Will MLS go winless in CONCACAF for 2 decades?

I'd put RSL at the top but no doubt that Red Bull is above average. I'm not exactly sure where the concept of over hype comes from. Outside of Liga Mx, MLS and some of the bigger clubs in the rest of CONCACAF, very few first division teams are very strong. Red Bull II finished 6 and Cincinnati finished 7. Unlike the recent games where Red Bull were in preseason form and barely played their big transfer they gave up 2 goals and went to extra time in the open Cup semi against Cinci. Now they were playing at home and Olimpia wasn't, but traveling to Cinci isn't exactly grueling trip in a difficult venue. I'm not claiming Cinci is better than Olimpia but instead a decidedly mid-table USL team isn't all that far away.

I don't rally disagree with anything you wrote except the differences in talent are much starker in Costa Rica. At the top last fall you had an undefeated team and at the bottom you have 5 of 12 teams that won less than 20% of their games even though they frequently play each other. In USL no team came close to being undefeated while only 1 in 10 failed to wind at least 25% of their games. The whole over-hyping the USL concept was created by the CPL fan who strongly believes the league will be significantly better than the rest of CONCACAF outside the LigaMx and MLS while I question whether it will even be better than the top 1/3 of the USL. I instead see it as over hyping a non-existent CPL.

I don't recall your question, nor have you defined a top league, nor have I asserted it would meet some hypothetical standard in four years. As for why I believe the league will continue to strengthen, I think the Krafts of the ownership group are losing their grip on power and the owners that are pro-investment are showing this leads to higher returns the limiting costs. Given the available resources, the can invest a lot more. I also think the league has reached a tipping point in terms of respect. South American players and European players are starting to come in droves. Each year there are increasingly better coaches and soccer knowledgeable parents to teach their children the game. As I pointed out before the thread isn't about being the top of the world but instead capable of beating LigaMx. Right now Toronto is probably stronger than all but a handful of the top LigaMx teams. Two years ago they would be near the bottom.

 

Only to people that don't understand what is going on.

 

I think Tigres is one of the few LigaMx teams that are probably clearly stronger than TFC so I don't think if would be 50/50 in if TFC had 9 league games under their belt. I think America/TFC would be closer to a 50/50 so I'd but TFC's odds at less than 1 in 4.

 

There is no way Tigres vs TFC is 50/50. And if by some strange reason TFC were to pull the upset, America is playing a lot better than Tigres which on my opinion are the candidates to win it all.

To be honest, I just don't see MLS ever winning this cup. Not unless they make some drastic changes to the schedule otherwise it will be Liga MX winning with some times in a rare moon a CR team wining it too. It seems as if the owners or whoever is running MLS don't give a flying duck about International competition. This is where they can prove MLS is really growing as they claim it is.

 

MLS has show improvement and are the clear number 2 league in the region...

Semi finalist since 2008 - 2017:
2008/09 = 3 LMX, 1 PR
2009/10 = 4 LMX
------------------------------------ before here zero MLS teams made the semis
2010/11 = 2 LMX, 1 MLS USA, 1 CR
2011/12 = 3 LMX, 1 MLS CAN
------------------------------------ before here only 1 MLS team made it to the semis
2012/13 = 2 LMX, 2 MLS USA
2013/14 = 3 LMX, 1 CR
2014/15 = 1 LMX, 1 MLS CAN, 2 CR
2015/16 = 4 LMX
2016/17 = 2 LMX, 1 MLS USA, 1 MLS CAN

Semi Finalist in new format:
2018 TBD

Semifinalists since 2008...
LMX = 24
MLS USA = 5
MLS CAN = 3
CR = 3
PR = 1

Second Place since 2008:
LMX = 7
MLS USA = 1
MLS CAN = 1

First Since 2008: LMX = 9

Results matter, and MLS teams have done the best in the region out of any other league except LMX.

 

Again, 2012 to 2017 are bad references. MLS avoided Liga MX in the group stage making it easier for them than Costa Rica

 

First, MLS did not avoid Liga MX in that phase of the competition. USA avoided Mexico.
Second, Costa Rican teams faced USA and Mexico in roughly equal numbers during that time, and USA still performed better than CRC head-to-head. Also, CRC did about as well against USA as they did against MEX.
Third, MLS team advanced from the group with barely better records during the four-team and three-team group phases of the competitions.
Fourth, during the four-team-group phase, USA (and CAN) outperformed CRC each year. If anything, the switch from four- to three-team groups benefited CRC better than any country in the competition, just looking at how often a CRC team advanced from the group stage at all.

 

Se parece que tu das disculpas por esa liga. Eres hincha de unos de sus clubes?

 

While it’s true the mls is clearly the second best league in the region switching to three club groups in which the USA teams avoided Mexican teams was meant to benefit American teams. It’s also clear that is who it benefited most though it is also true that the mls improved in that period.


Let’s be honest about what that was though that was clearly meant as a way to draw in mls fans and create a quasi super liga. I am glad concacaf is moving away from making that its top priority

 

Nothing to apologize for with slow but consistence improvement. Just pointing out the statistics to say that any claim that those years were a "bad reference" is missing the point.

While that might be the impression by many fans that USA avoiding Mexico was the intent of the switch, the problem with that viewpoint is that it was not a "benefit" to the American teams in any competitive sense because USA's problem in the four-team groups was not Mexico.

 

But the tournament switched to 3-team groups, and Mexico would have been a major problem for them. So they were spared like protected little children.

 

The United States...not Canada

 

Oh please, the US totally benefit from the old format. You can keep being in denial about it if you want but Costa Rica and Canada and everyone else had it much harder than US based teams

 

Yeah like was said above we aren’t comparing the four team tournament to the three we are comparing what happen to everyone else except for the four American teams so your point is irrelevant

 

Uhhh this entire discussing what started when Fossatt analyzed the US (and CAN) performance to date comparing all years to each other, which prompted RB to say the middle version of the tournament was bad data. Those are both definitely comparing the three different versions of the tournament to each other. That was the impetus for my first post. If someone read my post and moved the goalposts since then, that's on them.

 

Sure, much harder... so that's why they did so much better in version 2 of the tournament than in version 1 or in version 3 thus far, downing both Mexican and US teams along the way when they didn't before or after. Gotcha.

 

It may have started there but the post I was responding to was from you saying the switch to three teams benefited Costa Rica more than anyone else. That was nonsense and I haven’t moved the post that has been what I focused in on the whole time

 

Seattle is better than 50/50 to advance and if they do, MLS is better than 50/50 to win it this year. Toronto clearly had some good fortune against Tigres but Red Bull was better than Tijuana..America is still probably the best team left, but in case the rest of you haven't figured it out by now, Liga Mx is no longer is no longer anywhere near as far ahead as it once was for the reasons I outlined previously in this thread.

MLS has drastically changed in the past couple of years. The top teams are no longer dismantled because teams are forced to lose players due to raises against an absurdly low salary cap or lost starters to Scandinavian leagues. Instead they are signing talented South American in droves, many of which might have gone to Liga Mx in the past. The depth is much higher. Red Bull brought Gamarra off the bench as a late game sub and won their league match playing 9 guys that didn't play in the CCL game.

 

I guess I was wrong. MLS has improved a lot.

 

Some perspective though. It was a great milestone for MLS but the league needs to repeat this more often

Two MLS teams eliminated Mexican teams in CONCACAF play last night. That had happened only three times in 30 previous meetings.

Quite a night for @MLS. pic.twitter.com/4Mf77oRqk2

— Paul Carr (@PaulCarr) March 14, 2018

 

Most of those numbers are irrelevant . This is really the first year of the year where the all but a couple of the teams were playing with a roster of around $10MM in transfer value. Now all but the bottom feeders are double that and the top teams are going over $30MM.

If I were a betting man I'd predict MLS and LigaMx teams split the next 4 games and two series. But if forced to pick the league that might win both, I'd have to favor MLS as Chivas didn't look all that good - just less bad than the Seattle team the had less attacking talent on the field than most USL teams. At least they have forwards and some attackers with speed.

 

There are a lot of people that enjoy the thrill of playing the lottery. As I noted in paragraph 2 in the post directly above yours I'm not one of them. I suggested I think will likely happen. What do you believe will happen? For fun what do your predict the MLS vs LigaMx pts/match will be over the a larger sample size of the next 5 years?

 

Don't back away now