I do not like it, but is not my money being spent. I would prefer 32 teams 8 groups of 4. Yes the quality would suffer, but it would made more sense.
Another option to save money is to reduce the number of teams to 16, still eliminate the preliminary round. 3 Mexico 2 USA 1 Canada 3 CFU 7 Central America (one per country) 4 groups of 4. That makes more sense to me.
Actually, it should have the opposite effect. It is less likely under the new format that all four Mexican teams will make the finals. Consider Group A in this year's CCL. Alajuelense split their games with Morelia, but the U.S. and Mexican teams both still went through. If Los Angeles hadn't been in the group, Morelia would have been eliminated, and Alajuelense would have gone through on away goals. In Group B, the Mexican team wouldn't have gone through either if Colorado had not been in the group. The upset win by Isidro Metapan and the upset draw by Real Espana would have sent Santos Laguna home and Metapan through. Fewer games = more importance for individual upsets.
I would think it would continue to be highly unlikely that Mexican teams fail to maintain a high qualification rate simply because they come through when they have to. 9 wins, 2 draws, 1 loss on the last 3 matchdays after slacking off in the 1st 3.
Switch the # of spots between U.S. and Caribbean. 3 Mexico (Apertura champion, Clausura champion, and best-placed overall regular season record in both Apertura and Clausura.) 3 USA (MLS Cup champion, Supporters Shield champion, and U.S. Open Cup champion) 1 Canada (Canadian Cup winner) 2 CFU (champion and runner-up) 7 Central America (one per country, best overall record in Apertura and Clausura)
It is more likely that they take every game seriously though. I don't think that's a bad thing. I am pretty disappointed that MLS teams won't face Mexican teams until the knockout rounds though.
I wonder which federation pressured concacaf into doing this? 4 years from now we will see another reduction in the format of the tournament; ten years from now we will be back to a knockout stage tournament.
Bottom line is, it's stupid and borderline insulting. Combine this with the fact that CONCACAF have never had a transparent draw for anything, I'd say yes, this is a bad thing, since it seems their end goal is to have USA and Mexican teams separated as long as possible in the tournament.
A couple of people have claimed this now. I just don't buy it. CONCACAF's goal is not to "have USA and Mexican teams separated as long as possible." Its goal is, pretty clearly, to keep USA and FMF teams in the tournament as long as possible. Which is not the same thing. Under the old format, you could best accomplish this by having one of each in each group and having them play each other. Under the new format, you can best accomplish this by having them in separate groups and not having them play each other. Whether or not they play each other is irrelevant. There's a name for when sports tournaments do this sort of thing. It's called "seeding." And it's not generally considered nefarious. Like it or not, the two best leagues in CONCACAF right now are the FMF and MLS. And right now, the MLS teams that come out of the US are much more likely to be strong teams than the ones that come out of Canada. Remember, Canadian teams have now played six seasons in MLS. Between them, they have two last-place finishes but not a single playoff appearance. Another country complaining that U.S. and Mexican teams don't meet until the knockouts is like the fiftieth-ranked player on the tour complaining that Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, and Murray don't play each other until the semifinals. It's not a conspiracy; it's just seeding. Yes, Canada is in a bit of a weird position. Yes, Canada should probably be in pot A instead of Panama. But no, they haven't earned a seeding as high as the U.S.'s yet.
I'll give American MLS fans credit you all try very hard to sell CONCACAF's ridiculous ideas. I have seen you argue just in this thread that this new format will make it less likely that all Mexican teams make it to the knockout rounds while in this post saying its part of CONCACAF's goal to keep Mexican teams around longer. CONCACAF's real goal isn't to keep USA AND FMF teams alive as long as possible its goal is to keep USA clubs alive as long as possible. Mexcian clubs need no help. No Mexican team has been knocked out by a non Mexican team in the CCL. Mexican teams are grouped together as much as possible in the knockout rounds to avoid a Mex - Mex final this is all about helping the USA. This isn't the gold cup or a tennis match where everyone brings 1 representative seeding countries so they avoid each other until the final makes no sense for a club championship competition since its about determining the best CLUB in the region not the best country. Instead of making the CCL run like a tennis tournament it should be run like the Libertadores or the Champions League which do reward higher performing countries but they don't protect them like CONCACAF protects the USA. But lets pretend this ridiculous seeding makes sense the USA may be the second best performing country but its performances in the CCL when averaged out are closer to Honduras then Mexico. The most impressive showing by the USA is 2 teams reaching the knockout rounds since Toronto doesn't count as a USA team that is only 1 more then everyone else. The USA has even had teams go out in the preliminary round yet now the USA teams can avoid Mexican teams all the way through to the final while the Honduras 1 seed may end up having to beat a Mexican team in the group phase. To say not everyone is operating in the same playing field is an understatement.
In what way have Canada not earned a seeding as high as the US. Seeding is usually based on international play. 50% of Canada's teams have made the quarter-finals but only 38% of US teams have made the quarter-finals. 75% of Canadian teams that have played in the preliminary round have qualified for group play compared to only 50% of US teams.
You know that in the UEFA Champions League, most of the teams from the top three countries get even better treatment than the U.S. is getting, right? They get byes through the first four rounds of the tournament. Then they are seeded so that the highest-ranked teams--not just from the same country--can't be drawn against each other and therefore can't meet until the final knockout round. In other words: seeding. Not too complicated, not nefarious.
No country in Europe gets the treated better then the USA gets treated in the CCL. I have never seen a country protected all the way to the final. Spanish clubs play English clubs in the group phase there isn't a written policy that clubs from separate countries avoid each other in the group phase. The USA was being protected from Mexican teams in the knockout rounds as much as possible now they get protected in the group phase as well that isn't to complicated to understand. Like I said in my previous post rewarding higher performing nations isn't the issue I have with this new format.
Respuesta: Re: New CONCACAF Champions League format Keeping the Mexican clubs in the same bracket in the knock-outs stage was difficult to justify if all or most Mexican teams won their group, but now CONCACRAP can do it... not hard to see that they're just protecting the MLS teams...
Right; because they protect individual teams instead. Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and Manchester United are protected from each other in the group stages, even though they're "clubs from separate countries." And yes, that is a written policy. It's not every team from England that gets protected from every team from Spain, but the end result is the same: UEFA picks what it thinks are likely to be the best eight teams in the tournament, and makes sure they can't meet until the knockout round. At a lower level, there is that kind of national protection. English teams, even the weakest, can't meet teams from Spain, Germany, France or Portugal until the group stage; they get byes through the first three rounds, then in the fourth (playoff) round, they're seeded in the same group so they can't knock each other out. The CONCACAF system isn't as complex as the UEFA system, but the concept is the same. Seed the strongest teams, so you don't end up good teams eliminating each other in the group stages while Joe Public, Defense Force and Alpha United play for a quarterfinal spot.
Re: Respuesta: Re: New CONCACAF Champions League format In the history of the tournament to date, all four Mexican clubs have won their groups exactly once. And all the Mexican finishers have been on the same side of the bracket exactly once. I think the conspiracy theories are getting a little overblown.
Re: Respuesta: Re: New CONCACAF Champions League format Remind again, when the last time we had a transparent draw?
Respuesta: Re: Respuesta: Re: New CONCACAF Champions League format The only time 2 Mexican teams finished 2nd so CONCACAF could make it excusable... or was the draw showed live for think otherwise? PS: That's why I said ALL or MOST...
They actually use coefficients (recent history/success) to determine that. Coefficients change every year based on performance so you're wrong about the fact that they can't play in the play-off round also, as those coefficients also apply to teams. Not some blanket protection for every team from a single country.
The result isn't the same there is a major difference in trying to have competitive balance between the groups and protecting all the clubs of one country at the expense of everyone else. The groups in the new format will now be very unbalanced compared to the current format. Instead of a team from Honduras being placed in the same group as an American team and thus face the same teams to get through to the knockout round the team from Honduras will have to top a Mexican team while the American team only needs to top a Caribbean team and Central American team.
The CONCACAF is doing the same thing here. They think that the best 8 teams are the 4 Mexican teams and the 4 usa teams. I wont argue against the 4 Mexican teams and 2 usa teams. But do USA3 and USA4 deserve seeds #7 and #8? Over HON1 and CRC1?
I think this is great. No preliminary round that brings better schedule (this season, team that qualified to GS thru Prelim played 4 CONTINENTAL games in 28 days, along with DOMESTIC leagues games), each match is important so no more B/reserve teams, what brings more competition than before, each team that qualify will have at least 4 games... Best way to schedule games would be day 1: seed 3 v seed 2 day 2: seed 2 v seed 1 day 3: seed 1 v seed 3 day 4: seed 2 v seed 3 day 5: seed 3 v seed 1 day 6: seed 1 v seed 2 This way top seeded teams (#1 and #2) would play very last match of the group - way smaller chance for one of those to play that match proforma, or that "free" team depends on that match.
I would switch Day 2 and Day 3 so that the order of matches is the same for each club's first two games and last two games (like CONCACAF does for the first half and second half of the Hexagonal) and that would also avoid Seed 3 playing three times in a row.