I didn't put a date on this thread because I think we should just consolidate the CCL threads into a single thread until the Dynamo get back in. Next spring we can just put the knockout schedule and results in this thread and then roll into the subsequent tournaments. There are credible reports that the format is going to change starting with the 2017-2018 tournament. Apparently there will be a sort of qualifying tournament in the late summer and fall of 2017 with 16 Central American and Caribbean teams divided into 4 groups followed by a knockout round. The winner of that tournament will join 15 other teams in the Spring of 2018 for a 4 group tournament that will run into the summer. Rumored alignment: Autumn Tournament Costa Rica #2, #3 Honduras #2, #3 Guatemala #2, #3 Panama #2, #3 El Salvador #2, #3 Nicaragua #1, #2 Belize #1 Caribbean #2, #3, #4 Spring Tournament Mexico #1, #2, #3, #4 USA #1, #2, #3, #4 Costa Rica #1 Honduras #1 Guatemala #1 Canada #1 Panama #1 El Salvador #1 Caribbean #1 Autumn winner The Spring groups would each have 1 Mexican and 1 USA team. We'll have to wait and see the dates for these tournaments. It seems like they would really extend over quite a bit of the year. It is also not clear how qualifying would work for US teams. Seattle has already said that they might not be playing in the CCL until 2018. You would think that eventually the wait to play would be shorter (i.e. the 2017 MLS Cup winner and others playing in the spring of 2018) but that may not happen right away. The official announcement should be made soon.
The new CCL format has been announced. http://www.concacaf.com/article/con...-field-implements-new-champions-league-format There will be two tournaments. One that runs from August to October that will be mostly teams from Central America and the Caribbean. That will start in 2017. Then there will be the Spring tournament that has the winner from the Fall tournament and the teams from the higher indexed leagues/nations. The Spring tournament will run February through May and will start in 2018. The initial Fall tournament will include these 16 teams: CRC (2) and CRC (3) HON (2) and HON (3) SLV (2) and SLV (3) GUA (2) and GUA (3) PAN (2) and PAN (3) NCA (1) and NCA (2) CFU (2), CFU (3), CFU (4) BLZ (1) The 2018 Spring tournament will include: Fall Champion CAN (1) USA (1), USA (2), USA (3), USA (4) MEX (1) , MEX (2), MEX (3), MEX (4) CRC (1), HON (1), SLV (1), GUA (1), PAN (1), CFU (1) Neither tournament will have a group stage. Both will be knockouts with home-and-away legs in each round. That means a total of 8 match-days for each. CONCACAF says they will use a competition index to determine which tournament teams enter. This article does not say what the seeding process will be within the tournaments. All teams that have already qualified for the 2017-2018 tournament will be entered into this tournament. There may be a change in that process going forward.
I think the Concacaf club tournament has metamorphosed into a few different things over time, once was basically a few days' knockout at a single site, became a spring knockout (eg, the year where we beat Puntarenas then lost to Pachuca), and only later became a UEFA CL Xerox. First two were "Champions Cup." Last one was "Champions League." This would basically be a reversion to the later year spring format Champions Cup for the big countries. For the small countries, they would have to qualify, but they always did. [If I had a complaint, it would be that the chances of small country advancement have been shrunk to near nil, with just one slot open. Notably, some countries get to double dip in both pools, automatics plus qualifiers, but the smallest countries don't. Perhaps fair based on years of performance, but to be real, you've taken a small % chance of knockouts and basically made it zero by format. They can't just luck out of a group stage, they have to literally win out of all fall comers.....won't happen.] Concacaf swings back and forth on whether to entrench the regional power realities or make us earn them. For a period in World Cup qualifying we had to earn our way through at least one home and away round to make the semis, "like everyone else." It's now back to we jump straight to the semis. You can argue it both ways. US and Mexico are so dominant in this thing "they should just advance to the knockouts." But once in a while a MLS team blows it, so maybe we shouldn't. I wouldn't be surprised if we pushed this to ensure spring advancement knowing formats "like these" were the last time MLS won the regional club title. However, that's not quite true. The times we won under the straight knockout format were under the more compacted single site format, in years where the city hosting the tournament also had a team: DC, LA. Home and away still favors Mexico, eg, Pachuca coming back at home. You get a second game to fix any glitches. We will still be in preseason mode (and not as far along as Mexico, who starts earlier) as long as we do a calendar year season. You would clear the fall for Mexican teams trying to advance in Copa Libertadores. But if we were trying to start ourselves, we would still have a conflict in spring. But I guess there is bound to be some conflict. Maybe what this does is allow Mexico to not have to split up who makes what.
Personally I prefer the Champions League Xerox, I like to see the full variety of countries and venues and prefer the big countries earn it. Odds are they will anyway. If MLS wanted to win the smart play would be switch it to a calendar year schedule like our league. It would mirror Copa Libertadores, and our teams would be in late season form for knockouts rather than preseason. You could end it in October to avoid our playoffs.
I think the big advantage to this is fewer fixtures and they are all within a single "season" whether that is calendar-year or apertura/clausura. Right now teams play in the fall with one team and then may change personnel quite a bit for the knock-out tournament in the spring. In a confederation that uses different league systems and calendars that is a big deal. As far as the little countries getting locked out, the number of teams overall has increased from 24 to 31 with all of that increase happening in Central America and the Caribbean. So more teams from small countries do get to participate even if that might only be two games. The only countries (and CFU) that don't automatically get a team into the Spring tournament are Belize and Nicaragua but at least Nicaragua gets another entrant. I would probably have done it with only 12 teams automatically in the Spring tournament and play 4 groups in the Fall to pick the teams to fill out a 16 team tournament. But they didn't ask me.
That's not accurate. Belize and Nicaragua are the only "named" countries in the list who are in the prelims but not direct to the final. But there are just 3 slots for all of CFU. But there are 25 countries in CFU. Including Puerto Rico (which once famously went well into a tournament with the Islanders), Jamaica (occasional upsets), Trinidad (occasional upsets), Cuba (where they are liberalizing). Those 25 effectively play a 3rd qualifying round, their CFU Club Championship, for only 3 representatives of all those nations to join the Highlander There Can Only Be One Prelims. Only one of them then joins the big dogs. In fact, I will adjust my position and say this is triple tiered. NAm and the first part of the haves. CentAm and the second part of the haves, plus 1. Everyone in CFU just to fill 3 spots in the second tier. I am curious where they came up with this because I don't see where Trinidad or Jamaican teams are worse than Belize or Nicaragua sides. Also, Jamaican and T&T sides are so consistently atop CFU why not give them a slot. Well, because we're looking for a seemingly objective basis to shrink CFU down to next to nothing while giving them "their chance." Meanwhile Belize and Nicaragua skip to the next round. But the second tier is structured like everyone from UNCAF is better than CFU. Notably, this last year, 2 T&T teams made it into CCL through CFU but only one from Belize and Nicaragua, who had automatic slots. Ditto year before that. Year before that Belize and Nicaragua played for a single slot. I can remember decent T&T, Jamaica, PR teams. I can't think of a decent Belize or Nicaragua team, ever. I am probably jaded from all the Fifa/Warner/Blazer stuff but this feels like the Carribean countries deliberately got short end of the stick, and like the big countries took the opportunity of Warner being gone to shove this way in their favor. This is some goofy thing cobbled together to get NAm and UNCAF votes, not a fair competition or an accurate reflection of the relative power of some of the smaller countries. I also think this will foolishly lessen the media and public footprint of the competition for the first half in the key big markets. Hankook Verdes vs. Arabe United? Going to pay to show that here? Is Fox Sports still going to air a glorified CFU/UNCAF playin round? Or are we now going to skip to the end in terms of TV and interest.
The Caribbean teams have pretty much always been treated as one country in this tournament. I was trying to clarify my point about the tournament by saying "The only countries (and CFU) ....". I guess I failed at that. 4 teams overall from the CFU will now get in which is an increase from the 3 in previous years. One of them automatically gets into the final 16. Did you miss that? 20 teams entered the CFU Club Championship this year. Yes, it is an extra qualifying stage but 4 of them qualifying for the CCL seems like a pretty good percentage. The CFU, as a group, is being treated better than Belize and Nicaragua. Canada gets one spot from their 5 team qualifying tournament. That's the same percentage. CONCACAF says they will use an index to adjust which leagues get teams into which tournament. We'll see what happens. There is almost no tv coverage of the current group stage of the CCL except for the Mexican teams. FOX stopped doing any coverage of the MLS teams last year. This tournament seems like an attempt to get some media attention back by shifting to a knockout format. I don't know enough to speculate on CONCACAF politics regarding the change in the tournament. My understanding is that this was done at least in part to help Mexican teams get back into the Libertadores.
There is a poster, ArsenalMetro, who has been figuring a coefficient for the CCL for a long time. He uses the UEFA Champions League formula. Here are the latest national rankings: Code: As of October 22, 2016 Federation Coefficient Nation 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 Overall Mexico 19.875 20.125 14.375 22.000 10.125 86.500 United States 14.750 11.625 9.875 12.875 8.500 57.625 Canada 6.000 6.000 22.000 4.500 14.000 52.500 Costa Rica 10.750 9.000 15.667 6.000 7.750 49.167 Honduras 5.250 3.750 8.500 6.750 7.500 31.750 Guatemala 8.500 6.000 6.000 4.500 4.500 29.500 Panama 0.000 7.750 2.250 6.000 9.250 25.250 El Salvador 2.000 6.000 0.750 3.000 3.750 15.500 CFU 3.000 0.500 2.000 3.000 1.000 9.500 Nicaragua 1.500 1.500 3.000 0.000 3.000 9.000 Belize 0.000 0.000 0.000 4.500 0.000 4.500 If you look at the new tournament slots it follows this pretty closely except that the U.S. gets too many and Costa Rica should probably get more. It would be hard to justify more for Canada with only 5 teams competing in their national tournament. Final round - guaranteed slots Mexico - 4 USA - 4 Canada - 1 Costa Rica - 1 Honduras - 1 Guatemala - 1 Panama - 1 El Salvador - 1 CFU - 1 -------------- Nicaragua - 0 Belize - 0
Screw the co-efficients. That sort of thing is used by UEFA to fine tune the at-larges, not screw actual champions out of the tournament. Is this the "Champions" League or not? Way it's set up, for one set it suffices only to be champion, another may be as many as 4 deep, and then another has to make a high sub-regional finish. Let every champion regionwide in -- don't play favorites -- and then use the number games for at-large picks. FWIW how do you fairly weight a coefficient when different teams have different entrance points?
Sigh. There may be a reason why people don't like you very much around here. The only reason I posted the coefficients was to show that the CFU teams haven't done very well in the last five years. We don't know if CONCACAF looked at anything like that when setting up this tournament. Or what they will use in the future. Those numbers are from a period when all teams entered at the same point. Of course it would have to be a different system going forward. I just thought it was interesting that it somewhat matched up. The only league champions excluded from automatically making the final round of the tournament under the new plan would be those of Nicaragua, Belize, and most of the Caribbean leagues. They all still have a route into the final round but not automatic qualification. That is pretty much what they have had for a long time, an outside chance of advancing in the tournament. The CFU actually has gained something they didn't have before. The CFU Club Champion is automatically in the final 16. The last time the CFU had a team in the knockouts was 2009. That was the Puerto Rico Islanders but they didn't win any league to get in, they just entered the CFU Club Championship while playing in the USL. And they didn't win the CFU championship either. They won a 3rd place playoff to get into the CCL. As I said before, I'd be in favor of a more open tournament. I'm just trying to figure out what CONCACAF is doing. You want all league champions in the tournament? I wouldn't have any problem with that but I don't see CONCACAF doing it.
I am not here to be liked -- I have enough friends -- I am here to pursue Truth. Sometimes the desire to be liked leads one to drink Kool Aid. You "wouldn't have any problem" with it being a true champions league but then same day responded to critique of the system with co-efficients that support the system as-is. Wouldn't have much problem with that either, I suppose. In such matters it helps to have an idea where one wants this to actually go. What CONCACAF did is really uncomplicated. They kept the prior system largely intact. Under that system the past two years Nic. and Bel. get auto spots and CFU qualifies 3. They shuffled the deck of some of the more mediocre teams between the two rounds. What went unquestioned is whether this makes sense or there is a better way or fairer way. You are correct that they added a CFU spot and I overlooked that, but at a certain point of adding CFU spots why aren't certain countries there getting auto spots, like T&T, who has had 2/3 of the CFU spots the past 2 years under this system? I assume that is to preserve an appearance of objectivity regarding CFU where "anyone can get out." But somehow Belize doesn't require that assumption, they just get in. Why? Because if you made the UNCAF teams all qualify then Costa Rica and Honduras wouldn't get freebies. It's more like ad hoc slapped together to perpetuate the current system more or less, and that maybe they were nice to UNCAF to get votes to get it passed. I also can't help but think that Warner being from T&T might get in the way of handing them a guaranteed slot, even if they deserve it.
You also cited the co-efficient as how they would tweak this later and ignored my critique that once the teams start coming in at different stages, it becomes either unfair or inaccurate to treat their progress as the basis for the co-efficient. UEFA has this same circularity problem, to some extent, although they at least let all champions in at some round. But if the Luxembourg champ starts in a first round qualifier and England's winner goes straight to the group stage, they aren't starting from the same spot, so how do your fairly measure them all on how they finish? Some of this goes to the basic circularity problem of assuming who the stronger teams and leagues will be as part of the tournament structure, before a ball is kicked, as opposed to just letting the teams decide on the field. Like I said, in some subregions, you get champs + some, some just champs, other countries being a champ is not enough to qualify but also not necessarily a requirement (depending how they do at CFU). And then some champs go straight to spring, some start fall, and some play in CFU's tournament even before that. You need to consider that the co-efficient itself is self-justifying. The bids aren't handed out evenly every year so huh no surprise the teams with more bids are nearer the top (the more interesting ones being something like Canada, who are heavily outsize and should get more representation as a result.....). Kind of like the near total lock the big conferences have on the 4 team CFB playoff, with the narrowest of exceptions for small conference teams, which while on paper "you mean we still have a chance," ensures in general practice that the exceptional does not happen, that this doesn't become some March Madness free for all, but is going to be some variation on Clemson v Alabama every year. This is why I want a 16 team field of all the conference champs, less dictated by the circularity of polling. OK, let's see now whether a winner in an off year in a big conference is really better than a strong small conference team. [Maybe part of this is I remember what Gregory Richardson and Joe Public did to NER that one year......]
I'm sorry but I can just not get worked up about this at all because (a) Dynamo probably won't be in it and (b) I think this tourney has a lot less interest in the last few years and (c) they've changed the thing so many times it's not like they are breaking a huge tradition. My favorite was when it was 8 teams with home/away legs each round and in spring.
Bad memories of Bobby getting smoked by then Santos player Hercules, and then the team just deflating in Torreon.
There is a difference between trying to be liked and being reasonable. Helps who? None of us has any influence on what CONCACAF does. I said what I would have done and then later I said I would be fine with your suggestion. That, to me, is being reasonable since I don't have a big objection to an of these proposals. As I said before, I posted the coefficients as an extra piece of information about how the different federations have been doing in the past. I did not propose that as the system that was being used or should be used. It was certainly not posted to validate the new system. It was the only reasonably impartial data that I knew about. CONCACAF said in the original article that they would be creating a competition index to adjust the placement. We shall see how that works. Unquestioned by who? It looks to me like there have been lots of questions about the new system. I don't know why CONCACAF made the changes that they did. You have theories and they might be true. I don't see a big conspiracy against anyone but maybe that's just me. It looks to me like they wanted to reduce the number of games for MLS and Mexican teams. They also wanted to get those teams completing their play in either the Spring or the Fall, not both. According to some reports, MLS was asked which they preferred and they said Spring to avoid the end of the regular season and playoffs. CONCACAF also wanted to increase the number of non-MLS and Mexican teams in the tournament. Not the number of games played by those teams but the number participating. I think they are also trying to increase interest in the tournament by getting rid of the group stage which often resulted in match-ups that didn't mean much. I think they are also trying to increase the number of MLS v. Liga MX games. IF those are the goals, then they seem to have accomplished them. We shall see what that means for the tournament. If you, or other people, have other goals then they probably were not met.
Again, I never cited the coefficient as how CONCACAF should or would change the slots. I didn't respond to your question about teams entering at different stages because I haven't seen the plan that CONCACAF intends to use. I don't know if it will be fair or not yet. I considered that about the coefficient system so I looked into it. Points earned by a country are divided by the number of teams from that country. Countries that have a lot of teams certainly do have the potential to earn more points but they can also get dinged if all those teams don't advance. It is not a perfect system but the results look reasonable to me based on the rates of countries getting out of the group and what they do once in the knockouts. I would agree with you on college football. I think that there should be at least an 8 team tournament with all of the Power 5 conference winners getting in and at least one slot guaranteed for a Group of 5 team. 16 teams would be even better with all conference winners automatically qualifying.
The paradox is this. If you don't reward the round of competition in the metric, then you're pretending all wins are equal, even though US and Mexico are coming in at the serious round and Belize is coming in against Panama in the earlier round and some CFU team might have had to finish well in two separate tournaments to get there. So the US gets cheap co-efficiency gains that reify its pre-existing position. But if you do reward the games as equal, then it's like you're pretending like the hierarchical structure upon which the competition is premised somehow doesn't exist. That all wins are equal, when I don't buy that either. The multiple wins it will take to emerge from fall are unlikely to be the same quality as most of the teams in the knockout, who might get 0 wins. The co-efficient only seems to work somewhat in an even competition where all start at the same time. OK, everyone plays 6 quails and they win what they win and we track that success. Except, the US has 24 games and Belize 6, and we already know one set is likely more marginal than the other, so the likely outcome of handing us more games is more wins and more co-efficient. It is subject to results but be real, more teams in is more chances to advance and look better in co-efficient to prove you should be back. But if the co-efficient was based on one champion and DC has a bad year, hmmm. Might look the same as Belize who is likely to have that bad season every year. So while the co-efficient might reflect a more superior league, it also lets that league lock in its apparent success through bulk chances every year. You get to wipe out one team's off season by having several teams in who statistically cover for them. Put differently, like I said, the most impressive one is Canada, relative to allocation.
So, if I understant better, will be 31 teams in one tournament. I hope this idiot system, with 2 stages will be only an year, and the next steep will be to give one extra place for TH, and made a total of 32 teams and adopt UEFA Champions League system, with 8 groups x 4 teams
Different example, same phenomenon, the way we tier qualifying. Interesting thing: this cycle, none of the teams from the third round of qualifying, who made the semis, then also made the Hex. The uniform indicator you'd make the Hex was not having to start until the semis. Does that mean they are better? Or does that mean they got to sit out the wear and risks of round after round? For example, Jamaica. 2nd in the Gold Cup. Shortly after has to play and beat Nicaragua in September just to advance to the semis. Tied with Panama for qualification spot in March 3 games in. Last 3 games -- 2 more tough fixtures than the qualifiers played -- arguably hits the wall, wins none, over with. Canada, who had to play 3rd round, is 2nd through 3 games and T-2nd through 4, similar collapse last 3 games. In 2014, only one semi seed lost out to a team that had to play a prior group round -- Panama for Cuba. Panama was 2nd in Gold Cup 2013, then finished 5th in qualifying. Hmmm. Pattern developing of teams that do well in GC but have to play extra WC rounds, running into the ground late in a WC run and going bye bye. Did you reflect their second tier status or the fact you made them play more contests to get to the same point? You can argue that tiering it this way is almost self-fulfilling. Particularly if what you measure for future treatment is how far they get. I get no one is taking my side and all, oh well, but compare it to, say, UEFA, where they just take the membership and sort you into groups. I am not being unreasonable to suggest that's a fairer approach we should imitate. There is some have and have not circularity in how they seed teams to be distributed, but since they make both Euros and WC Quali both group rounds followed by playoff, at least it feels at some level like everyone has an equal shot, and that if some rank suggests one seeds ahead of another, that it's probably been proven in the processes as opposed to taken for granted and given as a leg up. What if England had been advanced to some late stage but Iceland had to qualify multiple rounds. Same result?
Technically, two tournaments of 16 teams. One of the teams in the second tournament is the winner of the first. TH is title holder? Why would CONCACAF use this system for 1 year? They could just go to an 8 group system this year if they wanted to. It doesn't seem like that accomplishes any of what seems to be their objectives but, hey, why not?
1) yes, they made 2 tournaments there .... better was to give more spots from Phase 1 to Second tournament (4 for example ... with Round of 16 and quarterfinals in first phase, with 4 winners gain spots in Second tournament, joined by other 12 teams (direct qualified) 2) yes, TH is title holder 3) This is my hope, because I think the new format is an idiot system which give no chance for all teams which play in First Tournament !! Better name it again Copa UNCAF or Centro Americana. And so, they have destroyed Champions League. And definitelly in Second tournament they will put as seeds all teams from Mexico and MLS (8) to not face each other in Round of 16 and prevend MLS clubs from elimination from first step. They made all possible to keep MLS clubs in competition ... I hate americans for this.
Hmm. It is hard to see CONCACAF using a UEFA type system. At least not strictly. UEFA puts everyone into a number of groups that is about two-thirds their number of bids. That means 52 teams this year into 9 groups of 5 or 6 teams for their 13 bids. All 9 group winners advance and then there are playoffs between the 2nd place teams to get the other 4. With groups that big it is important to have the top two spots being meaningful or else you wind up with a lot of meaningless games. So their group stage uses 6 team groups playing 10 games to eliminate 35 teams. CONCACAF has 35 countries and 3.5 slots. Let's say we start off with six 6 team groups. That's the converse of the UEFA proportions but it pretty much has to be that way unless you want huge groups. The problem is how many teams do you want to advance. Just the group winners? Then a lot of the group games won't mean much. Top two from each group? Then you have to have a pretty substantial playoff system with the 12 remaining teams to get down to 4. Maybe there is a sweet spot on the size of the groups that I'm missing.
1) I agree. 2) Bingo! 3) Well, not all teams in the first tournament have no chance. Most of them, yes, but at least a few will have a chance. And one will succeed. Hating Americans is not unusual. I'm not sure we deserve all the hate on this particular issue. They didn't ask me about it so I don't think I should get any hate. juvechelsea has come out pretty strongly against this tournament format so he probably doesn't deserve any either.
hate MLS clubs which don't want to play CCL, or play with second team and then cry that the competition is not when they need ..... and due of this, mexicans beat them all time ... but before mexicans they lose against canadians, costa ricans or hondurian. Ok, some teams from First tournaments have some chances (Alajuelense/Saprissa/Herediano from Costa Rica, Olimpia/Motagua, Arabe Unido (??) and Comunicaciones (if qualify). Anyway, I give 60-70% chances for Costa Rican team to win this First tournament. And then, they can qualify for Quarterfinals, semifinals, even the final of Second Tournament. Made a little calculation : 8 matches in First Tournament, 8 matches in Second Tournament, will be 16 games for a finalist who came from First Tournament, while the second finalist will have only 8 matches, because they came from Second Tournament.