My thoughts are: 1) A combined entity would give the US a chance to play in a new combined Copa America and Gold Cup -- a massive tourney to help interest in soccer grow in the USA in between world cups. 2) A combined entity would have 7 wc qual. spots, giving the USA a decent chance of qualifying. 3) Travel in the AFC is just as long. 4) Increased compeitin for new americas tourny and wc quals will help our team improve and more exciting match ups with the likes of brazil, chile, argentina, etc will help draw more fans due to the formation of new rivalries rather than just Mexico.
While it would never happen, why are you assuming that a combined confed would have fewer spots than the two do now (4.5 + 3.5)?
I think you are wrong. A world cup every 4 years is not enough to sustain interest, given how weak MLS is. Gold cups are worthless really, and how many times can we get into the confed cup before mexico? Not guaranteed. So, playing higher profile teams and playing in a major tourny like a new COPA would give more opportunities for major public attention on soccer. I can't believe you would disagree. We have to wait 4 more years for the media spot light to be back on soccer in this country. There is no high profile competitions before that, like the euros, copa, etc.. Think of how much more attention we would get if we played a high profile tourny like Copa instead of Gold cup... far more valuable than playing confed cups.
Fine, 8 then. Still, we would have a good chance to get in with 8 spots. I think playing teams like brazil, argentina, and mexico in real games would really help raise public interest.
They could do that without combining COMNEBOL & CONCACAF; just dream up a new tournament; the Hemisphere Cup or something.
dude, what are you drinking? Why in the world we give up virtually certain qualificatin to every world and trade it for 10 trips to south america every four years. Trips to brazil, argentina, uruguay, paraguay and chile are guaranteed losses. Each of these teams could get results from us in the US. Now there are three spots left. We won't win in mexico, or costa rica. Do you think we will win at 6000 feet in bolivia or 6000 feet in peru? Or 5000 feet in ecuador? Or in bogota colombia? I wouldn't be able to even guaranteee points in venezuela. Before you think I am a defeatist. I don't think the english or most european teams could get points in these places. South American qualifying is a bear. You really donn't want us to be in the world cup do you?
It would not lower much. We should qualify if there are 8 spots. Remember, we wouldn't be playing all these teams, there would be groups like in UEFA. We must find a way to have a major tournament between the world cup in order to sustain the interest...otherwise it is just going to be a 4 year sport for most US people. Gold cup is hardly interesting... basically US-Mexico final all the time. If we had a major tournament every 2 years, soccer is going to be in the media spotlight far more, which means more interest is generated. If we do not combine confeds, lets get rid of the gold cup and create a pan american tournament...top performing team from each confederation goes to the confederation cup
Our odds of qualifying from a combined CONMEBOL / CONCACAF would be significantly less than our odds of qualifying from CONCACAF. Your idea is stupid. Anyone who thinks that decreasing our chances to make it to the World Cup finals is going to make soccer more popular in the USA is an idiot. Exactly how is your new tournament going to be popular enough to sustain the same interest in soccer as the World Cup does? Another stupid idea.
Wow, you are offensive... calling people idiots and stupid. Why don't you just get lost then, huh? You sound so full of yourself it isn't even funny. I think my idea is good.. If you want to continue playing Mexico in the gold cup finals every 2 years and find that exciting, well you must be the idiot. How predictably boring that is. If you hate the combined confed, at least you must be interested in the new tournament for the americas idea. I can't believe the ridiculous hostility of people here. Eritrea, just get out of my thread if you are going to be throwing insults around, you sad person.
I'm not gonna throw out any insults, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone to agree that your idea is any good at all. I'd rather keep our virtual qualification intact, and we can schedule a couple high profile friendlies every year to maintain that interest. And although the Gold Cup is not as glamorous as Euro or Copa America, it is still OUR Confederation's Cup.
I am not going to bash your idea. I agree with others on here in that it will most probably hurt soccer 'popularity' in the short to medium run in the US if CONCACAF and CONMEBOL combined. HOWEVER, I personally could care less about soccer being ridiculously popular. I would rather the US continue to develop its footballing talent and culture and I believe joining CONCACAF and CONMEBOL would help the US in this way by forcing us to play a much tougher schedule THAT COUNTS (WC qualification and Copa America). Teams in CONCACAF, AFC, ACN are separated from UEFA and CONMEBOL and one doesn't develop when subjected to a lower level of competition. Continuous high quality competition in matches that have meaning will help develop US national team quality and strength. This is more important for me than US soccer getting more face time on sportscenter.
i think we desperately need a high profile cup in between world cups. I just wouldn't want to merge concacaf and conmebol and thus make it much harder for the US to qualify for the world cup. We likely would still qualify but there would be years where a tough qualifying group could keep us out. It's just not worth it. I'd much rather see Copa America expand to a 16 team tournament that includes 6 concacaf teams. but i think you've hit on a problem. The lack of a high profile tournament between world cups.
actually you would find a lot of people that agree with him. BTW there is really no such thing as a high profile friendly. Friendlies are friendlies. You can't equate friendlies with something like the Euro. the gold cup is useless.
Ok, well perhaps if Copa America was held at a different time of year, or different year, we could send an A squad. Or else, just create a new COPA AMERICA for the entire americas. Eliminate Gold Cup. Then we would send the best performing team from Concacaf and Comnebol to the Confed cup. I.E, even if USA get to the quaters only, but are the last CONCAFAC team left, we would go to the confeds... likewise for the comnebol team.
I wouldn't discount the quality of north america. I would argue that the the problem is the lack to teams sending the best players to the gold cup, not the gold cup itself. Mexico, USA and Honduras were three very strong sides this time around. Costa Rica is always good. If australia and nw zealand can get good, with the MLS moving to three canadian cities, I would be very very surprised if Canada did not produce an impressive team in the near future. If we are into cockamamy ideas, after jack Warner is dead of course, we should take a page out of cricket and get Jamaica, Grenada, guadeloupe, dutch antilles, and etc. and form a very powerful West Indies team. So we have a good gold cup tournament and we send our A team to Copa america if invited and there you go.
Forget about it. 2002 was the Apex. It's not getting any better. USSF's merry band of leadership losers will not do what is required to get to the next level - hire a tactically competent foreign coach. BB can resume his bad selections and poor tactics in MLS.
Hondurus strong? You are joking I hope. These teams will never be much of anything given their tiny populations. I can't believe you guys are willing to play gold cups and be satisfied with that. It is nothing, nothing at all. Do you want us to develop, or languish?
the only thing I would worry about with the merger would be that it would be harder for the US to qualify for the world cup. but the more i think about it i don't think we can afford not to merge. As it stands now, because concacaf is so weak and the gold up is such a poor cup, soccer in this country has become an every 4 years sport. Not only do we not have our own "Euro" on this side of the hemisphere but we also don't have an interesting qualifying process. if you look at international soccer in Europe for example everything has drama to it - there is interest all year round because there is the qualifying process for the Euro and once the euro ends there is the qualifying process for the World Cup. what do we have in the US? we have 2 weeks every 4 years where the American public chants USA! USA! and then the national team goes back to irrelevancy until another 4 years as passed. If we concacaf and conmbebol merged we could actually have a cup that rivals the euro. No longer after every world cup would we have this gutted feeling that it's gonna be another 4 long years until we have a chance to prove ourself again.
The answer is: Somehow, some way, MLS needs to fill the void. We need to dominate concacaf so that we can be in the club world cup EVERY YEAR to compete against europe's and south america's best and keep all of us interested
screw the MLS. I want to root on my country not some dopey MLS team with an arena league football name.