Let´s say that Conmebol and CONCACAF decided to merge their NTs tournamets to make one strong all-American Cup to rival with the Eurocup, molding it in the same system of the european championship (16 teams, 4 groups of 4, than quater-finals, semis, 3rd place dispute and final). What teams would you pick? Where it should be hosted (include revenue, security and local boosting factors)? Who would be the group headers, 2nd, 3rd and 4th tiers? Would you have playoffs to decide the last slots? Who would advance to the following rounds, till the end? Remember that your choices should be on the above terms.
There are enough South/Central American immigrants in the US that all games would be well attended if it were held here. Probably could make a lot of money.
personally i'd love to see that tournament in the us, but it could also be used as a tuneup for brazil in preparations for wc 2014. us venues (if i had my way) cmgi field (foxboro) new eagles stadium (philadelphia) pro-player stadium (miami) reliant stadium (houston) new soldier field (chicago) new mile high (denver) seahawk stadium (seattle) rose bowl (los angeles) first round, like mentioned above, 4 groups, 4 teams in each group, round robin each stadium would host 3 first round matches. houston and philadelphia would each host quarter final double headers chicago would host semi-final double header los angeles would host final and 3rd place double header
They'll have to vastly improve that pitch. Worst field I've ever seen an international match played on in this country.
MigKiller. Interesting question you posted. My ideas might be far fetched but here I go. First, lets start with a name. UAFA United America Football Association or something like that. I know it looks and sounds like UEFA, but I couldn't think of anything else at the moment. Second, Conmebol and Concacaf will probably never merge. I think that the most important reason is that concacaf has much more teams than conmebol (triple the teams I think). The Irony is that although conmebol has fewer teams, the quality of football is far superior to concacaf. But its nice to dream, right? so here I go: The elimination part of the tournament should be one year in advance that way all the Cocacaf teams can compete. Base the FINAL tournament like UEFA. The breakdown would probably be like this: Conmebol (eight teams): Argentina Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Paraguay Peru Uruguay Concacaf (eight teams): Costa Rica Canada El Salvador Honduras Jamaica Mexico Trinidad and Tobago US Top two teams of each Confederation start each group and then a lottery to determine the other three teams for each group. It would probably look something like this: Group A ARG Paraguay Canada El Salvador Group B BRA Chile Trinidad Honduras Group C MEX Colombia Ecuador Costa Rica Group D US Peru Uruguay Jamaica This is the tricky part. What you have to try and do is make sure that the final is a team from each Confederation. That way both sides of the hemisphere is happy. The first tourny, should probably be held in the US. I agree with you on the choice of stadiums. The eventual winner will probably be a team from Conmebol. But if the tournament takes root the Concacaf Teams will develop at a faster rate and it would be much more competitive 8 years or so down the road.
Why would none of the games be in New York? It's the most populous city in the US and has a huge soccer following. Granted, the venues aren't as new, but its a guaranteed sell-out no matter who plays.
since when does amount of posts made = intelligent comment. I've read some really dumb crap from people with billions of posts.
the fact remains that there are NO soccer venues in NYC. Giant stadium is in jersey, and rather hard to travel despite being mere miles from the city by way the crow flies. a few years ago the metrostars organization found that 95% of their attending fans come from jersey. now granted some of this relates to the racial make-up of jersey and what may be (i really don't know for sure, ,just a perception) of a lack of acceptance of the mls game among much of the ethnic new york community, but even so, this 95% number is startling. further more giant stadium has sight lines that are very high making it hard to see the corners, as well as an uncovered bowl of seats. Many of these newer stadiums have both better soccer dimensions and at least partial cover of seats, something fifa looks highly upon (philadelphia, houston, seattle). in korea japan, it was mandated 2/3 of seats in every stadium be covered. not that this would be the same in the us, but anyway. don't acuse me of favoratism either, as a dcu supporter and resident of maryland, i did not put matches in the nations capital either, rfk not worthy tho i love it, neither is fed ex. when either an olympic stadium is built new york, or the giants raise the level of the pitch and remove the first few rows of seats then we will talk. also, if this is a truly respected tournament, we are worried as much about supporters traveling from foreign countries than home support, which means more attention to venue and less attention to the city.
THe Conmebol will dimishes it's quality of futbol if this happens. It will never happen. The conmebol is powerful enough without the Concacaf. Maybe if UEFA and the Asians get together since they are all landlock is some way. maybe we'll talk
I disagree. How can CONMEBOL diminish in quality if they play with teams from CONCACAF? They've been playing Mexico for Years and there has never been a low in quality. I don't believe in the "Diminishing" factor. The real reason a person feels that his/her country has diminished in quality, is because other teams have improved their own quality. I mean, look at the Asians and the Africans, they are playing better than ever. Because they have played and sometimes beat Western Countries does not mean that the western countries have fallen in quality. You know what I mean?
No, I see no benefit to the Conmebol and all the benefit to the Concacaf with a PAN-AM. The Conmebol has it's own tournaments and the newly established Copa Sudamericana will help any unwanted rallies from Concacaf to enter. Plus who wants to travel the long distances. Image a team from Canada Vs a team from Argentina. It will never happen.
Argentine Futbol, Yeah your right when you say it will never happen. But that was not the point. This thread is an exercise in imagination. It's a what if? Thread. Read the beggining of it. Try to answer what MIGKiller was trying to suggest. What would you do if the opportunity arose? how would you stucture the tournament? What would you call it? etc. I'm challenging you to answer.
Uefa Why merge?? US should get the hell outta CONCACAF and join UEFA. This is THE only way to become a serious contender to winning soccer trophies: 1. Playing tough qualifiers probably will mean that the US will qualify less often for the WC, but WHEN you qualify the US will be leaner and meaner (technically and mentally). Qualifying by beating Trinidad really sucks. 2. MLS teams playing in the Champions League and UEFA Cup year in and year out will greatly improve the american game. Sure, MLS teams will get slaughtered during the initial years, but americans are winners (right?), and MLS teams will come back stronger each year. 3. Soccer in America needs to evolve from just being a predominantly rich white boys sport and become popular with 'poor' african-americans (such as e.g. basketball is). The reason why so many Argentinians, Brazilians, and Africans succeed in Europe is because there is nothing to go back to back home. You play better when the alternative is not having anything to eat. YOU HEAR ME LANDON??!!! He's been offered to go back to Leverkusen and instead he remains in the MLS!! This is the end of my wishful thinking (sniff).
Re: Uefa I Like your reasoning. As far fetched as it might seem. We all know it will never happen. But Dammit! I like your way of thinking Vandervaart. Cheers mate!
I can't come up with a way to be truthful. THe Concacaf has 35 member. To be fair in qualifying, i have no idea. How do you guys do now?
My Pan-Am Cup For my qualifying procedure, I would bracket the S.A. teams as (1-4 in pool A), (5-8 in pool B), (9-10 in pool C), and similarly for N.A. teams: (1-4 in pool A), (5-8 in pool B), (9-14 in pool C), (15-22 in pool D), (23-30 in pool E), (31-35 in pool F). Each of the first five pools has eight teams. Pool A teams are directly qualified into the tournament. Qualifying for the other eight spots would be in a "stepladder" format: Pool E and F play (there would be some byes), the eight winners play pool D, those eight winners play pool C, and those eight winners play pool B, to get the last eight qualifiers. Using the latest Fifa rankings (because I feel that within a single confederation, the rankings are probably close to correct), we have: (A) 1 Brazil, 2 Argentina, 3 Paraguay, 4 Uruguay (A) 1 Mexico, 2 United States, 3 Costa Rica, 4 Honduras (B) 5 Ecuador, 6 Colombia, 7 Venezuela, 8 Chile (B) 5 Jamaica, 6 Trinidad and Tobago, 7 Cuba, 8 Guatemala (C) 9 Peru, 10 Bolivia (C) 9 Canada, 10 Haiti, 11 El Salvador, 12 Barbados 13 St. Lucia 14 St. Kitts and Nevis (D) 15 Panama, 16 Grenada, 17 Surinam, 18 St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 19 Dominican Republic, 20 Antigua and Barbuda, 21 British Virgin Islands, 22 Belize (E) 23 Cayman Islands, 24 Nicaragua, 25 Guyana, 26 Bermuda, 27 Dominica, 28 Netherlands Antilles, 29 Bahamas, 30 Aruba (F) 31 Anguilla, 32 US Virgin Islands, 33 Puerto Rico, 34 Turks and Caicos Islands, 35 Montserrat Thus, the S.A. teams don't come into play until the third round of home-and-home's (the round of 24), and only two S.A. teams at that. That will limit the number of Pan-American flights.
One possible problem in an 8-8 COnmebol COncaca seeding is that all the teams in COnmebol (including Venezuela and Bolivia) are much better than Trinidad, Jamaica, even Canada. In all fairness, it should be 6 Concaca and the 10 Conmebol. But imagine the long qualifying procedure to sort out those 6 teams of our complex region.
I agree with some of what you've just said. but I must clarify something for you. Bolivia is pretty decent I won't argue that one. In no way shape or form is Venezuela better than Trinidad (and believe me when I say this I am not a Trinidad fan). Jamaica is slightly better than Venezuela. Canada however is just like Venezuela, they are both the doormats of their respective federations. In a match Venezuela would probably beat Canada, if only by some god awfull mistake made by a Canadian defender (maybe an own goal). Now, we all agree that CONMEBOL teams are of higher quality, but aside from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, I would match the rest pretty even with the best of CONCACAF. In all fairness if (and this is total and complete wishfull thinking) a tournament of this nature ever happens, CONCACAF should get 12 slots and CONMEBOL 10. Why? because of the HUGE difference in number teams.
It is Possible... I know the smaller teams wouldn't like what I'm about to propose, but I look at this tournament more like a Copa America with 6 guest slots. Most people generally agree that Mexico and the US are now the class of CONCACAF with Costa Rica and Honduras a little behind followed by the rest of the hex and potential up and comers like Canada. CONMEBOL could essentially invite the top three in the hex from the WC two years prior outright and invite others to attempt to qualify for the last 3 slots. They could throw the next 9 or 12 into three groups of 3-4 and take the champs of each group for the final three slots. These invitations could be based upon who made the second round of qualifying the previous WC or the FIFA rankings, however flawed they might be. I would prefer to see 100% pure qualification including all teams, CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, but this would be impossible. UEFA can do this because their players all play on the continent, but asking the best to show up for both WC and continental qualifiers would be too much for clubs to take over here. So, if a team can't make the top 12 or 15 of CONCACAF, I can't see them having much of an argument against being excluded for what would essentially be an invitation to qualify by CONMEBOL. The potential tournament could be: Brazil Ecuador Honduras Bolivia Argentina Uruguay Jamaica Peru Mexico Paraguay Colombia T&T USA Costa Rica Venezuela Chile I would rotate the tournament between Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and the US as these countries have the stadia to present this on a large stage.
stadia ?? all yo need are four decent stadiums im pretty sure colombia ecuador and chile have 4 stadiums that can host games peru only has 3 technically they have 4 but 2 are in the same city so it dosnt count