They wouldn't do it in the same summer... but for the same cycle? Sure (see: the 2018 cycle and the upcoming one)
But expanded CWC changes that situation; it is inconceivable that players will be forced to play in tournaments every summer. ECA won't allow it. Surely having a proper Copa America once per cycle with a full year of qualifying plus a pan-American biennial NL as I formatted above is preferable?
But without a 32-team CWC to play too. FIFA is risking a lot if it continues to make demand after demand (and this from someone who, generally, is on FIFA's side).
Pretty much guarantees that we'll see a similar setup for 2030, with a first or second round featuring 5-team groups where the teams play each other once (2 home, 2 away).
Coming back to this discussion, and reading the tea leaves over in Europe: it appears that both UEFA and Concacaf have settled on truncating their WCQ formats in favor of giving more of the calendar to Nations League (particularly with the addition of the League A quarterfinals). And I can't blame them, with the WC expansion rendering qualifying less cutthroat for everyone... The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that going forward, Concacaf will look to establish what we have this cycle as the new norm. That is: 1) using Nations League as the qualifying competition for every continental tournament, 2) appeasing the interest of elite MNTs to have available friendly dates and avoid playing against the likes of Grenada, and 3) using Copa América participation/NL group stage exemptions as the carrots for the bigger sides, and the consistent schedule of matches for the smaller ones, to get them all to buy in. And this, because outside of FIFA allowing for some truly out-of-the-box thinking - e.g. cross-group scheduling that would allow the biggest teams to play each other while drawn in separate groups, or having the final round as a larger group with Swiss-system scheduling - there's no realistic format that will let the US keep its profitable WCQ showdowns with Mexico. So having said that, here's what I anticipate the 2030 WC cycle (men's teams) will look like: 2026 September/October - Concacaf NL group stage [League A top 4 teams exempt] November - Concacaf NL quarterfinals (League A), group stage (Leagues B, C) 2027 March - Concacaf NL Final Four, Gold Cup playoffs June - Gold Cup September/October - Concacaf NL group stage [League A top 4 teams exempt] November - Concacaf NL quarterfinals (League A), group stage (Leagues B, C) 2028 March - Concacaf NL Final Four, Copa América playoffs June - WCQ Round 1, first 2 matchdays: Top 5 get bye, remaining 30 get drawn into 6 groups of 5. Teams play each other once, based on Swiss system used in 2022 WCQ (Round 1) and in Central American and Caribbean Cups June/July - Copa América September/October - Concacaf NL group stage [League A top 4 teams exempt] November - Concacaf NL quarterfinals (League A), group stage (Leagues B, C) 2029 March - Concacaf NL Final Four, Gold Cup playoffs June - WCQ Round 1, last 2 matchdays. Group winners + best 2nd place advance (7 teams), joining 5 teams on bye; they are drawn into 3 groups of 4, with everyone playing each other home-and-away. July - Gold Cup? No idea how it's gonna coexist with the CWC going forward... September/October - WCQ Round 2, first 4 matchdays November - WCQ Round 2, last 2 matchdays. Top 2 in each group qualify for WC; best 3rd-placer goes to intercontinental playoff 2030 March - Intercontinental playoff June - World Cup
So, true to form, I let my mind run wild with the latter option - as the more realistic one, since cross-group scheduling 1) hasn't been done anywhere, and 2) needs more available matchdays - and came to realize that the Nations League plays a significant role in how it would function. Namely, the upcoming League A with its sui generis schedule. I discussed the potential logic behind it here: 2. If so, two questions immediately emerge:- What is the logic behind this?My best guess is that Concacaf has aimed to balance the STRENGTH of the schedule with the DIFFICULTY. That is, the schedule has the pots divided into levels:1: Pots 1 & 22: Pots 3 & 43: Pots 5 & 6— Paul Calixte (@paulcalixte1) May 18, 2023 ...but I missed an additional element: besides the home-and-away matches against the opponent in one's same level, each team plays a game against the stronger partner (the odd seed) in another level, and the weaker partner (even seed) in the third level. Thus, you get a base schedule like the below (H = home game against this seed): 1: H2, 2, H4, 5 2: H1, 1, H3, 6 3: H4, 4, 2, H6 4: H3, 3, 1, H5 5: H6, 6, H1, 4 6: H5, 5, H2, 3 Now, extrapolate that to 10 teams, and all of a sudden, you have a base schedule allowing us to set up a qualifying format for the 48-team WC era that accomplishes multiple goals: 1. Reserving the lion's share of the calendar for Nations League competitions, serving as qualifiers for continental tournaments (Gold Cup, Copa América) and the basis of a reliable slate of official matches for smaller sides; 2. Guaranteeing each participant a minimum of 4 matches; 3. Keeping the strongest sides in a singular final round, so that they play each other with the highest stakes possible; 4. Specifically, keeping the highly-anticipated and lucrative USA-Mexico WCQ showdowns; and, 5. Maintaining all these fixtures within the available FIFA matchdays, which we accomplish with one minor exception. So having said that, here's the extrapolation for 10 teams: 1: H2, 2, H4, 5, H8, 9 2: H1, 1, H3, 6, H7, 10 3: H4, 4, 2, H6, 7, H9 4: H3, 3, 1, H5, 8, H10 5: H6, 6, H1, 4, H7, 10 6: H5, 5, H2, 3, H8, 9 7: H8, 8, 2, H3, 5, H10 8: H7, 7, 1, H4, 6, H9 9: H10, 10, H1, 3, H6, 8 10: H9, 9, H2, 4, H5, 7 And a mock schedule based on the above (@EvanJ or other formatting experts are welcome to cross-check and confirm that this is faithful to the above base schedule; home team first): Matchday 1 1-4 2-3 10-5 9-6 7-8 Matchday 2 5-1 6-2 3-9 4-10 8-7 Matchday 3 2-1 3-6 4-5 7-10 8-9 Matchday 4 9-1 10-2 7-3 8-4 6-5 Matchday 5 1-2 5-7 6-8 4-3 10-9 Matchday 6 1-8 2-7 5-6 3-4 9-10 We'll see a mock version of how this would look in practice in a moment; but here's how the full WCQ format could work. - Top 5 Concacaf sides based on FIFA World Ranking receive byes to Round 3. - Round 1: remaining 30 FIFA-eligible Concacaf members drawn into 10 groups of 3. Top seeds are assigned to Groups 1-10 based on their ranking (like in the first round of qualifying for Qatar 2022); teams in Pots 2 and 3 are drawn. Each team will play home-and-away against every opponent in their group, in 2 FIFA windows (home-team first): Window 1 Wednesday: 2-1 Saturday: 3-2 * Tuesday: 1-3 Window 2 Wednesday: 3-1 Saturday: 2-3 Tuesday: 1-2 Only the group winners advance. Round 2: Group winners play home-and-away in preset pairs, with the winners of Groups 1-5 hosting the return leg: 1 vs. 10 2 vs. 9 3 vs. 8 4 vs. 7 5 vs. 6 The 5 series winners advance and join the 5 pre-seeded teams in Round 3. Round 3: The 10 remaining sides in a single group, playing out the aforementioned Swiss-style schedule over 6 matchdays. Top 6 teams qualify for the WC finals; 7th-place team advances to intercontinental playoff. --- The resulting calendar, using the 2030 WC cycle as an example: 2026 September/October - Concacaf NL group stage [League A top 4 teams exempt] November - Concacaf NL quarterfinals (League A), group stage (Leagues B, C) 2027 March - Concacaf NL Final Four, Gold Cup playoffs June/July - Gold Cup September/October - Concacaf NL group stage [League A top 4 teams exempt] November - Concacaf NL quarterfinals (League A), group stage (Leagues B, C) 2028 March - Concacaf NL Final Four, Copa América playoffs, WCQ Round 1 first window June - WCQ Round 1 second window June/July - Copa América September/October - Concacaf NL group stage [League A top 4 teams exempt] November - Concacaf NL quarterfinals (League A), group stage (Leagues B, C) 2029 March - Concacaf NL Final Four, Gold Cup playoffs June - WCQ Round 2 playoffs July - Gold Cup September/October - WCQ Round 3, first 4 matchdays November - WCQ Round 3, last 2 matchdays 2030 March - Intercontinental playoff June - World Cup --- * In the mock calendar below, this is the one concession needed from FIFA: permission for any Pot 1 sides involved in the Copa América playoffs to play said match on that Saturday, fitting 3 games into 1 window (like in the post-COVID makeup FIFA windows). Teams could adapt by resting stars against the weakest opponent in their following WCQ match. The worst-case scenario is a WCQ Round-1 team making the Nations League Final Four; they could participate in that on Wednesday and Saturday (while the other two sides in their WCQ play home-and-away on the first two matchdays), then play their first WCQ match on Tuesday - and the remaining 3 in the Wednesday-Saturday-Tuesday of the following FIFA window. So that's 2 windows with a third game shoehorned in, to be fair... but still an easier solution than the mess UEFA might get itself in with its own NL/WCQ overlap.
Now, let's run a mock version using the current FIFA men's rankings: The Top 5, with byes to Round 3: USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, Canada, Panama The Pots for the Round 1 draw: Pot 1 Jamaica El Salvador Honduras Haiti Curaçao Trinidad and Tobago Guatemala Antigua and Barbuda St. Kitts and Nevis Nicaragua Pot 2 Suriname Dominican Republic Puerto Rico Cuba Barbados Guyana St. Lucia Bermuda Grenada Belize Pot 3 St. Vincent and the Grenadines Montserrat Dominica Cayman Islands Bahamas Aruba Turks and Caicos Islands US Virgin Islands British Virgin Islands Anguilla The draw for Round 1, played over the FIFA windows in March and June* 2028: Group 1 Jamaica Cuba Montserrat Group 2 El Salvador Guyana Cayman Islands Group 3 Honduras Grenada Bahamas Group 4 Haiti Suriname Aruba Group 5 Curaçao Barbados US Virgin Islands Group 6 Trinidad and Tobago Belize British Virgin Islands Group 7 Guatemala Bermuda Turks and Caicos Islands Group 8 Antigua and Barbuda Dominican Republic St. Vincent and the Grenadines Group 9 St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia Dominica Group 10 Nicaragua Puerto Rico Anguilla * An example of the schedule, using groups 1 and 10: March 2028 Wednesday: Cuba vs. Jamaica, Puerto Rico vs. Nicaragua Saturday: Montserrat vs. Cuba, Anguilla vs. Puerto Rico Tuesday: Jamaica vs. Montserrat, Nicaragua vs. Anguilla June 2028 Wednesday: Montserrat vs. Jamaica, Anguilla vs. Nicaragua Saturday: Cuba vs. Montserrat, Puerto Rico vs. Anguilla Tuesday: Jamaica vs. Cuba, Nicaragua vs. Puerto Rico Round 2 (home-and-away playoffs, June 2029): Jamaica vs. Nicaragua El Salvador vs. St. Kitts and Nevis Honduras vs. Dominican Republic Haiti vs. Guatemala Curaçao vs. Trinidad and Tobago Round 3 Group: USA Mexico Costa Rica Canada Panama Jamaica El Salvador Honduras Curaçao Guatemala Fixture: Matchday 1 (September 2029) USA vs. Canada Mexico vs. Costa Rica Guatemala vs. Panama Curaçao vs. Jamaica El Salvador vs. Honduras Matchday 2 (September 2029) Panama vs. USA Jamaica vs. Mexico Costa Rica vs. Curaçao Canada vs. Guatemala Honduras vs. El Salvador Matchday 3 (October 2029) Mexico vs. USA Costa Rica vs. Jamaica Canada vs. Panama El Salvador vs. Guatemala Honduras vs. Curaçao Matchday 4 (October 2029) Curaçao vs. USA Guatemala vs. Mexico El Salvador vs. Costa Rica Honduras vs. Canada Jamaica vs. Panama Matchday 5 (November 2029) USA vs. Mexico Panama vs. El Salvador Jamaica vs. Honduras Canada vs. Costa Rica Guatemala vs. Curaçao Matchday 6 (November 2029) USA vs. Honduras Mexico vs. El Salvador Panama vs. Jamaica Costa Rica vs. Canada Curaçao vs. Guatemala
Well done It makes sense and the Swiss system works alot better when you have to finish in the top 6 I think for NL though it will be messy and come down to GD which is a bit more rough
This system well may produce some horribly unjust results because it is being abused by Concacaf. A little research reveals that Concacaf has not applied the most important feature of the Swiss system for tournaments: Teams are re-paired after each round based on tournament results. Here are two references that both identify this defining component of the Swiss System: a detailed description of the Swiss System at a Vermont Chess club website; and Another explanation of Swiss system on CHESS.COM. Simply, the Swiss system is NOT POSSIBLE for international football played at home venues since schedules have to be set in advance. Look at Group A right now. Guatemala has two good results on 4 pts. Martinique beat the lower Curacao (who they got at home!!) and is on 3 pts. Panama on 4 and T&T on 6. The following is easily possible and would be a complete travesty. GUA draws both road games @ T&T and PAN. Finishes on 6 points with 3 great results and is out. PAN beats CUR and finishes on 8 points and their tournament is over. T&T beats CUR and finishes on 10 points, wins the group. Martinique beats ELS twice, finishes on 9 points and qualifies without one quality result. GUA probably has the best set of results in the group. Undefeated against 3 higher ranked opponents with 2 road draws! Yet they go home while Martinique did nothing but beat up on struggling lower ranked teams? This would be a travesty. Concacaf's misuse of this system is whacked and deserves significant scorn, derision, and opposition from every corner.
The current system is BRUTAL for two seeds and even the one seeds. 3 The 5th seed has it made as can be seen with Trinidad and Tobago
If they insist on using the Swiss style system they need to shrink League A to 10 teams instead of the 16 that it is now. The top 4 get QF byes as current, but instead of disturbing the next 12 seeds into 2 groups, where the schedule can manipulate the results, have the top 6 in their own League A group and the next 6 in a League B group
They are just not using the swiss system. An essential component is using ranking only for the initial pairing -- the first match. After that pairings are based on the previous results. All winners go into a pot and are drawn against each other. Draws same way. Losers same way. Then for round three all teams with 2 wins are paired against each other. That -- and ONLY THAT -- allows the Swiss System to work to correctly rank teams based on only four games. There is absolutely zero integrity to what Concacaf is doing.
I have absolutely no rebuttal to the above... but then, if Concacaf's is the most blatant bastardization, the new UEFA CL format isn't a faithful recreation of it either.
If I was a conspiracy theorist I'd say CONCACAF didn't want the top 4 to advance. US and Mexico having easier opponents with Copa America qualification on the line would benefit all parties $$$$
It would be closer to fair if they just made it four games against four opponents, everybody missing one.
Absolutely 100% agree. I had not even tuned into what they are doing but looking at it I'm completely agree.
Just do knock-out home/away cup ties. 4 match days would take you from 16 to 4. For me, all these sports are taking a big step towards being WWF when you compromise competitive integrity. But I'm a purist, and not all that naive so I'm realistic about my view being shared by these money changers occupying the temple.
You really only have 12 because the top 4 get byes and US/Mexico aren't going for extra CONCACAF games. That's why I would have liked to see CONCACAF 5 - 10 in one group playing for those 4 spots. No matter how you matched up Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador it would have been a great set of matches where scheduling wouldn't be as deciding of a factor. There is too much dead weight in League A which waters it down and allows scheduling to determine who advances. Top 4 advance to playoffs, bottom 2 get relegated. Martinique, Cuba, Curaçao, Suriname, T&T, and Grenada should have been a group of their own with the top 2 getting promoted to League A and the bottom 4 relegated to what we know now as League B
There must be 10000 ways better than making Guatemala play Panama twice while Martinique plays El Salvador twice, and PAN and T&T never play each other. Guatemala should at least get a shot at T&T rather than Panama again. Of course, if the T&T plays PAN who ever gets home field is way too big a random influence. The first priority must be sporting merit and integrity.
Yeah and they still screwed that up. Canada would kill for those games right now what with only being able to afford 1 friendly lately