Is it wrong of me to say "sit him during this CL match because the regular season is more important" ?? Am I wrongfully devaluing the Concacaf CL?
No. I doubt anyone here cares about the CCL. Would it be nice to have a run in the CCL? Sure, but as the t-shirt says... keep your eyes on the prize.
MLS cup has already been won. CCL hasn't. You can always catch up in the pursuit of the MLS Cup even if you have a first half bad season. Just look at Seattle in the past and even Toronto this past season. Afterall 7 teams do make the playoffs. If we say we don't care about CCL because we know we can't win it regardless then that's a totally different point.
I don't think anyone here believes Atlanta can win the CCL. It's possible, but there are simply too many unknowns for any of us to make an informed call. What we do know is that there are several other teams in the competition that are equal or more talented and, most importantly, more intact from last season that they're likely far ahead in terms of chemistry and game planning. That and having America as the 2nd round opponent doesn't bode well. Think they don't want revenge from last year's Campeones Cup? Everyone wants to win the event, and we're certainly not wishing Atlanta to lose on purpose. But I don't want to have the team ruin players for longer stretches chasing a trophy that is more beyond their reach than others. For now the odds of winning the MLS Cup are better than the CCL. Aim for that and demonstrate the same perennial contender mentality that we see in Seattle. Be the next big club in your league rather than a flash in the pan.
You are right, but the tournament is not geared for MLS success. To say we don't care was harsh on my part. Perhaps I should have said we won't be disappointed if we don't do well. And I am going to call it here. This team lifts the Cup! HUP! ATLANTA, HUP!
I doubt America care one way or the other about that. I don't think we'd have spent much time worrying about it if we'd lost to them. Honestly, I think we still have some respect left over from LMF and their fans from the Tata days. I've even managed to get some of the Amigos on this site to admit that they know we're not the typical Blutarski (pronounced "physical" by Facebook-level followers of the game) MLS club. Agreed.
Still nothing on Arzamendia... are we even trying anymore, or are we going to swim/sink with what we have for this season? I wish Atlanta as a city was the sort of draw for footy talent that Miami is.
I agree, but it's a long season. As stated before, a ton of teams make it to the playoffs. As far as I'm concerned the shield is the least important trophy we can win, so as long as we make the playoffs in good form I'd be happy. I'd be ok with mortgaging the first month of the season to go for CCL. Mostly because I just want to see Atlanta at the Club World Championship.
I agree that the Shield isn't really an important trophy because MLS has a playoff to determine its champion, and yeah, a lot of teams make the playoffs. But I do think avoiding a road playoff game at Yankee Stadium is crucial now that we use single-leg rounds. I would be happy to mortgage a month if I believed it would lead to the CCL title. I'm not willing to do it just to bow out in the final or semis like TFC did, tho.
I'm about halfway to that point, and pretty much always have been. Everything about it --the money LMX has, the scheduling we have-- pretty much puts MLS at a disadvantage. I mean, I'd love to win it, but I don't think I want to risk dropping a couple of playoff seeds in the attempt.
With regards to the CCL it appears as if Atlanta's return leg against Motagua will be shown on Fox Sports 1. Plenty of good seats still available if you want to be on tv.
When it comes to CCL everyone brings up TFC and how they "suffered" to get to the final. Yet no one mentions RBNY of that same 2018. They lost to Chivas eventually in the semis but on stats (I know stats don't matter if you don't score) they dominated Chivas in that second leg. We could have had an all MLS final. RBNY moved on to win the Supporters Shield that year while also participating deep in CCL while TFC fell apart. As to why that happened, it could come down to the coach. TFC went all out on CCL with their main line up and all using those same players on league play too instead of rotating players (they were losing the MLS games while winning CCL games, might as well rest your starters and give the bench some minutes). IMO, in order to win CCL, even with everything against MLS by MLS on doing nonetheless such as salary cap and preseason, you need a special team with the right players all firing on the same tune. And you also need to rotate and rest those players which is a thing teams such as TFC and SKC didn't do. RBNY already showed you can compete in both tournaments and still win the SS, you just have to be smart about it. As for this CCL and what I've seen so far in preseason of ATL, I lost all hope. But I still want to win. I don't understand why many MLS fans in general give up in seeing their team compete in CCL.
No one is giving up, we're simply prioritizing a different competition. Would love to win it, will be there cheering the team on, but competing on a lot of fronts is a tall order for a side with so many new pieces. (Methinks the RBNY side you're referencing had been largely intact for 3 seasons.)
FWIW I just watched Forest @ WBA from the English Championship. 5 vs 1 in the tables. Overall a sloppy game with all sorts of errant passes and half-hearted running. For this match at least I'd rate MLS the better product.
Regarding the CCL, I think we learned a lot from last year when our expectations were sky high and the front office placed equal importance on the league, Open Cup, and CCL. Hopefully all involved have learned a lesson and the club will realistically prioritize our goals. Looking forward to finally watching real football on Tuesday night. Hup, Atlanta, Hup!
Understanding that the scheduling does hamstring MLS a lot, I think that winning CCL would be a bigger deal overall than winning MLS Cup. Particularly since we have a recent MLS Cup in the trophy case. CCL would put international sponsors on notice that MLS is realistically on par with Liga MX. The Campeones Cup was a nice trophy to have, for sure, but it's not like beating multiple Liga MX teams over home-and-away matches in a tournament format. Given that the MLS playoffs are about half the league, I'd be willing to take the hit on some regular season games if required (must beat Nashville, though... can't let them get uppity right out of the box). Getting TV deals, sponsors, and Mexican-American fans are all big-money issues for the league in ways that MLS Cup cannot be.
Absolutely it would be a bigger deal. I think it would be a much more difficult task, tho, and might destroy or reduce the chances we have of winning what we probably are still good enough to win. We're not on par with LMX. MLS is a seller league dedicated to development, and we're a seller club dedicated to development. The best thing AUFC can do is try to be the best club it can be, and not take on the mantle of savior of a league that was never intended to be great in the first place. It is what it is. We might get more sponsorship as a result of winning, but it wouldn't put anyone on notice about anything MLS except that one winning club. The MLS club that finally does win it will have had to battle its own league's fetish for parity and financial limitations as much as its opponents on the pitch. And, frankly... I'd rather read trashtalk every once in a while from Mexicans about MLS not winning a CCL --especially when I know most of it isn't coming from fans of the actual champion-- than read it daily on the sites I visit because another MLS team got there before we did. Porto won the UCL a few years back. It didn't raise their league's status. That team was young and loaded... and the individual players were soon sold off to perennially relevant clubs precisely because the Portuguese league is not one of UEFA's finest and Porto didn't have the clout or the money to keep them. You'd be willing to lose some reg season games, knowing we no longer have a two-legged playoff format? Agree that MLS needs all of the above.
MLS is not a seller league nor we are a developmental league. There are very few teams that have sold successfully but that is about it. MLS as a league imports way more than it exports. MLS is trying to be a seller league but we are too far away from that still happening. And I agree with @SabreKhan. Winning CCL (any MLS team) would bring MLS to new heights. Only way to measure the growth in quality of the league is by International competitions. It will certainly bring new fans over for the league specially those that are on the fence about the quality of the league. The more eyeballs, the better for the league. Or at least that is what I personally think. Everyone brings up the preseason excuse, including me, but would playing CCL from August to October/November be any better? Our next excuse would be that we shouldn't risk making the playoffs because of CCL interference with them. There really isn't a good time for MLS to play in CCL without interfering with League play. It is something all leagues around the world deal with.
Porto is limited by Portugal. That would be like having an entire professional league in just Ohio (closest I could get to land area and population equivalence). The teams who win UEFA's Champions' League are generally from England, Spain, Germany, or Italy, nations with huge relatively wealthy populations. Somehow France and Russia haven't managed to compete. The United States has a huge extremely wealthy population. MLS was designed for slow growth, but once it matures fully, it will absolutely rival the NFL. I wasn't sure about that in '95, but I'm surer every day now. We are just now seeing a league with players who grew up watching it. I truly believe we're in a period of rapid growth, not just in numbers of teams, but in quality as well. Quality on and off the field. Sure, you'll occasionally still get Colorado Rapids vs. Houston Dynamo, but more often you're watching a much better product. Porto is arguably tapping into the greatest available potential in Portugal and in Europe. MLS teams are barely touching the tip of the iceberg when it comes to potential, in every sense of the word.