You are correct. The original version I saw, had 3 Caribbean teams in both. The one in Wikipedia says there's only 1 Caribbean team in the Spring Tournament. So I stand corrected.
To clear things up for a simpleton like me: We play our group games in the spring- We are rusty but still good enough to scrape through into the knockout games Knockout games in the summer and fall - WE are a full strength so we give ourselves a "fair " chance at winning the thing
Even if they don't do MLS any favors, it's very likely that MLS teams won't have to deal with back to back games against MLX teams. That would at least improve their chances in the second match against MLX teams.
This is the first time I've seen a dual group stage mentioned. Every other thing I've seen was that both tournaments would be straight knockout. Four four-team groups in the spring is fine, but as noted, that's a lot of games if they actually try to cram it into the spring. Hardly workable, I'd think. Ideally, we'd see the fall qualification tournament re-branded as something else (to borrow from Europe, call it the Liga Americana or something), and then a spring-to-fall tournament styled as the actual Champions League. The way it all seems to play out to me, based on what has been reported: Fall tournament (knockout only): losing playoff finalist from the 5 Central American countries listed below plus the overall 3rd-place finisher in each league, 2 NCA, 1 BLZ, 2nd-4th from CFU Club Championship. "Spring" tournament (group + knockout): 4 US, 4 MEX, 1 CAN, overall champions (decided by a playoff?) of CRC, HON, GUA, PAN, SLV, and CFU, plus fall tournament winner. Nothing else really makes much sense to me, competitively or logistically. This runs into a fairly obvious problem of what happens if a team is taking part in the fall edition of the "spring" tournament, but has only qualified for the next season's "fall" tournament, but maybe they can figure out a method of scheduling around that. EDIT: Another approach that I think I might prefer is one where there are four spots up for grabs in the fall tournament, with guaranteed spots in the spring tournament taken away from 1 US team, 1 MEX team, and whatever the two worst-performing Central American countries are, with spots in the fall tournament pulled from some Central American sides. Then have four four-team groups, with the winners of each group qualifying for the spring edition. Similar concept to the old Intertoto Cup.
32 teams from febraury to november, 5 USA, 5 Mex, 1 Can, 1 last year champion (until there is a real Canadian league so we use CAN 2nd spot), 13 centroamericans and 7 caribbean, 1 for each of the big 6 caribbbean, (north to south Cuba-REp Dom-Haity-Jamaica, Puelto rico and T&T) and the last 1 to the tiny caribbean cup winner. 12 North, 13 Centro, 7 Caribbean. the others systems are unproductive.
This will be terrible if they make teams wait more than a year after qualifying. But it's doable if they choose the most recent champs. My suggestions: For this league, just remove the Rapids and replace them with the 2017 league champ. For Canada, do NOT have a 2017 V-Cup. Let TFC directly in. For LMX, have the prev 3 champs plus subchamp among those 3 with the highest point total in the last year. For Central America, let in reigning champs in both phases. For Fall, previous 2 champs. For Spring, current champ. This means the Fall winner can also qualify for Spring thru the league. If so, then hand the slot down to the league runner-up. (e.g. Saprissa wins Fall CCL phase, then the league. They qualify for Spring CCL as league champ, the team they defeated in league Final gets a dropdown spot). For CFU, hold part of the CFU Championship in spring, but have 3 groups, with those 3 group winners qualifying for Fall CCL Phase. If a CFU team wins the Fall Phase, then the CFU Final will be among the 2 teams that did not, to be held in Nov or Dec. If no CFU team wins the Fall Phase, then have a 3 team group to decide the CFU Champ. IOW, a CFU club can't win both the CFU title and the CCL Fall tourney.
Colorado played an entire season that resulted in them qualifying for the CCL. Arbitrarily removing them would be incredibly harsh. The 2017-18 edition should go ahead as usual, with any changes taking place in the 2018-19 schedule.
How about we do this. If it ends up we have to skip a year, how about we do a mini playin tournament to see who will be the US reps. Unless tou qualified both years. Then you kinda deserve it, and my idea ends up sucking.
When would this tourney be, the season ends in Dec and starts in Mar. If they use all 2016 qualified teams, then it's probably better to use the 2017&2018 league champs and SS winners for 2019.
A lot of teams do preseason friendly tournaments. Let the teams involved start camp a week and a half early and do it when these tournies normally take place. Single elimination. Quick and easy. You probably do no more than 3 games.
I wonder if the Canadian team will get a seed. Otherwise, if we assume that US and Mexican teams are seeded, that means the Canadian team would play in the last-16 against American clubs 50% of the time, and Mexican clubs the other 50%. Punishes them for what's usually a good progression, and doesn't make for a very exotic CCL for Canadian clubs. I personally didn't enjoy having NYRB and SJ in our groups the last few times - made things a bit dull. Hopefully CONCACAF comes up with some kind of club AND league coefficient. It'd also be cool to have random draws all the way through, as the clubs don't compete in group stages anymore, but I'm not holding my breath for it.
I wouldn't mind a radical approach to seeding based on PPG from the previous calendar year, regular season + playoffs, no Cup games. It'd be like a random draw, since a team can achieve a high PPG from a weaker league. But it still gives an extra incentive for winning in the league.
The CCL could be used to make country coefficients. Alternatively, domestic points per game could be multiplied like this: Liga MX: 10 MLS (American and Canadian clubs): 9 Costa Rica: 8 Honduras, Panama, Guatemala, and El Salvador: 7 Belize, Nicaragua, and CFU: 6 I'm not saying the other leagues are 60 to 90 percent as good as MLS. I'm just trying to make a multiplier without too big a gap between the top and the bottom. It's like how the FIFA Rankings have a confederation multiplier of 1.00 for CONMEBOL, 0.99 for UEFA, and 0.85 for everybody else. The average OFC team isn't close to 85 percent as good as the average CONMEBOL team.
Didn't I see somewhere that they were going to start ranking the spots based on CCL success going forward? So if the USOC champion regularly gets bounced in the first round, while the Voyageurs Cup winner regularly gets into the second round, the USOC spot will be ranked lower than the Canadian champion? Or was that just within the same country?
I don't think CONCACAF is going to rank the spots based on how they are determined. The idea to is rank how many slots particular countries get, which tournament they are in, and any seeding. As far as CONCACAF is concerned the U.S. Open Cup winner is just one of the teams representing the USSF. CONCACAF hasn't said much about the ranking system other than that they will have one: