest team in the field - which I would argue is incorrect - and even if you did assume that, it makes more business/promotional sense to give the US team the best shot at the final (though, as I kinda mention above, it probably is a very minor effect in this particular setup).

 

I clicked the "Learn More" button and got the rest of the Blurb including 2016 'ship and 2017 shield. still no player photos, though.

In earlier press releases they said the European teams would be first in Portland, OR for a few days and have exhibition scrimmages there on the 25th. With the first ICC games moved from the 27th to the 26th, that plan looks to be kaput - the geography was untenable, anyway.

I was wondering about Roster Rules. Can Riley add any/all of the national team replacement players and/or some practice players to the roster for the ICC? What about guest players (aka ringers)?

I did see this – 6 subs per game, but subs can only be made a max of three times per match, including half time. Also Rosters can have 30 players.

Here is a recent tweet with promo clip: In other places they are promoting the OL - Man City game as a Champions League Re-Match - could only do that for sure if they met in the semis.

No doubt @ManCityWomen have revenge on their agenda when they face @OL. Miami is the ideal place to host a hotly contested battle☀️. A place in the final is up for grabs! #ICCWomen 👉https://t.co/Se5mwkrs3N pic.twitter.com/cGfnHMGNq8

— Women's International Champions Cup (@iccwomen) June 21, 2018

 

From the highlight,s it is clear the Seattle defense played poorly; OTOH the Courage were without their best midfielder, Sam Mewis and starting right center back Abby Dahlkemper.
Ellis is going to take whoever she wants for the tournament of nations TON cup and will ignore the ICC.
NC will be without starters Dunn, Dahlkemper, Mewis, and Debinha (Brazil) and sub Kawamura (Japan) for the ICC. and possibly Williams and Zerboni.

 

Why without Kawamura? She hasn't play in JPN WNT for over a year now - due to injury - but Takakura may chose to not call her for ToN as she has her defenders/defensive mid's sorted and is looking more for strikers now.

 

???

 

Reynald Pedros Spanish ? OK he has Spanish origins, but he is 100% French

https://www.fff.fr/equipes-de-france/tous-les-joueurs/fiche-joueur/716-reynald-pedros