There is no doubt in my mind that Pumas will win the champions cup. I just hope he gives a good performance in the Clubs world cup.
Count me as someone who isn't convinced that there is enough quality teams in CONCACAF for a 16 team field. The last time the CCC had 16 teams four MFL teams made the semis (2003.) One way to have more games is to create two groups of four, home and away. Then the semis and final (total 10 games to win the tournament.)
I'll love to have a 16 team tournament but you are right there are no 16 quality teams for it. A 8 team tournament divided in a group-stage and a kO-stage seems to be the better solution, what i hate is to have the MEX/US teams seeded in the final round, if they dont want to play it, they better dont play it at all
I'm personally fully in favor of introducing a Uefa coefficient like system if the MEX/US teams (especially the latter) don't justify their direct seeding now that the "no reward" excuse is history.
this is correct, the only problem with this, is that the concacaf geniouses are not letting this to happen.
CONCACAF has announced a group stage at least once in the last few years. I think there was a second attempt. The 16 team 2002 tournament was originally announced as 4 groups of 4. The reason that it was changed to a straight knockout is the same reason that a group stage just isn't feasible in CONCACAF. Money. This is a tournament where teams sell their home games (New England Revolution) to their opponents to cut down on expenses. This is a tournament where the two-legged final can be changed at the last minute to a single game at a neutral site (as happened two years ago when two Mexican teams made the final) to cut down on expenses. The CONCACAF Champions Cup is a financial disaster.
Yeah, it is really common for Concacaf to change the rules and venues of the games whenever they want... Last year the 4 uncaf qualified teams where Municipal, Cominicaciones , Alajuela and Saprissa, 2 from GUA and 2 from CR, and they were supposed to play against each other in a group stage, but they suddenly decided to play just 2 games, the 2 teams form CR and the 2 temas form GUA and then the winner of the 2 games.
You are of course correct. Hopefully that will change now with the CWC and they can land a decent TV contract...
Are you getting mentally ready to see the Wizards NOT do well? I'd understand, really..... I believe the Mexican teams did not care because there was no real incentive at the time for whoever was champion, when compared to the importance of their local club matches... It should be different this time for all clubs involved....
That 16-team tournament was the end-result of Concacaf's previous attempt (failure) of a tournament structure: a "Champions Cup" (entries based on field results), a "Giants Cup" (entries based on, get this, attendence), leading to a "Clubs Cup" which was to be the qualifier for the Fifa Club Champoinship. That failed so badly, the Giants competitors were folded into the next year's 16-team Champions Cup. I can't remember if it was supposed to be group play, but as you said, it turned out to be the h+h knockout format (which I think is a great format for this kind of tournament). I would like it to go back to the 16 team system, but since it kind of is a money-loser, it has to stay at 8 teams for now. And you would think that there are enough TV outlets now that somebody would want to show this in the USA and Mexico.
But Eufa plays hundreds of club games a year, spread over two tournaments. Concacaf has 14 games in its main draw (not including the qualifying games in Central and the Carribbean). You can't get a good rating coefficient using that few games.
It's certainly not ideal, but it's better than seeding based on gut feeling. Do you have a better idea...?
I'm not exactly sure what you (and MORADO) did mean by seeding. When the final-8 draw is done, there is no seeding in terms of 1-vs-8, 2-vs-7, ... The US teams are split in the bracket so that they can't meet until the final, same for the Mex teams; and the four "Northern" (US, Mex) teams don't meet in the first round. But that doesn't mean there is a seeding process. But again, any statistical method based on 14 data points is not valid. (The Concacaf Cup plays 14 games in its main draw.) In general, a "lay-man's" rule of thumb is that you need at least 30 data points. (Below that, you can do some number crunching to show that you have an umpteen percent confidence at 20 points, a slightly higher confidence at 25 points, etc.) For example, some people want a Eufa-like rating system to seed the teams for the Fifa Club Champoinship. But with only six teams (playing I think a total of seven games), you don't get a statistically valid rating at the end.
What is it then? The two pots are cleary sorted by perceived strength. Otherwise there would just be a random draw in which two teams from the same country can't meet. The Ticos have a right to be upset, their teams have done much better than MLS sides since 2000. Currently there is a 50% chance they will draw a MFL team. Which is why I propose a format that contains two groups of four (home and away) with semis and a final.
They shouldn't have cut the number of teams in the competition. Financially it probably made sense though
Which again would virtually eliminate any need for seeding. You would place the two USA teams in different groups, same for the two MEX teams. (This is not done by "perceived strength," but by the simple notion of wanting to make each group as geographically diverse as possible.) The only seeding choice to make is to seperate Central #1 and Central #2 into different groups, then the Central #3 and Carribbean teams would fall in as they may.