March Concacaf Qualifers and Blog Update

Hi everyone! If you happened to read my latest tweet you already know I am going to be temporarily taking a break from Concacaf Lives! Long story short I am very busy at the moment and overwhelmed with stuff and quite frankly just don't feel like writing anything right now. 

I have taken breaks before, and in fact, that is one of the main reasons that I prefer to just keep my thoughts to a personal blog. I can stop to take a breather whenever I want, and there is no real obligation to anyone else because its *my* blog. But this time it is a little different, because I did just start a series of posts and say I was going to look at every group and now I am not going to do that. Sorry for that.

I will still be watching as many of the qualifiers as time allows and will probably still be tweeting dumb jokes about my beloved Suriname, but that's about it. I anticipate getting back into the groove in a few months when things settle down, ideally with less generic previews and more interesting stories. See you then, and as always thank you for reading :)

Concacaf World Cup Qualifying: Group A Storylines

Well well well. It appears that finally, after a long wait, there will be Concacaf World Cup qualifiers starting this March. It will not be a normal qualification cycle in any way, shape or form, with the numerous logistical complications that come with the pandemic. As of now there are some plans in place for neutral site games, and I seriously doubt that every team will be playing at full strength. While Raul Jimenez might get an exception regarding quarantine rules, I don't think your preferred Concacaf Nations League C side will get the same treatment. But it certainly does seem at this point like it will be happening.

So it is going to be weird. Hopefully it is going to be safe. Concacaf had pretty good protocols in place for their continental tournaments, so I'd expect to see a similar level of care taken with these matches. As is always the case here on one of your favorite Concacaf focused soccer platforms, I will be going over the storylines and what to keep an eye on in each group. I'm not going to get too in depth on players, because we simply have no idea who will make it to these games and who won't, especially with the smaller teams in the first round.

To refresh your memory, this first group stage features six groups of five teams each. Each side will play everyone else in their group once, for a total of two home games and two away games. The six group winners will meet in the head-to-head second round, where the top three will advance to the new Octagonal to join the already qualified top 5 of Mexico, the US, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Jamaica.

So today we begin with (surprise surprise) Group A, which features the favored El Salvador, as well as Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Montserrat, and the US Virgin Islands.

There are a few interesting things about this group. The most obvious to many fans may be that we get the continuation of the beloved El Salvador-Montserrat rivalry. La Seleccion edged the Emerald Boys during the Concacaf Nations League qualifying a few years back and narrowly stole their Gold Cup spot. El Salvador held off the Caribbean side again in their actual Nations League B group a year later. Will third time be the charm for Montserrat, the darlings of the region who have achieved spectacular highs despite their population of just over 5,000?

Well, this is a good time to transition to the other big story of Group A. El Salvador is pissed. Back when there was a Hex, El Salvador were in line to receive a pass into the final round. They would enter in the Hex, and avoid the long and convoluted qualifying tournament that much of the region was going to play. But instead, the Hex became the Octo, and only the top five teams were given a pass directly to it. Number six is not happy about it. This El Salvador team is going to be playing with a fire and fury unlike anything you've ever seen from them before, and that is not exactly good news for a Montserrat team that has failed to defeat them so far.

But while that rivalry headlines the group, don't forget about Grenada. In fact, I would actually rank the Spice Boys as the 2nd best team in Group A, ahead of Montserrat. Jamal Charles of Real Sociedad (Honduras, not Spain sadly) is an absolute beast, and their undefeated Nations League campaign is a feat that even El Salvador could not pull off (La Seleccion did have 15 points to Grenada's 14, though). Antigua aren't exactly slouches either, and could definitely play spoiler to any of the top three teams and shake the group up in a big way. The US Virgin Islands were inconsistent in Nations League C play and are probably not at the level to cause problems for any of these opponents just yet, but getting in four good games against a very deep Group A will help to develop some of the young talents they have.

El Salvador

They have to be the favorites. Don't let their recent 6-0 pounding at the hands of the US cloud your vision too much; the Salvadorans have by far the most talent in Group A. Their opening match against Grenada could decide the group right then and there, and the match against Montserrat a few days later will be a must see for fans of the confederation's strangest rivalry. 

Grenada

Seriously, Jamal Charles is a beast. If they do manage to upset El Salvador, expect him to be the reason. As far as I know he has no relation to the great Grenadian striker Ricky Charles, but Jamal may be on pace to break his all-time scoring record of 37 goals for the Spice Boys. Grenada are gearing up for their Gold Cup return in the summer, but getting out of this group is a prize they've got their sights on too.

Montserrat

No lowly ranked Concacaf team has garnered as much attention as Montserrat over the past few years. You've probably heard the story by now. Population of 5,000. Once starred in a documentary where they lost The Other Final to Bhutan 4-0 and were declared the worst team in the world. They've only got 9 wins in history, but 5 of them have come in the past two years. Hard to imagine a Montserratian fan 3 years ago thinking their biggest rivals were El Salvador and not Anguilla, but here we are.

Antigua and Barbuda

American fans remember Antigua for that close battle they gave the US in 2014 World Cup qualification, where Eddie Johnson scored a 90th minute winner to barely edge the visitors. Antigua have fallen since then, and they really have no hope of getting out of this group, but as I said above they definitely have the power to make an impact. If Grenada or Montserrat want to win this group, they'll absolutely need the three points off Antigua, and the Benna Boys will not give them up so easily. They did manage a win over Gold Cup participants Guyana back in the Nations League, after all.

US Virgin Islands

I am going to mostly have the same thing to say about the bottom team in every group of this qualifying phase. At this point in time, it's hard to see anything but four clear losses for the USVI. The program is developing, and there were flashes during the Nations League C where the team looked capable, but doing it for a full 90 minutes against opponents of this caliber is a big step up. With lots of very young players in the squad, the goal here is to get experience against a level of competition that you won't ever find playing in the local domestic leagues.

The Good and the Bad of the New CCL Format

 

Hello all, it's been a while since I've done a proper post here. Tigres have become champions and as of the time of writing this are headed to the final four of the Club World Cup. Exciting times to be a fan and exciting times for football in the region. But I am not here to talk about the Club World Cup (or the Guatemalan final which kicks off at 12:00 Eastern on Super Bowl Sunday), but instead we are going to talk about the future.

Concacaf announced yesterday, in their trademark fashion of confusing flowchart graphics and videos, a new format for the Concacaf Champions League starting in the Fall of 2023. The 2021, 2022, and 2023 tournaments will be played under the current format, as will the second-tier Concacaf League tournament.

As I said in a tweet yesterday, while the change a few years back from group stage + knockout to straight knockout felt more like a normal format change, this new CCL is dramatically going to change the picture of Concacaf club football, for better and for worse. There are simply so many implications here, so I want to break every piece down one at a time.

The Good

More Teams. The current CCL format sees only 16 teams in the top competition. The second tier Concacaf League has 22 teams, but the top 6 qualify to the CCL later in the cycle, so in total there were 32 teams involved in continental play during a given cycle. Now we have 20 in North America, 20 in Central America, and 10 in the Caribbean, for a total of 50 teams, all in the top level competition. Furthermore, while the Concacaf League will presumably be scrapped (more on that later), there will be new Central American and Caribbean Cups that will essentially replace that second tier and act as CCL qualifying tournaments. We don't yet know the size of these tournaments, but certainly you are looking at upwards of 70 teams participating in continental/subcontinental football, and that can only be a good thing for the overall quality of teams in the region.

Domestic Cup Revivals. We don't care much for our domestic cups here. Mostly everyone has playoffs, and a lot of places treat the local cup like practice games, if such a competition even exists. This announcement should change things. The long neglected Copa MX could get some extra juice with CCL spots on the line. Many Central American countries have floated around the idea of bringing back domestic cups in recent years. Now here is an opportunity to jump start those cups and make teams care about them immediately.  

Caribbean Progress. The Caribbean has never been as involved with continental tournaments as it should be, and this is a big step in the right direction. 8 pro teams and 2 semi-pro/amateur sides playing against one another in Champions League matches (that means televised and more publicized than the current Caribbean Shield that you may or may not know exists) is big for developing these teams and players. With a crack at one of the big boys on the line, the Caribbean section of the tournament should be exciting and beneficial for the clubs involved.

Central American Cup and Caribbean Cup. We don't know much of anything about these so far, but they sound awesome! Even though they will fill the same general role as qualifiers for the first tier tournament, I think framing them this way is much better. Being Champions of Central America is a much cooler and alluring title than being Champions of Concacaf's second tier tournament. I hope there is some sort of playoff round between teams from both cups, because it would be a shame to miss out on matchups like Arcahaie vs Herediano in the future.

The Bad

North American Dominance. North America obviously possesses the two strongest leagues in Concacaf, and the Canadian Premier League is proving it isn't too shabby either, but this is a tournament for the entire region. Currently, North America already gets 9/16 slots in the knockout round. It feels a bit like the big boys club, but the Central American and Caribbean teams fight hard and give us a lot of good games. They have been rewarded for their efforts with two less spots; North America will now have 11 knockout spots, Central America has four, and the Caribbean just one. I think it is simply too much for the North American teams at this point. Especially when you consider the Leagues Cup, which already features 8 Liga MX and 8 MLS teams, this decision confuses me a little. Either scrap the Leagues Cup entirely or let that be the Mexico vs USA tournament and give the other countries more of a shake in the CCL. 

The Death of the Concacaf League. The Concacaf League is presumably gone after this transition, and replaced by the Central American and Caribbean Cups that are in the works. This is not inherently a bad thing. But it does mean that the final three Concacaf Leagues will lose some steam. Already much of the emphasis is on making it far enough to qualify for the CCL, and that sentiment is sure to increase now. There is no historic emphasis to winning a dying tournament; it is just a blip on the radar now for a club like Alajuelense, whose more casual fans may not recall the tournament ever existed in a decade or so. Again, I think this is more the price you pay for overhauling the system than some sort of horrible error.

The Maybe

Single Leg Final. I know some of the people reading this love the single leg finals, so I'm putting it in the maybe category just for you. But I don't think its a particularly great idea. Two legged series bring their own fun and added drama (especially if there's no away goals like in the Liga MX Final), but a one-off game brings its own charm. I get it. But the bigger issue for me is fan support. This is the biggest game in the region, and it is always going to be played in a neutral site (read: the United States) which can make it hard for fans to get to the game. North America is a huge continent and international travel is a big undertaking. I just can't imagine a full house at MetLife Stadium for say, León vs Vancouver. Maybe the higher seed will get to host instead.

Scheduling Concerns. This is a lot of games added to the schedule. The current CCL runs you at max eight games. Starting in the Concacaf League could add as many as 10 more. That's already quite a bit, and now you're adding even more. The new CCL could run Central American teams (the ones that would normally be in the Concacaf League) as many as 13 games, plus however many need to be played in the Central American Cup. And for North American teams, who may have to play a 34 game regular season plus one or two sets of playoffs, plus a domestic cup, plus the Leagues Cup, and now this many continental games; you are asking a lot of these teams. But there are three years to plan out how to navigate this issue, so I don't think it will necessarily still be a problem when the time comes.