We are a highly individualistic culture that doesn't lend itself well to encouraging the kind of unsexy, selfless work (ex: proper movement off the ball) that produces top footballers en masse. We don't take football seriously enough as a society despite its popularity, and intelligence and professionalism are very scarce among the sports local decisionmakers, so infrastructure and development remain poor. We produce a lot of solid players at positions where these deficits are less damaging - lots of wingers, pacy wingbacks, and athletic center forwards. There are plenty of very fast players with good individual skill (even if somehwat limited technically) that are useful at higher levels. When you look at local prospects that have moved off the island, most of them play these roles. But we don't produce quality at the other positions necessary to dictate terms to better teams. To avoid being dictated to at higher levels, we'd need to control the center of the pitch. We simply cannot produce quality ball-playing #8s who can operate in the center of the pitch, go box-to-box, and intelligently link up play. This kind of player doesn't develop in Jamaica for several reasons: poor coaching/technical instruction and general infrastructure hurt, but our culture of individualism also doesn't lend itself well to the kind of less visible, somewhat thankless but very difficult, disciplined work a good central midfield commander needs to do. Young Jamaicans want to score goals, and their fans and coaches want them to do the same, so the few with the potential to play this role don't focus on/develop the skills needed to do selfless grinding in the center of the midfield at a high level. We do occasionally produce a decent borderline MLS/Scandinavia caliber #6, who we end up shoehorning into that #8 role. Better teams have no problem dealing with that, because these players arent technically skilled enough to really hold the fort against them in the center of the field. So we get 30% of possession, if we're lucky. In central defence, we produce some solid athletes with size, but they again lack ball sense and tactical intelligence (which are more important for that role). We do end up with a solid MLS caliber guy often enough (Damion Lowe, Javain Brown recently, etc), but that's about it, and not a ton of them come through. So mistakes are made by these defenders and easy goals are handed to better teams who have that intelligence. If we're lucky, we get guys like Pinnock and others who come through from the diaspora in England to help cover up this deficiency, but without local production our depth here is always poor. We do seem to have no problem producing good, athletic goalkeepers with strong shot-stopping ability (although never great distribution), which occasionally bails us out here. But the midfield issue and the lack of players who can play the #8 role consistently at a level beyond the USL level (or #6s who are technically skilled at a higher level beyond what our League One/borderline MLS caliber guys can manage) are the biggest problems. Without such players, you simply cannot compete consistently with top sides. Because we do at least have some decent, highly athletic folks up front and on the flanks, we lean on that in a counter attacking game, and hope our MLS/League One tier #6s can hold the fort in midfield and our GK can bail us out a couple of times. That can get you somewhere, but there's a ceiling. This ceiling is roughly ~48-60 in global FIFA rankings, and maybe 5th/6th overall in CONCACAF.
Thanks for this clear-headed analysis. I will say, though, that I would love to have an Antonio, Bailey, and Blake in the USMNT setup.
well I dont know exactly why the rest of CONCACAF seems historically down..... I think it could be an effect of MLS gaining power and influence in the region...and the cascade effect of the other leagues weakening as a result......makes sense.....
Tournament 1: CONCACAF Gold Cup -16 teams -Top 12 ranked teams auto qualify: USA, Mexico, Canada, Honduras, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Curaçao -Top team from each group qualifies… GCQ Group A: Cuba, Saint Lucia, Guyana GCQ Group B: Guadeloupe, Antigua and Barbuda, Suriname GCQ Group C: Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, French Guiana GCQ Group D: Puerto Rico, Martinique, Sint Maarten Tournament 2: Copa America -16 teams -10 teams from CONMEBOL auto qualify. -USA, Mexico, Canada auto qualify. -Champion of Central America qualifies. -Champion of Caribbean qualifies. -Winner of runner-up match between Caribbean and Central America qualifies. Tournament 3: CONCACAF Invitational Cup -16 teams -USA, Mexico, Canada auto qualify. -Top 5 ranked teams from rest of North America qualifies. -2 teams from South America, Europe, Africa, Asia/Oceania invited. (8 teams) Note: Move these tournaments to be start of summer rather than end of summer. (in order to prevent US, Mexico, and Canada from treating like a B tournament) Note: Move Nations League Championship to another FIFA window. (End of summer? Last spring window? August? September?)
This would make for an exciting CONCACAF Invitational Cup…. Group A: USA El Salvador Nigeria Australia Group B: Canada Jamaica Argentina Morocco Group C: Mexico Panama Japan France Group D: Costa Rica Honduras Colombia England
The rest of CONCACAF isn't historically down. How 'bout them apples. Its just that Canada and Panama are now up. Costa Rica and Honduras are now down. That's just the natural ebb and flow of national teams. Costa Rica may be down, but we finished tied on points with them during 22WCQing. Finished ahead of them on goal-difference. They had a tough Gold Cup draw with two other Ocho opponents. Lost a tight game to Panama and a drew with El Salvador. I can remind everybody that we too have a tendency to lose tight games to Panama and draw with El Salvador. Advanced, and were knocked out by Mexico in the quarters. I think the demise of Costa Rica is slightly exaggerated. They're going thru a little down period, but they'll be back.
Both Costa Rica and Honduras have been going through poorly managed transitions from their best-ever generation. Both countries rode their golden generation until many of the players were older than 35. The younger generations coming through for both countries are not less talented than the prior baseline, but they are certainly much less seasoned at international level than past generations of players were at the same age.
I am convinced that Costa Rica will never have another Wanchope or Medford. Honduras will never have another Pavon, Nunez or Suazo. Heck they will be lucky to get someone like Costly again.
Going through other CONCACAF no-hopers: T&T may never have another Yorke or Hislop. LLL Tri may never have another Hugoal or prime Rafa Marquez
Exactly, if Soccer in the USA ever surpasses any of the big 3 U.S.-based team sports (Baseball, Basketball, NFL Football), it's game over for Concacaf.
Its possible that they will get poached by the US, but brilliant players can spring up anywhere there is a soccer culture and all of those countries have a soccer culture.
no one said CR wouldnt be back...but its been a while now since they have made any noise. mexico is down. honduras is down. tnt is down. jamaica has talent but isnt winning anything. canada is up but was the last place team at the world cup and just lost their coach. overall, if you look at the region, the striker pool has been pretty weak .....really very weak but now things seem to be picking up a bit......still, almost every country in the region has nothing to challenge the usmnt backline.....
I think he means the league becomes bigger than the Confederation. I think FIFA would have something to say about that.
Not exactly what you are looking for, but... The Athletic has reported that FIFA and CONCACAF are coordinating schedules fro the World Club Cup and the Gold Cup in the summer 2025. They will be played simultaneously, with the Gold Cup being on the West Coast and the Club World Cup on the East. This would limit the player pool for some teams for both events I would guess. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5544103/2024/06/07/club-world-cup-united-states-soccer/ Also, a couple of European Player Unions are suing FiFA b/c they don't want to play in the World Club Cup. (Honestly, it seems like a stupid idea to me too.) https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5560886/2024/06/13/pfa-fifpro-fifa-legal-action/
The only thing that's relatively certain is that there will be a guest team... The Concacaf Nations League regulations actually spell out the Gold Cup qualifying paths. They include: - 4 direct qualifiers from League A (the semifinalists) - 4 direct qualifiers from League B (group winners) - 14 preliminary berths: League A losing quarterfinalists (4), League A 3rd and 4th-place teams (4), the 2 best group runners-up from League B, and the 4 winners from playoffs between the relegated teams from League A and the promoted teams from League C. Now, if the 14 prelim teams are drawn into direct pairings to produce 7 winners, that makes for 15 total qualifiers... leaving a 16th berth free to hand out to an invitee.
I dont think this is telling you what you think it is. It is odd that continue to insult another poster and put lazy crap like this out there. It really is despicable behavior. You are urged on by the crowd for one simple reason. You pro-MLS views on everything in the world.
Maybe everyone has seen this, but it looks like the expanded gold cup is off. From an article on the ESPN site about Pochettino: His approach would certainly require some spoon-feeding in the beginning. The hope is that the 2025 Gold Cup will go a long way towards getting the players the time on the field needed to get up to speed, though sources tell ESPN that reports of an expanded tournament with as many as eight guest teams are off base. A more likely scenario is that Concacaf will bring in one guest team, similar to the 2023 tournament when Qatar took part. Not sure what is going on. Just speculating, but I'm thinking that the expanded club world cup killed off the idea of an expanded gold cup.