http://concacaf-futball.blogspot.com/2009/04/gold-cup-should-expant-to-16-with-guess.html The author made mistakes such as EUFA instead pf UEFA and Columbia instead of Colombia, but I think it would be a good idea to make a 16 team Gold Cup with 14 CONCACAF teams and 2 guests like the author said. I would give UNCAF and CFU 5.5 teams each. Assuming everytime it is played the CFU tournament has two groups of four when the field is down to 8 teams like it did last year, in both UNCAF and CFU the two third place teams would play each other with the winners qualifying and the losers playing each other for the final spot.
I hope they start a 16-team tournament. That way, they can leave us out of it so we don't spend time on such a crappy tournament. Invite Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Barbados, etc. please. Besides, we don't pull good crowds. Argentina and Brazil does.
I like it the way it is. IIRC, the USA had to play Costa Rica in the group phase in 2005? A 12 team tournament makes the groups stronger.
Ideally sixteen is better because more countries get to participate. I know many of you believe CONCACAF does not have enough competitive countries to play four groups of four but in time countries such as Nicaragua and Puerto Rico will get better with more competition. Check UNCAF results. Guatemala did not drop off so quickly.Nicaragua looked competitive in relation to other Central American teams. Also just as Copa America announced recently, inviting two countries from other regions(CONMEBOL) would make the tournament more competitive. I do not have a problem seeing teams such as Colombia, Ecuador or Peru competing in the tournament.El Salvador has played several of these countries in friendlies recently.They have gotten much better because of these games. Hopefully if the tournament is played again 2012 there will not be a conflict with Copa America.
Sixteen teams is the way to go. When you have a 12 team tournament and only four go home, that means you can have a terrible tournament and still make the quarters, hell two ties in some cases and you can make it through. Based on current FIFA rankings and a formula taking into account the previous 2 GC tournaments you can have something like this. Pot 1 USA Mexico Honduras Costa Rica Pot 2 Panama Canada Jamaica Trinidad and Tobago Pot 3 Guatemala El Salvador Haiti Cuba Pot 4 Grenada Puerto Rico Bermuda Guadeloupe Others that could compete Netherlands Antilles, St. Vincent, Barbados, Nicaragua, etc
For what it's worth, the World Cup used to be like this, like in 1994 when the U.S. hosted - 16 of the 24 teams made the knockout stages (same ratio). Then again, I really like the idea of just having four teams advance in the Gold Cup - make group play really important. I never understand the whole play three games just so first and second can both move on in a four-team group. If you're going to be play that many games, you might as well just take the first-place team. Or, in this case, the three first-place teams and the highest runner-up. Would cause a bit more drama in the group stages (I personally would rather watch a battle for first, not a battle for second). I know it will never happen, but I can dream ...
yeah i am aware of that, they changed it for the 1998 Cup, I think the change was great, as I did not like third place teams going through. Of course Italy, as a third place team made it all the way to the finals. Also the Euro's will be expanding from 16 to 24, so the ratio will come be used for those.
Totaly disagree. If you play in a league format, there is no sense in taking only one team. You play a group to determine not only the #1 team, but also the #2, #3, ... One loss in league play shouldn't doom you. If you take only one team, in effect every game becomes a knockout. If that is the case, I say just go to a straight knockout format for every round. (Just look at the Confed Cup: the USA lost their first two games, and still made it out of group play. You think they should have been gone after one game?)
As the quarter results proved with Guadalupe and Haiti, teams such as Jamaica and El Salvador were unjustly placed in the most competitive group therefore eliminating them from the competition. The four pots above give every competitive team a fair chance to make the second round. I will say it again that for the tournament to be watched by more fans it should only be played every four years.
Wait, what? Haiti had nothing to do with those two teams, they didn't even play teams from their group. Of the teams that finished ahead of El Salvador and Jamaica only one won their quarterfinal match. How does that do anything to prove that ES and Jamaica had the toughest group or that they were better than Guadaloupe or Haiti? Not only were ES and Jam not good enough to be one of the top two 3rd place teams, but they were apparently in the group with the weakest 1st place team. And as far as their group placement "eliminating" them from the competition. If they were as good as you seem to think they are they should have been able to make it out of that group.
I don't agree with you because Guadeloupe would be stronger if it was affiliated to FIFA.Thus it would more easily its best payers at its disposal. I think a Gold Cup with 12 teams is better because we should not devaluate this competition.
We can all agree the competition in this cup is pretty low...bringing in more teams would help certain countries but definitely would hurt the tournament completely.. CONCACAF really needs to work on these refs though...before trying to expand the number of teams..
I'll tell you why go to 16 teams is a problèm. It's because of Digicel Caribbean Cup (DCC). We know this competition in the Caribbean is qualifying for CONCACAF Gold Cup. The CFU (Caribbean Football Union) sends 4 qualified teams in the Gold Cup. And how many teams participate in the final round in DCC? 8 teams! So what? Send altogether 8 teams in the Gold Cup? (3 from North America+5 from Central America+8 from Caribbean = 16 qualified teams in the Gold Cup). So in that case the DCC is completely useless! I tell you the interest of DCC is to identify the Caribbean's champion and also the 4 qualified teams for CONCACAF Gold Cup. (3 from North America+5 from Central America+4 from Caribbean = 12 qualified teams in the Gold cup).
CONCACAF Refs need to be sent to seminars, conferences, technical courses, etcc like every 6 months.. but regarding expanding to 16 teams. From where are you going to get the add'l 4 teams? North America is only 3 countries (mex, usa, can) .. central america already qualifies 5 teams (7 countries in C.A.) and caribbean qualifies 4 (a lot of countries in the caribbean, but most are minnows at best) so the options for the remaining 4 NT squads are: - the 2 remaining C.A. feds (just invite all C.A. squads and render the UNCAF to just a development-style tourney) - the truckload of remaining Caribbean feds - invite NT's from conmebol, uefa, etc..
That's a very good point. I don't think it would be wise to rob the Caribbeans of their championship.
It's useless! Just ask Warner. He didn't even bother to send the best T&T side to qualify. Heck they got beat by Grenada. You saw what happened to the latter against US C team. It's a joke.Even Cuba plays in the DCC then promptly bows out of Gold Cup. What's the purpose of playing a cup when two of the best teams in the region don't even bother playing in the regions supposedly most important tournament(Gold Cup) Go figure!
A while back many USNT supporters were drafting letters and emails to the USSF, calling for Bob Bradley's firing. Perhaps if the full weight of BS were involved we could draft letters and emails asking for either the expansion of the tournament, or the reasons why it is not expanding. We could also ask for a hosting rotation.
I don't think the DCC will be useless because 8 teams would qualify. It is regional cup with bragging rights i suppose. I want to see the top teams in concacaf play in the gold cup and allowing 8 teams out of the CFU would help that. Teams like TnT and Cuba shouldn't miss out on this competition.
I agree, and with 8 teams that would qualify, maybe teams like Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, etc. would enter because more spots were up for grabs which would bolster the DCC in the process.