nations league for concacaf women

Old format - 5 USWNT Matches
New format - 5 USWNT Matches
If I'm wrong and there are fewer USWNT Matches, I'm on a plane for Miami to visit CONCACAF Headquarters.

 

The finals event will feature six CONCACAF teams which qualify through the group stage and play-in, four guest teams from other confederations and two 2024 Olympic-qualified teams.

The 12 teams will be split into three groups of four.

After single round-robin play, the three group winners, three group runners-up and two best third-place finishers will qualify for the knockout stage which will consist of quarterfinals, semifinals and a final.

That means 6 matches if you make the finals, which could include guest teams from outside of Concacaf. The quality of the guest teams could really throw a wrench into the qualifying process.

 

Seems like CONCACAF been taking some points from UEFA’s Olympic qualifying tournament (also known as FIFA WWC) and think that mixing a few good team from other confederations is good for the qualification tournament. Even in CONCACAF want to use it in the WWC qualification instead.

 

Be a shame to miss out on the WWC/Olympics because you lost to a team from another confederation. I'm in favor of that in other tournaments, but less than ideal in this situation.

 

I do not even like the idea of a a knockout round where a single loss because of a bad day for one team or a great performance by a goalkeeper can eliminate a team from qualification for Olympics or WC. I much prefer the way CONCACAF used to do it for the men where 6 teams play a home/home round robin and the top point getters qualify.

The idea of a single match preventing a great team from qualifying just seem a very bad idea and extremely unfair.

The format presented means that if group play works out such it easily could be that the second best team could face the US in the quarterfinals and a loss means no qualifying or even that second place team having a good day and removing the best team in the world from any chance of qualification.

I understand that the new format is an attempt to make some money from qualification. I just don't think that should be done at the expense of getting the best possible teams to the main tournament.

BTW: I also think it is stupid to have placement in one tournament determine qualification for the next.

 

Sadly to chose to invite teams to have 3 groups of 4 instead of 2 or 4 groups are kind of dubious.
If you are running it the play-off way 8 or 16 teams would be much better than 12 unless you want a system where the confederation can influence the outcome more. And if you can invite some outside countries that do not really have anything to lose in the tournament and perhaps can be convinced to rest players strategically, the confederations power over the outcome will increase even more*.

So I am pretty sure we will not see Germany, Netherlands or any of the Nordic countries invited, instead I expected the invitees to be countries with federation with a history of corruption.



*The reason the UEFA Olympic qualification works as well as they do, is that the non-UEFA teams have something to play for, it is the WWC after all.

 

I dispute that UEFA qualification works well. It works just because it saves money. The UEFA incurs no cost for qualification BUT a team cannot qualify for the Olympics unless they first qualify for the WWC. That means that no team can improve and make the Olympics unless they were good enough to qualify for the WWC.

In UEFA they have a qualifying system for the Olympics that saves money for the old men that run UEFA but it cheats both the teams and the fans out of some of the best soccer in the world.

The fact that other teams have something to play for in the WWC is really meaningless to the teams in UEFA and equally meaningless to the fans of the world's greatest sport.

 

Therefore the use of the term as well as it do, a term normally used for things that do work but not very well.

There are several good reason to be critical of the way UEFA run that olympic qualification but that one have to qualify for the last step of the qualification to be able to qualify is not one of them. THAT IS JUST LIKE IN EVERY OTHER CONFEDERATION. That the last step is at the same time the WWC do not change that and every member of UEFA knows that it is so before the qualification to both starts (so it is not a surprise sorung on them after the WWC qualifcation is.done, which would be bad).