Americas Champions League

[DarthGrumpy]

ESPN is reporting that CONCACAF and CONMEBOL are considering a Champions League style tournament for the best club teams in the combined region.

I think this would be good for MLS as it would provide greater exposure and the opportunity for MLS players to be challenged at the highest level. The extra TV money, if managed properly, could really help MLS grow to, and I don't mean by the number of teams, I am talking about the quality of the product on the field. Lastly, if this somehow comes to fruition, afterall, politics within both regions significantly contributed to FIFA's on-going corruption probes, I think it will only be matter of time before CONCACAF and CONMEBOL are combined.

http://www.espnfc.us/fifa-world-cup...cacaf-champions-league-planned-riccardo-silva

 

[SAMCRO]

While it would be pretty cool, that would mean A LOT of travel for some teams. Vancouver/Montreal/Boston to Rio or Buenos Ares is anywhere from 10-16 hours. The English teams complain about flying 5-6 hours to the Balkans or Russia for UCL, could you imagine having a 12+ hour flight for mid-week matches during your season?

Beyond the idea of an ACL "America's Champions League", would the powers that be ever consider a merger of CONCACAF/CONMEBOL? I say no, just for political/power reasons alone, but that would be interesting to play out. CONMEBOL currently puts 4.5 teams in and CONCACAF puts 3.5 in the world cup. Would merging together give them the "strength" to make it possible for more teams (maybe 9 instead of 8) from The America's?

There is something like 35 teams in CONCACAF and 10 in CONMEBOL. Have CONCACAF do their play in style qualifiers (as they already do) to get if down to 14 CONCACAF sides and 10 CONMEBOL sides for an even 24 teams. Have 6 groups of 4 teams each where the winner automatically advances to the WC, and the 6 runner ups get drawn into a home and home playoff with another runner-up to put 3 more in the WC (similar to UEFA).

CONMEBOL should love it as they probably put more South American sides into the world cup than their 4-5. CONCACAF probably gets limited to 2, maybe 3 on a good year. It would make it tougher for US and Mexico, each year, no doubt. For S&G's, using FIFA rankings, figuring a team from each pod is drawn into a group randomly, here are what the 4 pods would look like.

Pod A: Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico
Pod B: US, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Peru, Venezuela, Jamaica
Pod C: T&T, Paraguay, Panama, Bolivia, Honduras, Haiti
Pod D: Guatemala, Canada, Antigua, El Salvador, Cuba, St. Vincent.

Could you imagine the US drawn in to "the group of death" with Argentina, Paraguay, and Guatemala? I'll take the HEX over that for the time being.

 

[ZooCougar]

The travel would be brutal. You could actually justify using the away goals rule in that format.

 

[UCHuskies08]

Would this mean getting rid of Copa Libertadores? I can see tossing aside the CCL, no one cares about that, but Copa Libertadores has a real history behind it, and I don't think South Americans would be so keen to ditch it.

As far as travel is concerned, I imagine there would have to be CONCACAF/CONMEBOL brackets where they first cross paths in the quarterfinals or semifinals or something like that.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

The travel would be brutal. You could actually justify using the away goals rule in that format.

Not to mention the 'experience' of playing at certain venues in Latin America where opposing players can expect to have everything from bags of bodily fluids (or solids) to large explosive devices thrown at them.

 

[ZooCougar]

Would this mean getting rid of Copa Libertadores? I can see tossing aside the CCL, no one cares about that, but Copa Libertadores has a real history behind it, and I don't think South Americans would be so keen to ditch it.

As far as travel is concerned, I imagine there would have to be CONCACAF/CONMEBOL brackets where they first cross paths in the quarterfinals or semifinals or something like that.

Not too sure that nobody cares about it. And in the current format, it is still new. Montreal and Club America had packed houses in the semis and the finals. The problem with CCL is that it is split over two seasons and it suffers from a huge gap in continuity. The Group Stage wraps up in Oct and then resumes in late January. The group phase should start in the late winter and the finals should wrap up just before Novemberish..