I'm sure someone will be offended by the title, but seriously try to explain the stupidity of this tournament. Mexico wins their bracket and plays a runner up. Argentina wins their bracket and plays a runner up. Brasil is a runner up in their bracket and plays????? 3rd place finisher. Or how about this: 1b Mexico 2b Brasil 3b Chile 2b vs 3b in the QF Can anybody justify such outright scheduling stupidity? This tournament should have been 1a vs 3(b/c) 2b vs 2c 1b vs 3(a/c) 1c vs 2a Hello? A fifth grader could have figured this out. And let's not talk about prestige. The three biggest names in South American soccer are Kaka, Ronaldinho, and Messi IMO. 2 of the 3 found the tournament not worth playing. How often does this tournament occur? Nobody knows. Why doesn't the tournament start earlier? Is it to avoid running into the spanish league that plays well into June? Their calendar is off compared to most of the other major leagues in that sense. Why not put this tournament every 4 years, 2 years off from the world cup? Why not have common sense advancement? Why not invite enough teams so that 3rd place finishers don't advance? Costa Rica and Honduras have proved they can compete with the South American sides already. Sure there are some quality teams in South America, but at least provide a tournament that rivals the European championships.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse I think your right, up to a point. The Copa America has been devalued in recent years, it's fairly evident from the fact that Brazil, the current holders, have allowed their top two players to rest instead of come to the tournament. To be honest I'd say that at the moment the African Cup of Nations is marginally more important, as shambolic as that tournament can be sometimes (not that this tournament isn't also probe to absenteeism). It is a much better spectacle and there's more passion. In my own country (the UK) there's far more interest in the African Cup of Nations than the Copa America.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse Its a serious post with an implied serious question. How can you value a tournament that rewards 2nd place finishers with an easier route to the final than 1st place finishers? Seriously.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse Im sure if you won the tournament, you would have a different view.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse Probably the biggest compiment a thread can get on big soccer.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse Way to aviod the criticism by changing the topic. Why does the tournament schedule seem to be written by a mentally challenged 4th grader?
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse dude thats the way is done if you have problem with it call the conmebol office and complaine
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse This thread should have had a poll: "Which tournament is less legitimate?: Copa America or Gold Cup". It's probably a toss up. Both lack any randomness in their groupings. Neither play the 3 round of fixtures in each group simultaneously (giving the teams in the second match an advantage). Both do enormous favors for certain teams when those teams qualify for the knockout stages (location in the Gold Cup, opposition in the Copa America). I can't actually find anything that makes one tournament more legitimate than the other.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse the quarter finals are retarded. What kind of tournament has 2 quarterfinals where the matchups are the same as the first round. what a joke. If this tournament has shown me anything, it is that the level of play in south america besides Brazil and Argentina is not very good. These sides would struggle in the African nations cup. Even Mexico is making these sides look very poor.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse At least the African Nations Cup features full-strength teams and relatively fair groupings...
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse you took the words right out of my mouth, I'm also really sick of the diving and play acting. I'm actually really disappointed about that aspect of this tournement. I also have a feeling that it's not nearly as pretigious a tournement in Europe that some would have you believe. One person from Europe commented on the African Cup being more important or watched more, I wonder if that's in part due to the time difference while most games in Copa start late at night.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse I was pointing that out during the final group stage games as well. Good point. And yes, this post isn't saying that the Gold Cup is a good tournament as it is flawed for so many reasons. Back on topic, the Copa America final group round games should be played simultaneously. Just silly that they are not.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse Someone should take Conmebol to task for this. With so many teams that have rich traditions like Brasil, Argentina, and Uruguay and yet the tournament is organized as poorly as it could be. Absolutely a joke.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse If the quality of the sides is so poor outside of Argentina and Brazil why did the US get bundled out with not a single win? You only played Argentina once so that means you should have had two other wins. You keep going on about how you 'OWNZ' mexico all the time and they seem to be doing all right. Based on their performance you should have won atleast once and scored more than 2 goals.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse Donovan, Beasley, Howard, Dempsey, Bocanegra, and Onyewu weren't there.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse This thread is not about the quality of the teams. This thread is about how stupid the tournament is organized.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse So you think that 2nd seed teams should play third seeds while 1st seeds have to play 2nd seeds? You think teams from the same group should meet in the quarterfinal? You think that the final group matches are fine not being played simultaneously? Is that a 'real' tournament to you?
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse We treated the matches as glorified friendlies. Hell, with the minutes Gaven got, I don't know if we took it even THAT seriously.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse This sounds like sour grapes to me! Regarding the organization of Copa America: It’s very simple really! The reason is called Venezuela, the scheduling and venues where juggled around to benefit the host nation and give it a shot (however small) of making the semifinals. If you happen to have the games schedules on hand, check them out and think about it. As for the Gold Cup: In CONCACAF the US has hosted all but two of the Gold Cups and the refs always manage not to see clear handballs inside the box and horrible fouls commited by the host nation. Personally I think the GC is more of a Mickey Mouse Cup than Copa America ever will be. As for the US participation in Copa America, two words come to mind “embarrassing” and “disastrous”. Sure, some might say the team was lacking this and that player, but this was an official tournament with an official US representative selected by the US federation (through their coach) History does not record A, B, C or D sides. If you don’t push to bring your best you are very good, or very arrogant or just plaint dumb!
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse Or, there's the realization that, as a guest team, the US can't force clubs to release players. And there's no reward for winning, because we're a guest team. We are therefore forced to treat the tournament as a series of non-FIFA-date friendlies, which we did. And we got a rare chance to evaluate quite a few players against reasonably strong opposition. Anyway, in the end, the World Cup matters a whole lot more than Copa America, and the extra player development we got out of this tournament will help our depth in 2010 a whole lot more than if we'd brought our A team.
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse European teams and MLS sides are not obligated to release players for Copa America since it is not the official regional championship. With that in mind, Gold Cup was determined to be more important due to che Confederation Cup bid (1 year before the SA WC)-and got the best players as a result. Finally-the ref that missed the offside call against Canada was MEXICAN, you tw-t....and while the final was in the USA, I certainly saw 50,000 plus MEXICANS in the stands..therefore, the advantage is between the ears only....
Re: Copa America aka Copa Mickey Mouse I agree, the fact that they couldn't seed the second round better than a 10 year old is pretty sad. And unfair to the teams that placed first in the group stage.