What does that have to do with what I said? In every example given the clubs have benefitted from being in a different country’s system. I’d be fine with the Canadian MLS teams leaving, I’m not debating the merits of where they should go in the future. Although, if I were Canadian, I would absolutely want those teams to stay in MLS.
Over 2/3 of Canadians aren't in the 3 MLS markets. As of now, a minimum of 48 Canadians are guaranteed playing time in our domestic league each week. The more successful is the league, the more clubs will be founded, that means more Canadians playing which increase our pool. This means Canada's depth will increase significantly including for NT youth level. This is where getting fully behind a domestic league from coast to coast makes more sense and benefits the CSA far more than worrying about what's best for 3 private owners
Are they competing for the same fans though? TFC has had their own fans since 2008. The Whitecaps and Montreal have had their own fans for far longer given their history in the NASL, A-League, Nu-NASL and USL before going to MLS. Surely the Toronto Area can/could support multiple professional Soccer Clubs. Same with Vancouver and Montreal. Competition is good for all parties. It might actually force the Whitecaps to get their sh!t together, or maybe even convince Saputo to care more (LOL, yeah that's not going to happen). As for the media attention....the CPL has far bigger obstacles than the three MLS teams to worry about when it comes to media attention. The NHL, CFL, Curling, Box Lacrosse, etc. Just because the three MLS clubs have a head start on the CPL doesn't mean that they are the only ones they are competing with. Also, like you said, 2/3 of Canada doesn't have access to MLS.....CPL teams in those areas would actually have media attention. I'm unfamiliar with this. Correct me if my observation is wrong. One Soccer is the OTT direct to consumer Streaming Platform that the CSB signed a multi-year deal with. CSB chose to go the streaming route. IMO it sounds like OneSoccer isn't recouping enough of their substantial investment to be all things soccer in Canada. So now they want to be on the traditional TV consumption platform. The CSA and CSB had the opportunity to be on Bell/Rogers platforms and chose to go with OneSoccer. Probably because they were being offered more money. Now in reading some of the coverage of the dispute it does appear that Rogers was favoring their own sports channels (shocker, and an error in judgement). What Rogers should have done from the start was mimic what the US cable giants do with nascent channels: put them on a tier of channels that customers have to pay extra for. IMO, CSB made a choice. The government shouldn't bail them out because they chose money over their potential fans. Samer with the CSA. They chose to go with OneSoccer as their exclusively home for Canadian National Team Games. They knew OneSoccer was a streaming platform with limited availability. They chose to partner with CSB. They have to live with these choices. At the end of the day these are two entities trying to do what they feel is best for their business. If the 3 MLS clubs aren't playing Canadians every week, how is that competing with CPL teams for players? If I;'m a Canadian player why would I choose to join a team that I'm not going to get playing time with? As the CPL continues to grow, there will be more and more opportunities for Canadian players. How does three MLS teams harm that? As players grow, develop and get better they will naturally move up levels. That higher level could be a different CPL team in the Toronto Market (York United, Forge), it could be a Future CPL team in Montreal, or Vancouver FC. It could be to a MLS team, not necessarily one of the three Canadian teams. It could be moving abroad to a second division Scottish Team, or a team in Italy, etc. The CIBC deal is with CSB, and includes the CSA (National Teams). How much is the CIBC deal worth? Without knowing the figures it's difficult to gauge the impact that the three MLS teams have on the ability of CSB to get sponsorship money for Canadian soccer. They are already competing for sponsorship money with the NHL and CFL. Any team in the GTA also has to compete with the Raptors and Blue Jays for Sponsorship dollars. IMO this argument doesn't have a lot of weight to it.
A lot of NY Cosmos/NASL fan vibes to this. A lot. Slightly different, but yet many of the premises and arguments are the same. Still, trying to win arguments on the net going in circles won’t solve all of the problems/struggles going on up there. Time, will, acceptance and money are the only ways it will succeed. Just like when MLS started 25 plus years ago. The net has no patience.
I don’t think adding CPL teams to markets that have MLS teams in a good idea. So far to compare, all we have is York, and their attendance has been an abomination. Make whatever excuses you like, but numbers don’t lie.
I just came back from Toronto. I usually stay in the 4 Seasons in Yorkville. York itself isn‘t that far away. When talk of TFC or Canadian soccer comes up, the CPL and York aren‘t even a thought. One person thought TFC should just make them their defacto reserve team. They might have a few young prospects then he might take a swing over to watch. Otherwise what‘s the point? People are the same everywhere. When you can watch something bigger and better why wouldn‘t you? That‘s just the reality of it. Always will be. The US and Canada do not have team cultures that go back for decades where fans are culturally indoctrinated, for lack of a better term. It‘s an incredibly difficult situation no matter what. Will, money and decades are required. No way around it.
Yes, Toronto can support multiple pro clubs and there are enough fans to go around although competition forces club to be better, not necessarily advance Canadian soccer mandate to grow the pool. We go back to "does the benefit to private clubs should outweigh what's best for Canadian soccer"? A stronger CPL with no competition on its soil (like everywhere else) leads to more Canadians playing valuable minutes and moving to better leagues. On the Voyageurs forum, Canadian minutes in Canada are tracked and it it's quite disappointing Luckily they barely overlap with the NHL, don't usually play at the same time then curling (totally different demographic) or CFL as some of those owners also have CPL clubs. That's a challenge but not the heart of the issue. MediaPro Canada (Onesoccer) had every intentions to launch a cable channel, which they did. One of the "big 3" telecom is already carrying their channel on their sports package (Telus). The issue is that Rogers (and Bell) actively blocked Onesoccer from being made available from their package and went further to ensure that they blackout any news about CPL, even the scores on their own TV channels and media. The CRTC already rule that they have to come back with changes as their behaviour not only impacted Onesoccer's business but on Canadian fans who might not have an easy access to the internet and undermined the Boradcasting Act. https://northerntribune.ca/rogers-onesoccer-crtc-decision-march-2023/ The CRTC declared that Rogers’ decision not to pick up OneSoccer on a linear channel (read: traditional cable television) gave an undue preference to both Rogers and other streaming services similar to OneSoccer, while also causing a material adverse impact on Timeless Incorporated, Canadian sports fans, and even on the achievement of certain objectives of the Broadcasting Act itself. That was one of the big takeaway from those parliamentary hearing where people got to see that the CSB deal (no matter how imperfect it is) was far better for the CSA than what Bell & Rogers have been doing for years when they were forcing the CSA to pay to broadcast their games taking resources away from the program. We're circling back to what should come first? Private owners interest or taking decision to further the CSA's objectives. The point is that the CSA doesn't need to sanction Canadians clubs in MLS to achieve the same goals. Top Canadian players will attract interest from MLS regardless or they'll sign abroad. As CPL is demonstrating to be a good league, the benefit of giving away Canada's biggest markets to a US league when you already have your own starts to make less and less sense when you could have 2 or 3 pro clubs each starting a minimum of 6 Canadians with 2000 U21 minutes in each of those areas. Once the waiver expires, there's just no justification and very limited benefit to the CSA's goal to keep this going. As the CSA and Montaglinani was telling members of parliament yesterday, there's not unlimited amount of corporate money to go around and governments aren't going to put public funds in professional sports. Just like the same train of though with the Ottawa Fury/USL - it made more sense for those resources to make deals with CSB/CPL/Atletico owners than enabling a situations where those resources goes to a club competing in a US league instead of their own league. There's just not enough resources as of now to go around for the CSA to have that kind of luxury. With CSB agreeing to renegotiating the deal with the CSA, the more money CSB can make by growing CPL & League 1 Canada - the more money the CSA will get to fund its programs while developing "more" players. It's now in the CSA's interest to see CPL reaching its full potential.
I live in North York (where they are) and I'm fully aware of their current issues and bad start. They already made core changes along with the rebrand but their move to Woodbine will solve the attendance issue. They are moving from the middle of a university campus in the middle of nowhere to the heart of a new multi-billion entertainment and residential district next to the new casino close to Pearson International. The media centres of Canada are mainly Toronto and Montreal - having no presence in either makes no business sense.
So when is the magical date for the MLS teams dissolving to be replaced by amazing CPL Big Dog versions? I wouldn’t mind a TFC shirt while they’re still available.
Does investing money into the Canadian NHL teams make sense for Hockey Canada? Seeing as they play in an American league and all....... Is the CSA not a private entity? or at least a non-governmental entity? It'll be very interesting to see how this all plays out. From. an outsider's perspective, it would seem that the CSA isn't really in a position of strength at the moment. The made a poor deal with CSB, who now is being massaged to renegotiate a deal they made years ago. Their (the CSA) one card to play is to run Daddy Montagliani at Concacaf. Call me crazy, but I have a feeling that at least two of the Canadian MLS teams would wage a costly legal fight over being forced to not play in the league they chose to play in, when an all Canadian league did not exist, and wasn't even proposed or on table. Not sure how Saputo would approach this, he's a bit of a wild card. Toronto and Vancouver certainly would put up a fight to protect the rather substantial investments they've made in the game. This could get very ugly for the CSA, and even Concacaf. If I'm MLS HQ, I'm going to try to get out in front of this as early as possible and try to work with the CSA to get some form of agreement in place. How can MLS help the CSA in their goals of growing the game in Canada? At the least put the onus on the CSA.
This region is improving under is tenure, so not all bad. There's no case simply for the fact that this is a sanctioning matter only. A court can't dictate who FIFA can or cannot sanction according to their own rules - the whole UEFA/FIFA vs Euro Super League is making that quite obvious Ultimately, MLS is free to do whatever it wants but I doubt they'd risk letting 3 unsanctioned foreign clubs compete in its league. Ottawa and USL didn't Even when Montagliani was the CSA president, all he wanted was the roster rules to be reciprocal. The league wasn't interested then so now it comes down to what's in the CSA best interest and so far, those of CSB are much more in line with theirs at this point - on top of writing them cheques, they built a D1 for them and revamping D3 from almost scratch
Of course but let's be honest here and that also applies to Montreal and Vancouver. MLS is still very niche in this country and in those markets. Those markets are stil very much so up for grabs. A sport journalist accurately said that the Apple deal will end up hurt MLS in this country since outside of a few games here and there, MLS is now in the same boat as CPL with Onesoccer. Difference is that with a FuboTV subscription, we get all Canadian NT teams (men & woman at all level), Canadian Championship, CPL, all COCACAF competitions, France Ligue 1, Serie A, Copa Libertadores & Sudamericana, African Cup, Turkish league and most importantly all EPL games. To your point of watching the best available, they get exposed to CPL which will help it get out there, including bars and restaurants.
I struggle to imagine why anyone anywhere would care about this tournament. Other than the shenanigans from '15, basically it's been a 2 team tournament for decades, generally, and is watered down w/the off year bull----. The tournament lacks elite teams (typically featuring only 3 w/World Cup relevance), and has little to no competitive value whatsoever in any of the matchers for a non-concacaf viewer until at least the semifinal. It's the worst regional tournament in the world other than Oceania's. I get the dream of tapping into more viewers but you'd have to be most die hard of international soccer fans imaginable to watch this AND single if you're not a concacaf supporter. Otoh, I paid an insane amount of attention to U20 WC qualifying from CAF, and I'm not single, so there's that lol. But yeah, in terms of international regional tournaments, there's the Euro Championships, and Copa America, than a great yawning chasm followed by the African Cup of Nations, another huge chasm, than the Asian Championships, and then basically you're looking at the Valles Marineris sized chasm where you find our crap tournament and the Oceania championships buried under even more sand.
Looks like they had the third best attended U20 World Cup this century as well only behind Egypt ‘09 and Colombia ‘11.The attendance #’s on wiki are a bit odd so I’m not sure I can trust them but it looks like they doubled the #’s of the previous 3, and then attendance numbers went in decline again in ‘13, ‘15 and ‘17 after that good run of 3 ‘07-‘11.
Agreed, the kings of concacaf argument is kind of silly. When qualifying campaigns have gone by over the years, sure, you enjoyed finishing first if it happened (I think we did it for '06, '10 and '14) but as a signifyer, does anyone remember us having a 3 peat as regional QUALIFYING champions from '06-'14? I don't EVER remember anyone noticing it, at all. 1st place, sure, its nice, but any given cycle we just wanted qualifying to be stress free and not a repeat of the stress of '02 or the stress of the opening of '14 etc. So that's totally on point. It's not a title. They're inventing a championship, like worlds greatest door opener for strangers. It's pointless. I will say it absolutely annoys the ---- out of me how their performance is couched in 2022 as if it was like our 1998 or something when it clearly wasn't. Matchday 1 they played Belgium off the field, but failed to convert their chances and a penalty while Belgium finished one of their rare chances, and Belgium stole a game they were dominated in. Against Croatia getting that early goal probably hurt them because Croatia played aggressive attacking soccer throughout for pretty much the only time of the tournament while they were still alive following that goal and pounded their vulnerable but never broken defense before (it finally broke after skating since that 4-2 loss to the USMNT in that match just as we would be shellacked the hardest we'd been shellacked since '19 a week after that), and against Morocco they actually outchanced Morocco in the game and deserved a draw. In a group featuring #2 ranked but aging Belgium, and 2 WC Semifinalists. That's a spectacular performance, in 2 of 3 matches they were the better side in a group of death, essentially. The results sucked, no denying that, but the performance is always whats more long term relevant because if you can consistently produce quality performances, the results will come. Canada learned the hard way this past tournament what not finishing their chances, and not defending stoutly can result in, they will take those lessons with them. To act as if it was a disastrous performance is utter bull----. This was not 1998, this was like Ivory Coast in 2006 or 2010 when they got groups of death and crashed out early as a result but played well in defeat, this was not USA 1998 or France 2010, stepping on a banana peel 3 times.
It isn't nonsense. Going out with 3 losses sucks but you guys were in a group of death with teams that ranking wise, came out of that WC ranked 4th (Belgium-that will fall), 7th (Croatia) and 11th (Morocco) and the latter two of coursed, played in the consolation game after losing their respective semifinals to Messi and Argentina and freaking France. You guys based on xG were the better side in 2 of your 3 games against competition thats atop the world these days (although again, Pot 1 seed Belgium is aging out rapidly and sucked at that cup other than the Croatia match), that's a fantastic performance, and it sucks that you didnt finish your chances and they finished theirs, but it is still true statistically that the math says you were the better side, not the biased eyes of your fans, or those who dislike your team and its fans, nope, the math likes your team better in 2 of the 3 games. You were damn good, and unlucky, just like Germany was. It happens. These games turn on the finest of edges. If Acosta doesn't tackle Bale, we probably lose to Wales, if Zim doesn't clear that ball out Iran probably equalizes late, if Pulisic or McKennie can finish their chances against England (or the Netherlands for that matter) we probably win the group and/or advance to the quarterfinals against Messi and Argentina, or France and Mbappe. Don't get it twisted. You were damn good, other than 1 game, now you need to continue to replicate those performances, but with cleaner finishing, get that defending a bit tighter, and get David to actually show up after dominating in France.
I agree with your assessment (some fans tends to nitpick on all the negatives and temper their expectations a bit too much) Herdman had a terrible tournament and past Gold Cups highlights his difficulties at managing them when Canada has to play many games in such a short period of time. Hopefully we see improvements there for the next Gold Cup and it will yield results at the Nations League. He finally came around to play the best LB in the world at his position, Davies is much better for the team there. CB Scott Kennedy was really missed at the world cup, he's better than Kamal Miller - bigger and much faster and he's definately Steven Vitória successor. Derek Cornelius also much better than Miller who I think might have lost his spot. Ismael Kone added much needed depth at midfield to play with Eustaquio. I don't get what Osorio is still doing at TFC but Victor Loturi is on the path to challenge his spot. Other good news is Lucas Cavallini scoring again in Liga MX Within 4 years CPL has already affected positively our NTs. At youth level, those players looked the best as hopefully we'll be breaking from the habit of calling up MLS academy guys who don't play pro for CPL guys who plays against other pros and men like the other countries does. Ex-Cavalry Dominick Zator add RB depth since he's been doing well in Poland making the league's best XI. Ex-Atletico Ballou Tabla is scoring goals in Turkey Ex-Cavalry Victor Loturi already a starter at Ross County in Scotland playing against Alistair Johnston. One to watch will be Forge FC Alessandro Hojabrpour who's the league best #6, a position we need to reinforce with Hutchinson retiring soon.
Just a truism. I travel a lot in Europe and South America. Nobody considered Canada's group the "Group of Death." And that's because it had Canada in it. Currently ranked 53rd in the World. A few points above Finland. The highest average FIFA ranking before the World Cup and after the World Cup isn't Canada's group. Note: Before the World Cup it was the USMNT's group. [5, 16, 19, 20] THere are no such thing as moral victories at the World Cup. No matter what group you're in, its hard. I don't really get the apology tour that USMNT fans are on in defense of Canada. Spain, Germany, Japan, Costa Rica is hard. Brazil, Switzerland, Serbia, Cameroon is hard. Portugal, Uruguay, South Korea, Ghana is hard. The list goes on. Canada played OK at the World Cup, and came away with squadoosh. Technically, only Qatar had a worse performance at the World Cup. I still can't believe Herdman's tactics against Croatia. Didn't make a lick of sense.
We're projected to be 45th when the new update comes out. You'd be right based on ranking at the start of the tournament but considering that our group had both semifinalists plus the #2 in the world - that's where this narrative came from.
I don't know that someone playing at one of the bottom of the table teams in Scotland is on path to challenge Osorio. Osorio is a good player and the level of play in Scotland after Celtic and Rangers is quite low. I'm sure the reason that Osorio is with TFC still is that there are not many foreign teams willing to pay much of a transfer fee given his age. And given that he's a designated player he's probably not making more abroad either. It's a similar situation to someone like Walker Zimmerman.
Let me add to the silliness of the qualifying champions argument a couple of key thoughts, 1 nice, 1 not nice. Get the not nice over with: It's very odd to be making that argument when they didn't qualify for the NL semifinals, let alone win the title in '21, nor make the '21 Gold Cup Final (admittedly they were robbed by El Tri's fans gifting their team the extra time needed to find a late goal via a chant punishment (nice punishment there), but more importantly, they actually finished tied, not in 1st place, and only finished first via the GD tiebreaker. So even there the argument falls rather flat and looks silly. If they want to counter that we didn't beat El Tri in regulation of either '21 tourney final, I won't quibble, we didn't, and in my view, were pretty clearly outplayed in both matches (although holding Mexico in the Gold Cup Final w/a B/C team (and worse) was an absurdly good result) so there's that. But my real point, beyond the quibbles is this: winning or not winning the Qualification process, which aint a tournament and does not bequeath a title, but rather a WC ticket isn't what mattered. What matters is that the excuse making by our fed, coaches and even players (post window 1) and our fans on this board that qualifying in concacrap is hard, and that it should be an ugly grind was rendered moot by a totally inexperienced Canadian team that had not experienced the final round of qualifying in decades. They literally had no experience whatsoever and we're young, just like us, though not quite as young. Regardless, they went into the final stage of qualifying and went undefeated through their first 11 qualifiers at which point they were essentially 99.5% qualified. Zero road losses despite trips to the USA, Azteca, Honduras, Jamaica, and El Salvador. That's what's deeply impressive. Their only road missteps occurred after they were already qualified. They'd gone through window 4 with 7 wins, 4 draws (3 road) and 0 losses. That and not some silly idea of a mystical qualifying championship is what they should be hanging their hat on, and it's also worth noting they actually played quite well down in Costa Rica to open window 5. Despite playing down a man for 60 minutes, they still outshot Costa Rica 18-11, had 9 corners to Costa Rica's 3, Costa Rica did hit 4 on frame out of 9, while Canada had only 3 of 18 on target, but it's pretty clear in the underlying #'s that Canada played largely better, and only losing on a 1st half injury time goal? It's just revealing. The accomplishment for Canada this past cycle was that. It wasn't some fake championship, its the fact that Canada w/no experience to speak of in the hex in decades, came in to the ocho and waxed up everybody at home save in their opener in a game they would certainly have won in any other window (home draw vs Honduras), and then went undefeated on the road until the final window when it was largely a wrap anyway. I recall some arguing that well, the semifinal round of qualifying, and that home and home allowed them to prep, and my counter to that would be, what on earth about playing Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Suriname, Aruba, and then Haiti would prepare you for the Ocho and the USMNT, El Tri in Azteca, Costa Rica not at Saprissa but still etc? Nope. They should celebrate how awesome they were in qualifying, because they were, and in a way the USMNT has never been on the road (particularly in Central America) and they should at least add the nuance that their performance, if not results, were excellent at the WC in 2 of 3 games. But yeah, the media seems to be focusing on exactly the wrong things (the results at the WC, and the standings in qualifying) in the aftermath of '21-'22. It will be interesting in '23-'26, developing depth and building tournament toughness will be the next big thing for them, making and winning Finals would be big (making them alone would be big too), and help build that tournament game to game mental toughness could pay dividends for Copa America (if they qualify) and at the WC two years afterwards. It's unfortunate they lost on penalties to Guatemala in the U20's, would've been nice to give those players Olympic and U20 experience (and wild that Guatemala took 3 consecutive knockout matches to penalties before finally losing to DR on pens in the semi's).
If you're looking at results, it can't be, if you're looking at performance within the matches, it can. They outperformed 2 of 3 opponents in terms of xG in the group stage of an absurdly difficult group and were monstrously unlucky to not only fail to beat, but also fail to at least draw Belgium in a match they dominated. You can focus on the results, that's scoreboard, Im focusing on the performance because performance is more predictive than simple results. I would point to El Tri, as an example of that, some posters here kept saying El Tri was fine, look they were 1st in qualifying, made all those Concacrap Finals, 3 in a row going back to '19, only beaten in extra time, tied for first in qualifying etc, they're fine, I argued, and was proven right, that their performances especially in '21-'22, illustrated a decline that their results masked. Their own fans generally, agreed with me, and then what did we see at the WC? They were gifted the group of life, and struggled mightily in it, failing to produce quality chances much like in qualifying, failing to turn their possession into a cutting edge, and in the end they failed to advance out of a comically easy group (they barely beat freaking Saudi Arabia and yes Saudi beat Argentina on two wonder goals, and how many goals did Argentina have waived off, and Saudi proved that was illusory by ----ing the bed against the other sad sacks of the group following that huge win). Performance matters, yes Canada flopped at the cup, but their performance overall was strong, and suggestive of a team that's here to stay, at least for this generation and maybe more. A more friendly draw (particularly if they had climbed into Pot 3 with a road win at Costa Rica or Panama in window 5 at qualifying) and we'd probably have had little to say to criticize their WC, as it was, the results stunk out loud but they played excellent soccer in 2 of 3 games and that matters more in the long term, than the fact that they lost all 3 if they can continue to build on it.
I get it, but as we all know..................one tournament doesn't dictate who the best teams in the world are. There's always a fine line between advancing and not advancing at the event. Brazil is the #1 team in the world right now. They went out in the quarterfinals despite being the better team in the match. That's soccer. [Does anyone think San Diego State and UCONN are the best college basketball teams because they happen to be playing in the final? No. Nobody does.] My point is sorta that all groups are hard. One can make an argument about the difficulty of all groups. There's no such thing as a moral victory at the World Cup. If you're one of the worst teams at the event, then that's something you have to live with. Cuz that's reality. Excuses about it being hard get one nowhere. If you're not in a group with Belgium and Croatia and Morocco.........then you're in a group with Portugal, Uruguay, and South Korea. Or you're in a group with Spain, Germany, and Japan. Both possible draws for Canada. The list goes on. There's sort of this apologist agenda. Not amongst Canada fans, but amongst USMNT fans on behalf of Canada. Oh...................its OK that Canada finished as one of the worst teams at the event, because their group was hard. I'm sorry. That gets you nowhere. The groups will almost always be hard at the World Cup. The games are going to be very close for the most part. That's sorta the point. That's why you want to go. To test yourself against the best.