How to include USA/CAN in Copa Libertadores

Points for creativity but the Euros are a one-off and I'm not sure that that plan is going to work for the Euros. Continental club tourneys already involve lots of brutal travel; a combined Copa Lib would be doubly brutal. I just don't think South American teams can draw at neutral sites, especially in South America. For a Copa Lib final one-off in one huge city? Yes. For a group stage where teams would have to either take multiple weeks off from domestic competition or travel repeatedly across the continent for group games? I'm more doubtful.

Playing Copa Lib finals in those venues might work, but what you're suggesting is basically the old CONCACAF Champions Cup format, which was a flop, writ large.

 

no repeated travel. group stage is just 3 games, played over the course of a week. Saturday/Sunday-Tues/Wed-Saturday/Sunday. Your travel is flying to the host city and flying home, then you are either out of the competition or in the knockout stages.

August - November - each month there is one week where 2 cities host their 3 group games. That is the whole thing, everybody gets to watch all the game on tv. Then in the Spring, you have your traditional knockout stage games.

 

So teams in MLS would have to take two weeks off from the regular season in the midst of the playoff hunt and/or the playoffs themselves? I just don't see the league letting that happen.

Kudos for creativity in trying to solve the travel problems, but I don't think that's the solution.

I still think the simplest thing is (a) taking the Mexican teams out of automatic qualification for the Copa Lib and (b) having the CONCACAF CL champion enter the Copa Lib at the semis (or even quarters). That way you get 2-3 bad trips for 1 team. If you held the final at a neutral venue, just 1 long trip.

That ticket to the Copa Lib semis would be a big prize for the Liga MX sides.

I'm also in favor of making CONCACAF CL knockout all the way through. 3-team groups aren't fair and it would help cut costs and build excitement.

 

But in CCL you are flying in multiple midweeks several thousand miles during this same playoff hunt period.

Week before you leave, move the weekend game to thursday for friday. Then the game that you were going to play while you are away, you move that up to tuesday or wednesday, then you fly play 3 games, fly back and on wednesday/thursday you make up the weekend game that was missed, and then for the upcoming weekend you play on Sunday. Then return to normal.

 

The difference is - in the CCL a flight from say, New York to Honduras is 2,000 miles one way (which is shorter than a flight to LA, btw). Now, put MLS teams in the Copa Lib and you send, say, New York to Buenos Aires, and now your talking 5,300 miles away! One way! One way being a longer trip than the round trip to Honduras!

I hear people bitch ALL THE TIME about CONCACAF travel. Now you want to throw South American travel in as well?!?

It's a shorter flight to Munich, Germany (4,000 miles). Hell, why don't we just skip the South American tournaments, and try to play in the UEFA Champions League??

Look, I think it would be nice to play South American teams too. But that doesn't mean it should happen. I like to dream, but anybody in their right mind knows this is bad idea...without even needing to think very hard about it. And I'm not even touching on the costs involved....

 

But nobody cares about Honduran clubs. People care some for Argentine and Brazilian clubs. And my proposal was for a way to solve the problem if you were going to merge the tournaments, and I think my idea took out a ton of travel.

But yes, ultimately, even Copa Lib doesn't matter when compared to the Champions League context. I do think it actually would make more sense trying to get into the UEFA CL. Both are going to be big challenges, and yes UEFA would be harder, but its also 10 times the reward.

 

Only to eurosnobs. And that's also just because Copa Lib hasn't been marketed at all here...

Maybe eventually, way off in the future when people have figured out how to get from LA to London in 45 minutes. And convinced UEFA it's in their interests to do something like this. But having MLS clubs participate in Copa Lib is almost entirely feasible right now. Somebody just needs to make it happen.

 

Almost entirely feasible if you ignore the legitimate concerns raised in this thread.

 

Those just boil down to scheduling from what I can fell

 

Travel concerns could be alleviated if the CONCACAF Champ just entered the Copa Lib tournament at the quarterfinal round. With enough cash on the table, I think CONMEBOL might be OK with that. Then it's three trips, at most, for the winner of CONCACAF CL. CONCACAF winner gets a shot at a more immediate reward than the Club World Cup, which no one cares about or respects. The scheduling works right now without having to adjust anything. The only thing you'd have to do is slightly expand Copa Lib to 28 with all teams coming from South America. Wouldn't even have to add a round. 7 groups of 4. 7 group winners play 7 runners up. CONCACAF champ enters to make it 8 in the quarters. It would boost marketability of CONCACAF CL because the best Mexican sides would have a tangible goal. It would boost the Copa Lib because the American tv rights would matter. It would be great for everybody.

 

The CWC is highly regarded in South America. Quite a bit of the appeal of winning the Libertadores is getting a shot at the European champion. Most Brazilian clubs end up throwing away that year's domestic league in preparation for December. Corinthians had close to 30k fans supporting them in Japan in 2012.

 

The distances to travel are ridiculous. I'd love to see something like this happen, but I can't see a 12,000 mile trip to Buenos Aires or some other far flung place for a mid-week game being well received. That's a lot of air miles for MLS teams.

 

Yeah it's a bit much. Maybe there will be some developments in air travel? Like idk, resuscitating the Concord?

 

There is a cultural and political component to this that I think some of you guys are missing here. I think part of the appeal of Copa Lib is that it is a Suramerica thing with occasional North American invitees. Why go where you aren't wanted? The only path to respect is to continue the path we are on. Improve our domestic structures and our national team to the point where they come calling. We have done well to get the Copa America Centenario and are gaining respect on the national team side all the time. MLS is getting some nice talent from South America on a decent basis as well but we have a ways to grow before MLS gets the respect we desire. Succes in CCL and CWC will come in time and then we will know out domestic league is not longer a red headed stepchild of world football.

 

You make some good points but I think the Copa Libertadores, and the CONMEBOL clubs in general, have a lot to gain by expanding their markets in the US. What better way to do that than with your signature tournament and through games that actually count? (Unlike, say, meaningless summer friendlies that the European teams play). Yes in the beginning their fans might be like wtf why do we have to play these gringos? But as they see their clubs able to hold on to their stars longer as a result of developing these new revenue streams they will come around. Also the competition will eventually make MLS clubs better and rivalries will develop and eventually they'll forget they ever had a problem with it.

But yeah, first they need to get the travel part sorted. I still think they can do it by chartering their own planes and maybe scheduling "road trips" where they play 2-3 opponents in one trip the way baseball teams do in the US.

 

This never happening, and I hope so.

A tournament with regional matches is not a real tournament, look in AFC , where CL is played with East and West until the final. IT'S TOTAL WRONG !! Because East value is too big in comparation with West, and even so, West have all time a club in final.

Same can happening in America. A team from Concacaf, all time in Final ? Is too much .... I think the champion of concacaf is equal with a team from Round of 16 or quarterfinals of Copa Libertadores.. so, your format will never show real power and value of the clubs.

And 64 clubs? IS too much for first continental competition. 64 can be in second competition (Copa Sudamericana) to give chance for many clubs to play in a continental competition. But in first, there must remain and keep a high value

 

64 teams is too much , 32 too low

anyway, I'm for each continental competition .... I don't agree Mexico in Conmebol, or Guyana and Surinam in Concacaf (even they are too poor), or Australia in AFC, Israel, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Armenia in UEFA .... etc

Concacaf must try to keep their continental competition and make it better. Invite clubs from South America, or New Zeeland ... and create a preliminary stage for little teams .... for example we can have 8 groups of 4 teams (with 22 dirrect entries and 10 from preliminary ... so a total of 42 teams)

But to grow up their potential, give more slots for strongest leagues, so :

TH 1 (1 direct)
Mexico 5 (4 direct / 1 preliminary)
USA 4 (3 direct / 1 preliminary)
Costa Rica 3 (2 direct / 1 preliminary)
Honduras 3 (2 direct / 1 preliminary)
Guatemala 3 (1 direct / 2 preliminary)
Canada 2 (1 direct / 1 preliminary)
El Salvador 2 (1 direct / 1 preliminary)
Brazil 2 (2 direct)
Argentina 2 (2 direct)
Colombia 2 (1 direct / 1 preliminary)
Uruguay 2 (1 direct / 1 preliminary)
New Zeeland 2 (1 direct / 1 preliminary)

Rest of Concacaf members give their champion + runner up in preliminary stages. So, I think will be more interesting.
We can have easy solution, Concacaf staff must do something And I think they can't without money .... or maybe they don't want to complicate.

 

CONCACAF doesn't have the money needed to expand Champions League to that amount of teams. Not yet anyways.

 

IMHO, the expansion/development of MLS will, at some point, be handicapped by the lack of regional/international competition. CCL is a good competition but won't carry you as far as MLS fans hope. having only teams from Mexico, MLS and Costa Rica won't get you much respect or worldwide markability.

One easy solution is actually taking a page from Conmebol and inviting a couple of teams form SA to join CCL... Lets say, you invite the runner up and third place team from Copa Sul Americana (first place goes to Libertadores http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copa_Sudamericana), this would keep the travel limited and the teams invited won't be a CCL beater and they would relish the opportunity for international play and extra revenue.

Regarding an eventual invitation to join Libertadores, IMHO it can only happen in two ways

1) MLS teams start winning CCL and progressing to the final or semi-finals in the WCC in a consistent basis, which would mean that the level of play in MLS is high so it would be in the interest of Libertadores to extend the invitation and fans from SA would actually want to see a competitive game against MLS teams.

2) Somehow forbid Mexican teams in taking part in the Libertadores and make a proposition of take Mexico and MLS team or none.

But I think expanding CCL is easier and makes more sense in terms of travel and schedule at this moment, the long term problem with this is that CCL would always play second fiddle for Libertadores.

 

I don't think Mexico bought their way into it, yes the extra revenue was good but I really don't think it made a huge difference.
Stating that they bought their way in simplifies the cultural ties and the good Mexico participation in the Copa America. At this point Mexico has an open invitation, even if they send a B or C team it won't mater they will keep getting the invitation, the same as if Argentina or Brazil sends B or C team, Conmebol might get pissed but they can't do anything.

Mexico was first initiated to Copa America in 1993 and has gotten an invitation for every one since them, by 1998 their clubs got their first invitation for the Libertadores in 1998 and now they have 3 spots in the Cup (not an invitation mind you, they have spots) which is as much as any the members of Conmebol gets (ex-Argentina and Brazil which gets 5 spots each) so as far as Copa Libertadores and Copa America goes Mexico is part of Conmebol.

Call me naive but IMHO I think Mexico competitive league, their participation in Copa America, the Latin American cultural ties and the extra revenue led to the invitation. Money was part of the equation but in my view wasn't the major factor in the partnership.

 

Well, I did a search for Mexican participation in the Libertadores and all the sides I found agrees with you the deal was motivated by finance

They argue that the invitation was a form to expand viewership in Mexico and US (immigration) and to expand the Copa Libertadores brand/markability. So there you go, if MLS viewership from non-hispanic is high enough Conmebol would be willing to invite MLS teams also, I suppose.

 

Copa America and Copa Libertadores are a beautiful thing. Instead of barging in or trying to manipulate our way in, why not develop our domestic leagues and become world class organically? Due to changing demographics and increasing investment in our league as well as improving youth structure it truly is only a matter of years until USMNT joins the world elite and MLS becomes a destination league. It really cant be stopped. When we are playing a brand of world football that is commensurate with the powers in south America and even LigaMX then the invites will come and even if they don't, by then it won't matter anymore.

 

Why would elite-ish South American teams pay extra money to play in the pits of rock and ash in Honduras? I mean, if I'm Vasco de Gama or whatever, it's not really worth it for us.