Concacaf Champions League

I find it so awesome that they're giving a slot to the US Open Cup winner.

It's about time.

Although, I'd rather USA3 go to the Supporters' Shield runner-up rather than the MLS Cup runner-up. And they should have given USA4 this year to the Open Cup runner-up, FC Dallas. Instead they give the spot reserved for that competition to a team in a different competition?

 

Fair enough and agreed that it's great for the USOC to final get its due, even if only in words.

I'm not too upset about the 2nd US4 being based on the regular season. The more emphasis on the regular season the better.

 

Great is it in? Now we''ll probably see the level of play increase in the Open Cup.

Good news all around.

 

MLS really needs to expand their roster size if teams want to be able to field a team other than their reserves in the US Open Cup. Teams will now be competing in regular season, superliga, champions league and us open cup matches is their 18 man senior roster plus 10 player development squad enough for that?

 

the CCL calendar is a horrible set up

 

http://www.hexagonalblog.com/ is surprised that CFU 1 didn't get a group stage spot. Who do you think is more deserving of a group stage spot, CFU 1 or El Salvador 1?

 

Neither. El Salvador's spot should go to Costa Rica. And Panama should lose their second spot (giving CR three overall).

Given that choice, though, I think that El Salvador is probably more worthy than the CFU champ.

 

They still haven't touched on any possible seeding for the qualifying round.

 

Well, there's a draw date, right? Aren't they just doing a random draw?

I guess we'll find out on the 11th.

 

Are they? Part of the issue is that we have no idea. Can teams of the same confederation be drawn against each other? Are the teams in two pots (seeded/non-seeded)? How is home/away determined? CONCACAF is, as usual, not forthcoming with any of this information.

By comparision, we pretty much know every detail of UEFA's competitions. It's quite transparent.

Well, we'll learnt he resutls, but we might not learn the mechanism.

 

Probably because the mechanism is "what combination will make us the most money?"

 

Or perhaps... "catering to whatever team/league pays off Jack Warner"?

 

Us = Jack Warner.

Sorry for the misunderstanding...

 

If seeding is part of the draw, it will be interesting to see where Canada falls.

(after decades of absence it should be unseeded, leaving the possibility of a "MLS series")

 

They really should have left a berth for the defending champion, or at least announced whether they will take the example UEFA made for their Champions' League...

 

If they rank Canada based on the strength of our domestic league (non-existant) we will be dead last and surely will face a Mexican side in the prelim. However, if they rank based on Canada's FIFA ranking (which doesn't seem too far-fetched considering the gap between USA and Costa Ricas number of entries) we could end up being ranked above several other squads.

Personnally I'm just hoping whatever Canadian team gets in that we don't get drawn against a Mexican team and then we'll have a chance.

 

Most likely, the draw would be done talking the most successful leagues as of recently (last 20 years). For the preliminary stage, there will be 16 teams. I have to conclude from that that CONCACrap will have 1 side to be MMLS, MFL, CR 2nd, Guatemala 2nd, Honduras 2nd, and El Salvador 2nd and the rest on the other side. Even more important, those 6 leagues were given at least 1 spot automatically. I understand CONCACrap outrageouly gave MMLS 4 spots when we are the ones who deserved 4 but even they are not stupid enough to have any of those 6 leagues face each other in the preliminary stage.

MMLS Cup 2nd vs TBD
MMLS SS 2nd vs TBD
MFL Apertura 2nd vs TBD
MFL Clausura 2nd vs TBD
Costa Rica 2nd vs TBD
Guatemala 2nd vs TBD
Honduras 2nd vs TBD
El Salvador 2nd vs TBD

To make financial sense and to help out MMLS, I am pretty sure that the 2 Caribbean teams will be facing the MMLS sides. Everything else could be random.

 

That does seem most logical. Hopefully one day we can get some sort of league and team coefficient to do the draws for prelim and group stage soon.

 

Since there is no berth for the holders, they obviously are not following UEFA's example.

The last time the holders automatically qualified was in the 1999 CONCACAF Champions Cup, when DC United competed as defending champions. Under the format of the time, DC would have qualified anyway for a play-in round as MLS Cup runner-up. As holders they instead were placed directly into the quarterfinals, and the play-in slot was given to a third US team, Supporters Shield winners LA, who competed and lost in the play-in round.

 

The defending champion has never been given an automatic spot. DC United qualified to the quaterfinals for being MMLS Cup runner-up. Since DC United were also the SS winners, "their" unused spot were given to the Galaxy and the Galaxy played against Mexico's 2nd in a playoff for a spot in the CCC.

 

First of all, the "MMLS" stuff is really tired. This isn't the rivalries forum.

Yes, they have. In 1997 and 1998, the format was:

7 teams qualified directly to quaterfinals:

Holders
MEX 1 -- Spring season champion
USA 1 -- MLS Cup champion
3 Central American qualifiers
1 Caribbean qualifier

The 8th quarterfinalist was determined by a play-in round between MEX 2 (fall season champion) and USA 2 (MLS Cup runner-up).

In both 1998 and 1999, the defending champions (Cruz Azul and DC United) also happened to qualify for the play-in round as their country's #2 team. As holders they were bumped up to the quarterfinals and another team (Leon and LA) was bumped up to the MEX 2 or USA 2 slot.

MLS Cup runner-up qualified for the play-in round. See LA in 1997 and Colorado in 1998.

DC were not SS winners. LA won the SS in 1998. The SS did not normally qualify for the CCC back then, but since there was an extra spot after DC was bumped up out of the USA 2 slot, LA took it.

 

LOL Please show me a link LMFAO

 

A link that tells you that DC United participated in the 1999 CCC as holders:
http://www.rsssf.com/tablesc/cacups99.html#cc

A link that tells you that DC United did not win the 1998 Supporters Shield:
http://www.supportersshield.com/

 

Repped.