I was wondering which teams would make the 2003 CONCACAF Champions' Cup given the following scenarios: Shield: Los Angeles MLS Cup: Los Angeles (runner-up New England) Open Cup: Los Angeles (runner-up Columbus) Shield: Los Angeles MLS Cup: Los Angeles (runner-up New England) Open Cup: Columbus (runner-up Los Angeles) Shield: Los Angeles MLS Cup: New England (runner-up Los Angeles) Open Cup: Los Angeles (runner-up Columbus) Shield: Los Angeles MLS Cup: New England (runner-up Los Angeles) Open Cup: Columbus (runner-up Los Angeles)
Los Angeles already qualified for the supporters shield...New England will get in with the cup or a runners-up as will columbus, so those 3 are set...and the 4th sport will probably either be some phantom thing USSF comes up with or it will be San Jose cuz of their finish in the standings...
The fourth spot should go to San Jose for being SS runners up. But who the hell knows what will happen.
The only thing that's 100% certain is that the MLS champion will be there, as every previous MLS champion has. The MLS Cup loser is almost as certain, as every one so far except 2001 LA, who were victims of CONCACAF's squeezing 2 years into one tournament this year. Most people think that the Supporters Shield winner qualifies, but remember that Miami would not have been in this year's tournament even if they still existed. But this year the Shield winner should expect to be there as MLS champion or runner-up, so it's not really an issue. The US Open Cup has never been used for Champions Cup qualification in the MLS era, but there's a first time for everything, especially if MLS gets 4 teams in the tournament again. I would think that if they can't come up with 4 different teams from the MLS Cup finalists, Shield winners, and Cup winners, which they can't this year, they will go for the teams with the best records who haven't otherwise qualified, which would mean San Jose and maybe Dallas. But they could also go for losing MLS Cup semifinalists and/or Open Cup runners-up, so we'll see.
Repeat after me, the Supporters Shield is meaningless unless MLS says otherwise. Commence breathing through nose. Sachin
It's interesting that in mlsnet.com's year-end awards announcement schedule is "Sun. Sep. 22: MLS Supporters Shield (best record): Los Angeles Galaxy". http://www.mlsnet.com/content/02/weekly1008.html Does that make it at least one step above meaningless in MLS' eyes?
which was ironicly one of the least attended events in the history of Concacaf (that's saying something!!!!)