1 tournament for the Americas (every 4 years) instead of Gold Cup and Copa America Calender: 2010: World Cup 2011: ______, Asian Cup 2012: Euro 2013: or ______here It could be the year after the World Cup or the 3 years after the World Cup whichever is best. 16 teams with 4 group of 4: 9 of the best South American teams from World Cup qualifying 7 of the best CONCACAF teams from World Cup qualifying (6 from the hex + the best team that didn't qualify for the hex)
This is UEFA´s/Blatter´s dream, eliminate as many non-European tournaments as possible. Both CONMEBOL and CONCACAF had to reorganize themselves just to accomodate their whining. I think both the Copa America and Gold Cup should continue as they are. Mexico and the occasional US/ Costa Rica/ Honduras have done decently down south, but in general most of our countries would get clobbered even by weaker SA teams, and the Gold Cup has always been a way for smaller CONCACAF nations to develop and test themselves in a serious competition. CONMEBOL nations have come here and gotten their asses handed to them, so I really don´t see any benefits in combining the two.
Even though this is one of the more recycled topics on bigsoccer i believe that it is new believe pc4th had an idea (of how the teams would qualify) that i think is very interesting. However i do think that the tournument should be the same year as the Euro. If you make it every two years then i believe that the popular Brazilians such as Kaka and Ronaldinho would play because they would have a summer to rest between tournaments. It kills the credibility of a tournament when the best players decline to play. Although some believe that concacaf nations wouldnt fair so well i tend to disagree, since 1995 at least one concacaf team has achieved at least 4th place(except in 2004). Some may say that not all teams would be able to compete a high enough level to win however not all teams are able to compete in the Gold Cup too its almost given that the US or Mexico will win so it really doesn't hurt anybody. And i also believe that the more different styles of soccer on display the more chance of an upset.
I think it would be good, but i would choose it on the year right after the WC, that summer only has youth tourneys and nothin big, the Euro year is packed with Olympics and African cup earlier in the year. That way we can have the so called qualifiers right after the WC summer and it would give alot of small teams more continuous competition. Concacaf wouldn't fair as bad as most think, I believe that besides the US and mexies, Honduras CR and even Jamaica and TnT could fare decent in a tourney like that.
If you want to go head to head with the Euro and the Olympics. Which ever year is best get my vote. It would make this tournament better and taken more seriously by the star players. I would rank the prestige of international tournament as follow out of 10 World Cup 10 Euro 9 Copa America 6 Asian Cup 6 Gold Cup 5 African Cup of Nations 5 Confederation Cup 4 In the Euro, all teams send their A-team. In Gold Cup, Copa America, not all teams send their best. If it's combined and only once every 4 years, we will see all nations sending their best to compete. p.s. How would a typical soccer fan outside of the Americas (let's say he's in New Zealand) rank the importance of the international competitions out of 10? They probably don't think highly of Gold Cup or Copa America.
That doesn't make any sense. How would it be taken seriously by the teams that don't send their best (for example, Argentina and Brazil), when you are adding teams that are worse than what the competition already has. Mexico already plays in every Copa America and there is no Concacaf team that is stronger than Mexico in such tournament. If anything, the big teams might send worse talent because they would be playing more games, against worse competition. There is no question that having all of Concacaf in the Copa America would lower the level of play.
I see no advantage in this combined tournament to the vast majority of CONCACAF members or to CONMEBOL members. I do think that the Gold Cup could be reduced to once every four years but I don't understand why people keep trying to lump North and South America together.