Yes, the canadian football with montreal in 2008 showed with the right state of mind he has the level of this competition
Besides the fact that they won their national cup, and that's how Canada determines their berth. Or would you prefer that they just randomly pick someone out of Canada? But more to the point, NONE OF THIS has to do with the coefficient. Please take it to another topic. Thanks.
There is no "national" Cup in Canada...3 teams play themselves off to see who gets most points...That's not a "national" Cup.
That is the closest thing they have. They get a spot from concacaf and that is how they decide to award it. It is up to them.
Well, soccer in Canada is highly irregular. It's not like the soccer environment/structure there is the same as most other countries in the world. What other country has only three teams that are fully professional besides places like Luxembourg, etc? And not only that, but consider the logistics issues they would have with a fully national tournament. I doubt most of the smaller teams would travel across the country knowing that they are destined to lose.
A fair and valid point, and thanks for considering my suggestion. However, you criticism also applies to giving 4 bonus points to teams that make group. In fact, I'd say the criticism is more valid in that case. First off, half the field makes group directly and doesn't have to play anyone. One could argue there is merit involved, but certainly not in direct competition with teams from other associations. Whereas every team that makes the KO round had to earn it on the field. Second, the preliminary round is a two-leg playoff, while group is six games. The justified criticism about giving a lot of bonus points to two teams that are only separated by say, one goal, is going to happen far more frequently in the preliminary stages than in group. Simply put, GD (or one goal in one game) is going to be the deciding factor in the preliminary round more often than in group, where teams are going to distance themselves more (I think). Granted, there will be some awful mismatches in preliminary round (Mexican team v. Minnow), but by and large, I think six games is a fairer evaluation of which team is better than two legs. I have no data whatsoever to back this claim at all, but I think the reasoning is sound.
It's a (hilariously) sad day when I have to sift through pages of this thread to find the last coefficient update. But based on it, and on CONCACAF's less refined "advancing to the next stage" criterion, it seems like this year's Saprissa may have single-handedly saved Costa Rica's automatic spot in the group stages, assuming that Central America gets to keep 4 for next year. Which is funny because that same Saprissa has team has domestically looked...well, like Seattle would have had they maintained their pre-Ljungberg-departure form for the entire year.
Well, there have been some pretty lopsided scorelines in this competition in the prelim stages. I've seen Mexican teams run up double digits on some teams. If you are getting beat 10-0, you are a minnow (apologies to Feyenoord).
What I'm about to say doesn't actually disprove your point, but: the worst beating to-date in the CCL-era was handed out to a team that had qualified directly to the group stage (Toluca 7-0 Marathon, 2009-10 CCL).
With the pairings set, and the 'advance to the next stage' method, the US has simultaneously been hurt and helped. Helped in that we're guaranteed to get one. Hurt in that we can't get 2 points for the quarterfinals. Not that it matters. It'll just potentially make it more difficult for CONCACAF to come up with the mathematical argument they'll use to justify 4 US teams in the '11-'12 tournament. And there's an interesting exercise for the mathematically inclined: come up with a formula using the current data (plus some reasonable projections for the remainder of this tournament) that supports the US getting four teams in the next tournament.
In all honesty, until I hear otherwise, I'm assuming that CONCACAF punted on the re-formatting and that the 2011-12 tournament will be set up like the previous ones. At least, we heard zilch about the CCL at that high-profile CONCACAF meeting when they decided to go for 4 World Cups pots.
The easiest way to get there is to ignore 2008-2009. Under ArsenalMetro's coefficient, the US had the second-best record (after Mexico, of course) in the 2009-2010 tournament. They could well finish with the second-best record in this tournament as well--they're not going to pass Mexico but are guaranteed with this draw to pass Canada, and are ahead of Honduras and Costa Rica (the only teams who could pass them). If you ignore 2008-2009, the US are currently in second place overall and likely to stay there, justifying more entrants than anyone else. The next easiest way is to include the CCC to get to five years of results. In the 2007 and 2008 CCC, both American teams made the semifinals. The only countries to get farther were Costa Rica (once) and Mexico. You'd have to come up with a more complex formula to merge this with the CCL data, but it would certainly help the U.S.'s case. Both of these methods go to show why UEFA uses five years' worth of results rather than two or three to set their coefficients: to prevent one fluke of a year from drastically changing the coefficients. The fact is, for the last five years, the US has been consistently the second-best nation represented in the CCC and CCL, except for in the fluke year of 2008-2009, when two MLS teams crapped out in the prelims and DC stunk up the group stage. If you ignore that fluke year, or put it in context, it doesn't seem like such a stretch.
All you have to do is look at Metros attendance thread and you will see why the USA will keep getting 4 spots in the CCL.
I don't know why, but performance in the CCC was drastically different from what we're seeing in the CCL. I've mentioned this before, but Mexico, Costa Rica, and the US were miles ahead of the other countries in the CCC. Only Mexico has continued up in front like that, and even they have had some losses that would have seemed unthinkable back in the CCC days. So to your point, I'm not sure bringing the CCC into it would be wise, since the whole thing was very different from what we have now.
There are a couple of outside factors, such as the rise of decent teams in Canada, Panama and Puerto Rico. And for Costa Rica, the best answer I've got is that after making two World Cups in a row (2002 and 2006), the lower European leagues took notice, and drained the Costa Rican league of its best talent (e.g. today's Saprissa being a pale shadow of the team that got 3rd place in the Club World Cup a few years ago). But for the US, it does bear mentioning that in the CCC, we automatically got two teams placed in the quarterfinal round, with only two Mexican teams and the aforementioned Ticos providing any real opposition. Now, having four Mexican clubs in the CCL makes it that much harder for everyone else to win the title.
There's also the factor that the US got to host many of the CCC mathches. But the tournament is getting better and more fair. Hopefully, it will continue to do so.
I realize it's a different tournament with different conditions--my point was that while adding in the CCC might distort things, leaving it out also distorts things, by giving the US's terrible performance in the 2008-09 CCL undue importance. As for your other point--in fact, the US is still the most successful non-Mexican country in the tournament in terms of actual results. Two teams in the quarters this year, one in the quarters and two narrowly missing the knockout stage last year. Only 2008-09 breaks the pattern--which is why we should look at a larger picture when talking about who does and doesn't deserve spots in the tournament.
But if we're just looking at making it to the quarterfinals, then even over the last two years, we find: USA: 3 teams / 8 = 37.5% Honduras: 2 teams / 6 = 33 % And over 3 years... USA: 4 teams / 12 = 33% Honduras: 3 teams / 8 = 37.5% That is, the number of teams that we get in the quarterfinals may have something more to do with the number of teams we get to start out with, but in the 3 years of the CCL, the US hasn't really outdone Honduras. Assuming, of course, that we're not counting the Islanders as American.
With the knockouts coming up in a month and a half (already???), and with the most recent coefficients back about 9 pages, I thought I'd post this up again, and make it a little more accessible.
Which league coefficient is Canada counted on?To my knowledge there is no Canadian professional league.
Montreal in 2008 and Toronto in 2010. They are MLS but make it to the CCL by the way of the UCC. So the league coeficint would be for the Canada Championship, technically not a league.