Is it a Final Four? I thought I heard the semi was home and away. Most likely the Final will be in the Rose Bowl for the $$.
Where did you hear that? The games have to fit in the same FIFA window, so there's no time for home-and-away semis (as awesome as that would be).
Hopefully CONCACAF takes this opportunity to stick the final phase of the 2019-20 Nations League outside the U.S. Awarding the semifinals to the top seeds (presumably Mexico and Honduras) would be best, but a neutral site elsewhere in CONCACAF would also be fine. Let's see how the team fares outside the country against opponents more challenging than Canada and Cuba, as the U.S. only played those two national teams in non-home matches in 2019.
This thing is obviously going to be played in the US, but I'd raise two points. 1) If the host was going to be based on results, that should have been announced when the competition was. 2) What neutral location is available that is going to have anyone attend with a final four of Mexico, the United States, Costa Rica, and Honduras? Anyway, ******** Mexico for always pulling this heartbreaking shit when they don't deserve it. Great effort, Bermuda.
League A: Mexico, USA, Honduras, and Costa Rica have won their groups. Mexico will play Costa Rica in the semis and The USMNT will play Honduras. All 4 have qualified for 2021 The Gold Cup Canada, Martinique, Curacao, and Panama will stay in League A as well as qualify for the Gold Cup Cuba, Bermuda, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago have been relegated. All 4 will need to win a 2 legged playoff to qualify for The Gold Cup League B: Grenada, El Salvador, Jamaica, and Suriname have won promotion and have qualified for The Gold Cup French Guiana, Montserrat, Guyana, and St. Vincent and The Grenadines will stay in League B, but can still qualify for The Gold Cup if they win 2, 2 legged playoffs. Belize, Dominican Republic, Antigua and Barbuda, Nicaragua will stay in League B but can not qualify for The Gold Cup St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, Dominica, and Aruba will be relegated to League C. None of them can qualify for The Gold Cup. League C: Cayman Islands, Guatemala, Bahamas, and Guadeloupe have been promoted to League B and can qualify for The Gold Cup if they win 2, 2 legged playoffs. Barbados, St. Martin, U.S Virgin Islands, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Anguilla, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Sint Maarten will remain in League C. They can not qualify for The Gold Cup.
yep definitely just a final four setup. 2 semis, a final, and a 3rd place game. No home/away. Games almost certainly to be in US. These will all factor into FIFA rankings for June in which the WCQ draw/seedings will be taken from.
Too bad. The only point of this tournament was to get experience playing in Central America and we are not going to do it.
In theory we could schedule friendlies abroad in Central America. I realize the CNL was supposed to replace some friendlies, but not all of them right? That said, I can't recall us scheduling exhibitions against Concacaf teams anyplace but the US, and given the financial incentives at play it's hard to see that changing. And with UEFA also doing a Nations League it's going to be tougher to find space in their schedule for friendlies away.
For those who like a visual aid: Posiciones finales de la Liga A de la Liga de Naciones de Concacaf. pic.twitter.com/MkotfaU45z— UNCAF / Oficial (@uncaf) November 20, 2019 Posiciones finales de la Liga B de la Liga de Naciones de Concacaf. pic.twitter.com/WPFNuzFH4T— UNCAF / Oficial (@uncaf) November 20, 2019 Posiciones finales de la Liga C de la Liga de Naciones de Concacaf. pic.twitter.com/rSlTNIKmmp— UNCAF / Oficial (@uncaf) November 20, 2019
A reminder that CNL isn't really designed for the big teams in CONCACAF: Bermuda coach Kyle Lightbourne on the CONCACAF Nations League: It's been v important. It allows us to have more regular games and allows us to grow. Hats off to CONCACF for doing this. Some might not want it, but it’s a world game and it gives us the chance to develop.— Tom Marshall (@mexicoworldcup) November 20, 2019 Bermuda led Mexico for about 20 minutes and was only beaten by an added time goal.
Wrong - it is only 1 to 9 June. To use the rest of the month, you have to have gotten your tournament on the FIFA Calendar.
Mexico almost dropped points to Bermuda, at home. Fire Tata! Seriously though, it is nice to see the smaller nations get some run. Bermuda, Curacao, and Haiti were all very respectable in League A. And Montserrat staying up in League B was cool.
Curacao are a team to watch to be honest... their ascent over the last couple of years has been amazing. They played here in Doha vs the soon-to-be Asian champs Qatar and won! Then the performance in the Gold Cup.. if FIFA / Concacaf hadn't royally screwed up the qualification hex-semifinals, they might have had an outside shot of making the hex...
Based off eloratings, the highest moving nations over the past year... 1. Grenada +142 2. Montserrat +132 3. Mexico +117 3. Bermuda +117 5. St. Vincent / Grenadines +99 6. Curaco +80 Curacao are ranked over 200 pts behind Canada in elo but in FIFA rankings, they're just 16 behind. Could make a jump to the top 6 if they keep up the hot streak.
I think both Semifinals and the Final will be in the same country. Playing in different countries could give the Finalists unequal travel. For example, if one Semifinal was at MetLife Stadium in NJ, one Semifinal was in Mexico or Central America, and the Final was in Texas or Los Angeles, the Semifinal winner from NJ would have a longer flight.
Perhaps, but assuming we get the NJ game, we could make up for the longer flight distance by stalling our opponents in immigration and customs, and excluding their coach and/or a couple of key players. Problem solved!
It's not a coincidence, last November Suriname changed its nationalization policies to allow "sports-passports" for Dutch footballers with Surinamese heritage... not sure if Curacao did a similar thing but both Dutch-speaking nations are rising simultaneously while Dutch football is enjoying some sort of a renaissance in Europe too.....