I always found it a bit odd a continental champion might not be the champion of their own league. Kind of takes the shine off the former a little bit, or at least emphasizes it’s a different competitive structure. I agree it’s a great accompaniment but only half the bargain if you don’t win the league.
As a native German speaker I can assure you Bayern would prefer to win the UCL over the league. Nothing like a continental title. And with the expanded CWC you could have winners who did not win the domestic league or confederation champions league that year.
At Bayern you must win the League at minimum, and preferably a league / DFB Pokal Double. Making the UCL Semi's is also usually the minimum goal as well.
Neymar back on the field in a thrilling match between CWC participants. Infantino must be pleased. If Saudi end up underwriting the tournament I’m sure they will find an “intra-PIF” arrangement to loan Ronaldo to Al Hilal from Al Nassr.
As a neutral I rank the Premier League title ahead of the CL in terms of capturing my interest. Ditto with MLS Cup and the CCC.
I lived in Zurich. I didn't meet a single local who was interested in soccer. Cycling, skiing, ice hockey, Formula One, hiking, basketball, track and field and extreme sports...no soccer. But that was 30 years ago.
I only rank MLS Cup ahead of the CCC because of timing. You win MLS Cup and its over. You've won the final game of the season. Its climactic.
Food for thought: If Argentina and Brazil weren't good at soccer we'd be saying the same thing about the World Cup as we are about the CWC. All it will take is an Asian and an MLS superclub and its game on for this competition.
I guess you'd have to ask a Seattle fan what they're prouder of. I think domestic first, CCC nice to have. If course we don't have the same teams playing in CCC every year.
Nearly 30 years ago I lived in Austin, Texas. There was no MLS team in Austin or Houston and Alain Sutter joined a Dallas Burn still playing at the Cotton Bowl. 30 years is a long time. That said, in my lifetime soccer has always been the number one team sport in Switzerland (followed by ice hockey). You never made it to a FC Zurich or Grasshoppers match?
That's a very fair point and why there needs to be synergy created in CONCACAF with these tournaments and domestic seasons. I've watched some Liga MX and Leagues Cup but when teams are already qualified in Liga MX before they get to LC it's less compelling to watch a team that if they win, some other team that's not playing gets in to CCC. . It you're a follower of the Canadian Premier League, how excited are you to watch your team play almost two months before the season starts? Do you think there is any chance of ever making it to the CWC when you need to win a tournament that starts before preseason?
I wasn't even aware when they were playing. I flew over to England to watch Notts County a few times.
Personally, I'm most proud of winning the CCL. No other MLS team can say that for the "modern era". MLS Cup comes after that.
If you just go by history, the most impressive thing Seattle did is break the Open Cup attendance record. That record stood something like 80 years.
Yeah this was a concern in the early days of expansion, but at this point, we're pretty much over it. Champions League is just a league you qualify to using domestic competition. Its a European championship but its not a league for champions.
Looks like it really is blame FIFA and not MLS for the Miami call Well the Twitter/BigSoccer implementation is being a pain so I'll copy paste. From Tannenwald's Twitter:
Imagine for a minute Miami wins the Cup against the LA Galaxy. Two teams that spent big money this past off-season to build their roster. With rumors of Neymar possibly wanting to sign with Miami and the team being in the CWC this would be a prime time for owners of teams to argue this would be a good time to expand roster budgets. . You can understand how CWC in America needs some hype as I don't think they even have a media partner yet and Apple is the only one to make a bid. Would it be farfetched to think some Apple GAM is added to get the tournament and some players to feature for the league and FIFA?
I expect an agreement to be announced in Spring 2026 enabling a 4th DP to be signed after the World Cup Final. Then they'll announce an increased budget and loosening of the roster regulations from 2027 after sign-off from the MLSPA. The MLSPA will want to ensure that domestic players benefit from the post WC salaryapalooza.
See that's where it gets sketchy. More money for better talent might also mean less jobs for MLS vets at the bottom but still a Union member. Next year they could probably stop counting transfer fees and DP players against the budget and turn that into GAM. There already is a deal to increase GAM and get rid some TAM in the future. It would give Seattle and Miami just a little more to spend on a ÇWC roster. It be nice if they could win some games against more evenly matched leagues outside Europe.
That isn't going to change anything. It's literally reclassifying funds that are already available from TAM to GAM. The reason the MLSPA wanted this is because it limits the amount of money that can be used on foreign talent. At the end of the gay the current CBA that MLS and the MLSPA ratified ends at midnight on December 31, 2027. Neither side is going to come to the table prior to January 1, 2027. Its' in the MLSPA's best interest to wait it out through 2027 to see just how much of a bump MLS will get from the 2026 WC.
GAM can be used to pay down the salary cap hit of a non-Designated Player down to the league minimum salary or a Designated Player’s salary down to $150,000, reducing a player’s budget charge by up to 50% or reducing a DP or TAM player to a limit of $150,000, whilst TAM is used to pay down cap hits of signings whose wages surpass the $651,250 salary cap maximum but do not exceed the $1,651,250 TAM threshold for 2023. . It's just the opposite as it can be used on anyone and brings down the budget charge. Changing transfer fees and the budget charge are the two easiest ways to add money to the roster without really adding a ton of revenue. . If you had 5 million in GAM and signed five players for a million each at three years each with transfer fees no longer added, that would open up $333,333 every year for those three years. That's enough for a quality backup goalie or defender. You could also use it to keep players by redoing their contract and buying it down.
TAM was specifically created to allow teams another mechanism to sign better talent, but not need to use a DP spot on them. That's it. The MLSPA didn't like this, because they want that money to be used on existing players to pay them more. That's it in a nutshell....... According to the CBA, MLS is going to REDUCE the amount of TAM each season. The reduction of TAM is going to be shifted over to the GAM pot. This is being done at the behest of the MLSPA. That's it. IF the owners want to "loosen the reigns" before the next CBA is negotiated...... they're going to have to come up with a new mechanism to do so that would need to be outside of the current guidelines in the CBA. IOW, it won't be an increase in GAM or TAM. It would be surprising if they decoupled the transfer fees from the budget charges as that would INCREASE the costs to the owners. They'll introduce something in the vein of the U22 initiative (as an example).
The first part is from the website. TAM was created to force teams to spend more but less than a DP. GAM just buys down the budget which next year is set at $5,950,000 with the maximum charge being $743,750. You can use GAM to change the maximum down to the minimum.