2018 CONCACAF Champions League Thread

Good thing for them Liga MX froze pro/rel for 3 season.

 

Chivas less talented than Sounders, Red Bulls and Toronto? I am guessing, and it's only a guess, you are basing it off on how Chivas performed at the league. But if that is the case, than take a look at Toronto which is second to last in MLS and cant seem to win. And Seattle is just like Toronto, a bottom feeder. But if it's not based on how they performed in the league, then it can't be because of money either. Chivas total worth is more than Seattle, RBNY and Toronto. So how is it a less talented team?

 

Chivas has a handful of DP-quality guys in Pizarro, Pulido, Pineda, Alanis, and their keeper Cota. Toronto also has a handful: Giovinco, Jozy, Bradley, Osorio and Marky. But overall Chivas probably has the more valuable team.

It's not so much that Chivas was on paper weaker, but that on the field they were looking less in form than Toronto & the Red Bulls, or America and Tigres.

The last two, though, got the most expensive players, full squad considered. And Tigres more than America, with guys like Gignac, Valencia, Aquino, Edu Vargas, Carioca and Sosa.

 

Yes, playerwise, Chivas has a good team and a good coach. As to why they do poorly in the league, who knows. As to the form, Chivas and Liga MX teams should have a better form since their league is past halfway by the time they face MLS teams. According to Transfer Market Chivas is the 6th most expensive Mexican club at 40 million, almost on par with Toronto who is at 33 million. The least "talented", if based on money alone, are RBNY at 20 million and Seattle at 19 million. IMO, that is why Toronto was able to compete with America, Tigres and Chivas. The more money, the better quality of players you can get. Although, money isn't always the solution it sure does help as we can see even in Liga MX teams.

 

Check the table of how Chivas has done over 4 semesters. Shit look at the one over 6 semesters.

 

I watch Liga MX too. Chivas doesn't do that well everytime, doesn't mean they are "less talented". Vergara, contrary to what its fans say, dumps a lot of money into the team. Its just that most of the time the team just doesn't function on the league but in an International competition it does pretty good for the limits it has.

 

At that point where Almeyda needed to decide which competition to chose to go all in, he had more of a shot at CCL. You don't depend on anyone but yourself. To make la Liguilla he needed results and combinations from other games like teams above them losing. Plus also them winning all their upcoming games to guarantee they finished in the top 8. What he chose was the correct choice and it paid off.

 

Big Soccer just hads to add a "lol" smiley hahaha

 

So... we thought this was the best of MLS vs a weak Mexican team. Instead it was a weak MLS team vs a weak Mexican team...

 

That was the belief of most, but not everyone

Now in fairness, Toronto is nowhere near as bad as their record due to injuries. But the league added a ton of young, high level attacking talent while Toronto largely just held onto what they had. A big problem is that the in Toronto's key attacking player is no longer the in-his prime star that came into the league 3 years ago, but instead a still talented player whose 31+ year old body seems to be losing the quickness needed to create the extra yard of space he used to dominate the league when he joined.

BTW, a couple of the other MLS teams in the competition, Seattle and Colorado, are not exactly the elite of the league either.

 

TFC-Tigres rematch in the “Campeones Cup”:
https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018/07/15/toronto-fc-face-tigres-uanl-campeones-cup

 

TFC seem like they need to focus on their regular seasons from now on...

Anyway, how does this Cup work? Single game on the field of the MLS side? As I mentioned over on the friendlies side, attendance for the Campeon de Campeones in L.A. was kind of... disastrous. Will this Campeones Cup bring more people?

 

If things keep going the way they are, Toronto's season will be over by Sept 19.

Canadians show up for this kind of stuff.. I'm sure they'll fill BMO.

 

And they are facing the Ottawa Fury this Wednesday in the Canadian Championship. We might see an upset like Montreal did to them in 2009 when they were in USL

 

That is not the biggest problem. Giovinco is still a dangerous force. The heart of the problem is that Mike Bradley seems to have cashed in his career, and the Toronto attack is backed by a hollow, unnervingly unreliable, midfield.

 

Colorado tried that strategy. It hasn't gone well.

 

Bradley is broken. I think missing the WC wounded him and losing the CCL in the fashion they did might have broken him. He needs to go to Cambodia for a while.

 

World Cup final DAY even

Tigres actually had a game in South Texas against Santos last week and it didn't draw that well either...

 

Can TFC afford to bench him for a game or two? Or will that just destroy what's left of his ego?

 

BTW, if anyone is curious I could 42 non-American leagues that had games yesterday (leagues, not countries, so many were in the same country). That's compared to 83 leagues with games scheduled next Sunday.