After All That Talk...

It has finally happened. After 13 straight years of Liga MX dominance, an MLS team has finally been crowned Champions of Concacaf. And it couldn't have happened to a more deserving franchise. The Sounders have a lot of history, both in MLS and predating it, and the sport's popularity in the Cascadia region is unmatched throughout the rest of the US (and Canada). 

It just feels right that Seattle were the first to do it. And it helps that in addition to their history and pedigree, they brought nearly 70,000 fans out to Lumen Field with them. That's the largest crowd in CCL history. Not the largest for an American team, the largest in history, period. Pretty good!

But now that two days have passed, it seems like it almost feels too right that Seattle have done it. This is a long, long awaited moment for MLS fans, and a day largely dreaded by Liga MX faithful. And yet, now that Seattle have done it, everything feels a little quiet, in a good way. The story made all the newspapers, made it to SportsCenter, and certainly is being widely celebrated in Sounders country. 

But to my eyes, there has been no legion of MLS fans proclaiming that the gap has finally closed. Nor has there been a counter of Liga MX fans saying that the gap is as large as it has ever been. That narrative has taken a complete back seat. And while I think that is for the best, I'm also just surprised. When the moment finally came, I expected chaos and pandemonium and hilarious declarations from both American and Mexican media. In reality? Some, but not as much fireworks as I predicted.

I don't mean to imply that this win is not a big deal. I think it's a very very very big deal for Seattle. The Sounders are going to the Club World Cup, and take it from a Tigres fan, that is a huge deal. Sounders fans will come to treasure those games for the rest of their lives. And it's a big deal for MLS as well. Long has the league wanted to get this monkey off their back.

I don't know what caused the subdued reaction; perhaps it is because MLS teams have improved so dramatically in recent years that it felt inevitable sooner or later. Perhaps it is because this MLS vs Liga MX narrative has been pushed by a loud minority and most fans simply don't care. Or perhaps there really has been a lot of talk about it, and I just haven't seen it. Curious to hear what others think.

Panama are the Key to Everything

(Image from RPCTV)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Octo continues. It delivers. Canada has just cleaned up Mexico on a CFL field with a giant Edmonton Elks logo still visible in the center circle. Concacaf World Cup Qualifiers are still the pinnacle of football. But while much of the talk after this November window will be about the interesting developments within the top 3 (Mexico getting zero points and Canada emerging as a powerful force far earlier than anticipated), another team quietly continued to take care of business in their quest to reach Qatar.

Panama erased a 1st minute goal by La Selecta's Jairo Henríquez to defeat El Salvador 2-1 at home and move on to 14 points. That's the same total as Mexico, and only one behind the US and two behind Canada.

I viciously slandered Panama before the Octo began, on account of their horrendous performance in the earlier rounds of qualifying that saw them need late winners to fend off the powerhouses of Barbados and Dominica. And their Gold Cup performance didn't look much better, failing to get out of the group stage, albeit with a tough draw.  

But Thomas Christiansen's men have been anything but the weak team I suggested they would be. The results speak for themselves, and more than halfway through the Octo Panama are right in the mix. And as we look towards the January window, it is Los Canaleros that are the team to watch. There are essentially three scenarios for how the rest of qualification plays out, and they are all dependent on Panama's performance. 

Perhaps the most likely scenario is that things stay roughly the same, and the North American trio run off to Qatar with the automatic places while Panama nervously await the inter-confederational draw and hope for a date with New Zealand. 

The second is that Panama continue to win, and one of those big three slip up. Perhaps Mexico continues to spiral, perhaps Canada comes down to Earth. Perhaps the US does what the US does. In this case, one of the three will have to go to the playoff, and could end up losing to Uruguay or Colombia if things don't work out. If any of the top three somehow don't end up in Qatar, Panama will be responsible.

And the third scenario, maybe the most likely of the bunch, is that Panama are the ones to slip up, and Costa Rica are able to catch them and grab 4th. Things are looking grim for Jamaica, El Salvador, and Honduras, but the Ticos are still angling to get back to the big dance.

The most impactful game that remains on the schedule will be on January 27th, when Panama visit San José. This match will set the stage for the rest of qualification and send us down the path of one of the three scenarios depending on if Los Canaleros win, lose, or draw.  

Everyone still has time to control their own destiny, but certainly it will be Panama who play the biggest role in this story the rest of the way.

Concacaf W: Good Eats

Ooops, I am behind on Concacaf news. Was too busy with school and work to churn out a post as soon as the press release dropped, but I certainly wanted to weigh in on the recent announcement of the new "W" rebrand in Concacaf.  The short of it: there is now a new Women’s Gold Cup and a fresh format for World Cup qualification in the region. Feel free to watch the official video explanation of things here.

But wait, you say, there has already been a Women’s Gold Cup! You are mostly correct. There have been several Women’s Gold Cups before. But the Women’s Gold Cup (which doubled as a continental championship and World Cup qualifiers) is now rebranded as the W Championship, and the W Gold Cup is a completely new tournament. Not exactly the greatest naming scheme in the world. Concacaf's competition names have never been my favorite.

But aside from the poor names, what exactly has changed here? Let’s start with the W Gold Cup. Not to make things even more confusing, but this tournament actually also resembles something of a W Nations League. Essentially there will be a qualifying phase where teams are divided into Leagues A, B and C and split into groups within each league. From there the League A group winners will qualify to the Gold Cup, with the League A Runner Ups and League B winners going to a playoff much like the Men’s Nations League/Gold Cup. This pathway produces a total of six teams, plus USA and Canada who will skip the Nations League phase entirely and automatically qualify. There will also be four invited teams to the 2022 W Gold Cup. Exciting stuff!

The final tournament will undoubtedly be completely awesome. This is going to be much cooler and more fun than the previous era of Women’s Gold Cups. It is also good that a pathway has been created to get lower ranked national teams more matches. Concacaf recognized how quickly this system improved the overall level of play on the men’s side and it is wise to implement a similar system here. Overall I have basically nothing but good things to say about the new competition. Other than that the branding is el stinko, of course. Is there some sort of international law that your WoSo branding must incorporate a ponytail?

As for the Concacaf W Championship, which has inherited the history of the old Gold Cup and is now the pathway to the World Cup, my feelings are more mixed. Again, it is good to get all these teams more games, but I worry more about how productive some of these matches will be. In the W Gold Cup qualification phase, teams are divided by League into groups of relatively equal strength; it is hardly perfect, but it will prevent a lot of unbalanced games.

In the W Championship, with groups made up of a single team each from Pots A-E, you wind up with a lot of wildly unequal games. What exactly is the point of having Anguilla play Mexico? There is a benefit to playing teams better than you, but that has its limits. There is nothing to be gained from a 15-0 defeat. We just learned this from the 2022 Men’s qualification cycle. Anguilla, the US Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos, etc. would have been much better served playing a preliminary round amongst each other first. It is a little disappointing to see Concacaf not make this change.

But still, the W Championship looks promising. The first round may not be the most exciting thing in the world, but once it gets down to that final eight expect some more high stakes good eats. Can’t wait to see it all unfold.

 

Long Live the Hex

 

The final round of CONCACAF Men's World Cup qualification starts soon. The confederation still has the traditional 3.5 slots, with the top three teams in the final round advancing directly to the World Cup and the 4th place side going to the inter-confederation playoff for a second chance at glory. But something looks very different about the Hex this time around. It doesn't exist! Of course, as we all know by now, the Hex is dead and has been replaced by its bigger and meaner cousin, the Octo. 

An exciting time for football in the region, for sure. After all, we've been blessed with an extra four rounds of matches in this final, dramatic conclusion to qualification that is quite frankly the premier CONCACAF international tournament. The Gold Cup is beautiful and fun in its' own way, but the Hex has always been the real proving grounds where the big boys separate themselves from the rest of the pack, and the Hex is where all the highest quality and most dramatic football on the men's circuit is played. 

None of that will change with the Octo. The level of play in the region has increased to the point where there are legitimately eight teams that can compete at this level, and while the duopoly of Mexico and the US looks to be the strongest it has been for a long time, 3rd and 4th place are up for grabs for more or less everyone else in the field. Whoever you think is the weakest team (consensus is El Salvador or Panama) still can very much achieve 4th.

The upcoming international breaks are going to be an awful lot of fun. There will be good football, drama, heartbreak, jubilation; the good stuff. As always we hope for minimal virus related issues and that the teams and fans can play everything out as safely as possible, especially after the Gold Cup was marred by several outbreaks. 

But in spite of my excitement for the Octo, I also feel a bit sad for the Hex. The Octo is bigger and better; an improvement over the original in every way, but it is not the Hex. The end of the Hex is the end of an important chapter in CONCACAF lore; a competition that fans of the region's strongest teams have come to love. If you're reading this you know how much the competition means to USA and Mexico fans, but it also means so much to Costa Ricans, who are immensely proud of the team's 2002 first place finish. Trinidad, Panama and Jamaica have fond memories of the Hex as the final test in their only successful World Cup qualification campaigns thus far. Even Canadian fans, who only experienced the final round one time, in the 1998 cycle, looked at the Hex with a sort of reverence. 

It was the final challenge; the point where your mettle was really tested. Everyone in the region knew that outside of the World Cup itself (and the Confederations Cup, I suppose), games in the Hex were your toughest matches, period. The United States and Mexico could no longer hide behind the friendly crowds and group assignments of the Gold Cup, but had to face the same obstacles as the rest of the field. Every road trip was a mountain to climb, and every home match was a must-win. Mexico, the US, and Costa Rica (the only three teams that were in every Hex) combined for a grand total of 8 home defeats in 90 home matches throughout the competition's lifetime. Honduras' home record isn't far behind.

There was an aura and a mystique to it. Ultimately, there was no reward for winning it; only for finishing in the top half, and CONCACAF never really promoted the Hexagonal as anything more than an avenue for qualification, but the fans of those at the top came to care about it. Finishing first in the Hex meant you were the strongest team in the region, simply put. In that way, it was a kind of pure test of strength that is rarely seen in modern sports; you were competing not for a trophy, not for a higher seed in the knockout round, not for any tangible thing. You were only competing to be able to say you were the best.

Even the name has its own aura about it. In the English speaking world at least, the term "Hex" is almost never used in an official capacity. A search of CONCACAF's own website reveals a single result for "Hex." Instead, the competition is always referred to as the more proper Hexagonal or simply Fourth/Fifth Round of Qualification. But certainly from USA to Canada to Trinidad to Jamaica, it is the Hex. An affectionate fake name for a fake competition that was never supposed to be anything more than the last part of the qualification process. But the Hex took on a life of its' own.

Now aside from the fact that the Octo isn't nearly as catchy of a name and that it will likely be scrapped in 2026 when the qualification for CONCACAF is going to get all sorts of messed up, there is no reason to think any of this will change. There will be plenty of great moments over the course of the Octo that will earn their place in CONCACAF lore right alongside things the 2013 snow game and Panama's dramatic qualification in 2017.  

But to evoke a slogan from a different CONCACAF tournament, the Hex was ours. It was organized by the confederation, but it was built by the fans into a different beast. It became the pinnacle of CONCACAF football because we made it that way. Long live the Hex.

Guatemala's Painful Penalties

Guatemala fell last night in the 12th frame of a penalty shootout to fellow League C foe Guadeloupe, missing out on the Gold Cup yet again after having been suspended for the previous two iterations. It was a heartbreaking defeat for a country that already suffered last month when they were eliminated from World Cup Qualification on goal differential despite never conceding a single goal and netting 14 of their own. It was also, according to the knowledgeable Mister Chip, tied for the longest shootout in a major tournament in history. Guadeloupe, on the other hand, are back to the Gold Cup for the first time since 2011, and look like they could cause a bit of an uproar in Group C.

But back to Guatemala. This was a horribly painful penalty defeat. Not only because they lost it, but also how it happened. The typically reliable Marvin Ceballos missed twice. Ricardo Jérez, the late goalkeeper substitute who was brought on as a penalty specialist, was largely ineffective. It was a shootout that felt like Guatemala should have won it several times, but ultimately it just did not come together and they went home.

Penalties are not a lottery. There is an art to taking penalties, and there are good penalty teams and bad penalty teams. But there are times when it feels like you've just been burdened with some bad luck. Between the 1992 AFCON final when Ghana lost on penalties to Ivory Coast and the 2015 AFCON final when Ghana lost on penalties to... Ivory Coast (both in marathon shootouts, no less!), a dark fog seemed to hang over all of Ghanaian football. I don't have the exact numbers any more, but I recall reading that between all the national teams (Men's + Women's, Seniors + Youths) and club teams in continental play that Ghanaian sides were something like 3-20 in shootouts during this period. Not to mention what happened during the 2010 World Cup! They were simply cursed. 

Now that fog seems to be migrating to Central America. This is not Guatemala's first painful penalty defeat. You may recall that only a few months ago Comunicaciones lost in 18 frames to Motagua under similar circumstances; Comunicaciones certainly seemed like they were going to win for the majority of the marathon, and Gerardo Gordillo missed both his kicks, just like Ceballos did last night. It was an epic finish for us neutral fans but a crushing experience for Guatemalan football.

Curses may not be real in the magical sense, but people have the power to make them real. It is well known in Ghana that they suffer from a penalty curse, and it certainly adds a lot of pressure and doubt to each and every team that enters a shootout. And it only grows worse each time an attempt to undo the curse, whether it be through a priest's magic or a sports psychologist's mental exercises, inevitably fails. They have cursed themselves, in a sense. The same sentiment is beginning to brew in Guatemala. If they do not bounce back from these defeats soon, they may well find themselves suffering from a penalty curse of their own. 

A good place to start would be to tell Gordillo, who is a combined 0-for-3 in the two shootouts mentioned above, to stop taking kicks. Maybe try focusing inwards more rather than jawing at the opposition, as several penalty takers did last night. Or maybe they need to just keep doing exactly what they've been doing and not waver in confidence, knowing the results will come soon enough. We don't know exactly what they are or aren't doing wrong, and that's part of what makes penalties so exciting. I don't think Los Chapines are facing a full blown penalty crisis just yet, but this is certainly a storyline worth keeping an eye on in the future.

What do Qatar bring to the Gold Cup?

 

The 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup is set to kick off on July 10th, with a qualifying round starting on July 2nd to settle the final three spots in the 16-team group stage. In the field you have your usual suspects; Mexico, USA, Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica, etc. But you'll also spot in Group D the return of an old Gold Cup tradition; the guest team. This time around it is 2022 Men's World Cup hosts Qatar, who are making their Gold Cup debut.

Qatar are a very often misunderstood team in this part of the world, so I wanted to bring a little clarity to what exactly they bring to the Gold Cup this year. 

They're good. Real good. Much talk has been made about how Qatar will be likely the worst team to ever host the World Cup, but over the past few years I think they have certainly shown they are very much at a World Cup level. Qatar are actually the reigning Asian champions, having won the 2019 AFC Asian Cup in dominating fashion. It might even be fair to say that their performance in 2019 was the most dominating in the history of the Asian continental championships. 

In that tournament, Qatar won 7 out of 7 matches, scored 19 goals, and conceded just once, to Japan in the final. They beat 2018 World Cup participants Saudi Arabia (2-0), South Korea (1-0), and Japan (3-1) and thrashed the UAE 4-0 in the semifinals. They were far and away the best team in Asia, a confederation that at the top is often measured to be at a similar level to Concacaf. It's very fair to say at the time Qatar were on par even with Mexico.

Almoez Ali scored nine goals at that tournament, and his partner in crime Akram Afif had 10 assists. A total of 8 Qataris made the team of the tournament.

They've got experience. Besides for their Asian Cup run, this generation of players also were able to play in the 2019 Copa America later that year, where they didn't fare nearly as well, finishing with only one point. To be fair, it was a tough group; they drew Paraguay and lost 1-0 to Colombia and 2-0 to Argentina.

The experience of traveling to the Americas to play an international tournament will not be a new one for many of these players, though of course they've never done so during a pandemic. But having a better feel for the travel and schedule can't hurt, and their group of Honduras, Panama and Grenada certainly is much weaker than what they faced in Brazil 2019.

They aren't bending the rules. Much fuss has been made in the past about Qatar naturalizing athletes from other countries to compete at the Olympics and in other sports, and this has carried over to football. Many people upon hearing that Qatar dominated the Asian Cup wanted to know which Brazilians had moved over there. I think talking about the rules on naturalizing citizens is a dicey discussion, but we actually don't have to get deep into it here because Qatar's football team isn't really built that way.

Of the 11 starters from that Asian Cup run, seven were born in Qatar and two more moved there when they were toddlers (one of those two, young star Almoez Ali, is also eligible through his Qatari born mother). Simply put, the criticisms of them abusing the rule about naturalized citizens are made up. And of course this is to say nothing of the fact that international football is a game played by international citizens, and many (most!) national teams have taken to recruiting dual nationals and naturalizing players. There is nothing wrong with that; but even if there were, Qatar are hardly the worst offenders.

There are lots of things to be mad at Qatari World Cup organizers about, but there is nothing villainous about the football team itself. Unless you are a big Japan fan, I suppose. Hopefully they bring with them some of their early 2019 form and put on a good show. How far will they go? It's conceivable that they win the whole thing, but it's also more than possible they flunk out of a strong group with Honduras and Panama. I'll pencil them in as losing a tight quarterfinal match-up against Mexico.

Concacaf WCQ: First Round Rambles, Second Round Hype

An Anticlimactic First Round?

The first round of 2022 World Cup qualification in the Concacaf region is complete. Emerging victorious from the six groups are El Salvador, Canada, Curacao, Panama, Haiti, and the surprise St. Kitts and Nevis. Across the four rounds of play, there was a lot of good football played and I thought it was a lot of fun. 

I find myself writing about competition formats quite frequently, probably too frequently, but I am going to do so again here anyway. I don't really think that this format was a fair or fun way to decide who advances and who doesn't. Ignoring the byes given to the top five teams (which I largely have no issue with), there is just something that doesn't feel quite right about how this group stage ended.

On the final day, we had five group deciding matches being played. In all five of them, the group favorite was at home, only needing a draw to advance. Canada, Haiti, El Salvador, and Panama all won anyway, while only Curacao actually coasted to a 0-0 draw to advance. Now don't get me wrong, I think that ultimately the best team won every group and nobody can really feel too hard done, but I'm not sure that Pot 1 hosting Pot 2 on the final matchday is really giving a fair shot to those Pot 2 teams. Would things have gone differently if it was Suriname hosting Canada? (For what its worth, Canada was not in Canada, of course.)

The Pot 1 teams were presumably given this as an advantage for being seeded; but being seeded is itself the advantage. To also give the top seeds a big advantage in the match against their only strong competition is a little much in my opinion. Compounding with this issue is the fact that goal difference was the all-important tiebreaker. Normally it is a logical tiebreaker, but in these circumstances where the big teams are running up the score on Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands, it seems a bit silly to have it play such a critical role. Guatemala crushed their opposition, did not concede any goals, and went on the road to Curacao and did not lose, but they are out because Curacao beat up the weak teams a tad more.

I don't think it made for a particularly exciting final day from the fan perspective, either. All the top teams only had to hold serve and we all knew that was almost certainly going to happen. It just worked out that both possible outcomes were not going to be very thrilling; El Salvador comfortably beating Antigua in a relatively full Cuscatlán was nothing special nor was Curacao grinding out a 0-0 draw.

Ultimately, like I said, I think Curacao are the better team and have the much better shot at beating Panama, and it has to be said that Guatemala definitely *could* have beaten Curacao and then they wouldn't need me to make this excuse for them, but I feel it was a little bit of an anticlimactic way to go out. Is it fair? Maybe? But hey, even if it wasn't, we got the "fair" results so I can't complain. Anyway, the second round promises to be more exciting, and the octagonal promises to be even more exciting than that, so I don't want to sound too negative.

Looking Ahead

The second round takes place later this month, and has a much simpler win and you're in format. The two legged ties for a place in the octagonal will be as follows: 

St. Kitts and Nevis vs El Salvador

Haiti vs Canada

Panama vs Curacao

St. Kitts did great to get this far, seizing their moment in a weaker group and defeating Guyana to clinch before the final match even started. But over two legs, it is hard to see them dealing with El Salvador, who are eager to get into the final round after having been removed from it due to the format change.

Haiti vs Canada is an exciting storyline as a rematch of the best game of the 2019 Gold Cup and one of the best games in Gold Cup history. Canada come in looking awfully good while Haiti have been just decent when compared to the 2019 version of themselves. I believe Canada will win this one, but hopefully Haiti can give us another classic.

Panama vs Curacao is an interesting series that is tough to call. Both teams have World Cup dreams and to fall out before even making the octagonal would be a miniature disaster, but only one can move on. Panama really labored through the March window, just squeaking past Barbados and Dominica but they really put the hurt on the DR in the game that mattered the most. Curacao did quite the opposite, they looked so strong throughout the round but in the decider against Guatemala just barely skated by. I'll take Panama, but not by much.

USL League Two, Player Development, and Supporting Local Soccer

Hello everyone, I return! Had a very busy spring but now am going to try to do a few posts here and there during this exciting Gold Cup/Nations League/WCQ summer. We're back today to discuss the USL League Two, an interesting lower league in the United States with a very not-interesting name. Oh how I wept when the USL decided to name its three leagues the Championship, League One, and League Two. But despite my grumbles about copying an English naming scheme, I like the USL League Two a lot. It's a great source of local soccer and I have found myself going to few games in the area every summer (besides last year, obviously) for a while now. 

There are around 80 League Two clubs scattered across the US as of right now, and they play a 14-game regular season that culminates in a 16 team playoff tournament from May-July. But after going to a few games this past month (my first three events since the pandemic hit!), I wanted to talk about where the USL2 stands in the US soccer world. The venerable sage of Concacaf, Jon Arnold, wrote last year about the relationship between minor league soccer and minor league baseball. It's well worth your time if you haven't read it before.

To continue with that same school of thought, if the USLC and USL1 are in some ways the new minor league baseball, then the USL2 is a combination of all the famous wood-bat collegiate baseball leagues across North America. It is a league stocked mostly by college players looking to maintain NCAA eligibility, though there are a few veterans from pro teams or just older amateurs on many rosters as well. But why does every baseball fan know what the Cape Cod League is, and not many soccer fans (even fans of American soccer) know about the USL League Two?

This is the question I have been asking myself over the past week. Here we have a strong developmental league that produces MLS draft pick after MLS draft pick, and yet even MLS diehards do not seem to care. Going to many of these games around New Jersey, the crowds are mostly parents and local coaches, with "conventional" fans mostly only showing up to playoff matches or special event nights. Why aren't the diehard Union fans showing up in nearby South Jersey to see some of the top draft prospects? Where were the Red Bulls fans when Jersey Express (who supplied several players to the Bulls over the years) were playing games at NJIT just a mile away from Red Bull Arena? 

When I ask the question: 'why does nobody care about the USL League Two?' I of course understand why most people do not care about it. It's not supposed to be widely cared about. But while the other USL divisions flourish with the more niche soccer audience, the USL2 generally speaking, does not. There are a few exceptions of course. The highly successful Mid-Michigan Bucks, after moving to Flint in 2019, drew crowds of 5000+. And in Des Moines, which lacks a pro-team, the Menace have had averaged a few thousand fans for decades. But these cases are few and far between.

Now one thing that people are going to say about a league that feeds into the MLS draft pool is that, well, the MLS draft is mostly a worthless endeavor with the exception of a handful of players at the top. In reality, the MLS draft stocks the USL Championship, not MLS. But can the same not be said about the Cape Cod League and the MLB draft? There are literally thousands of players drafted into organized baseball every year, and only a small percentage of them ever make the big leagues. So the Cape Cod League (or any moderately successful collegiate summer league) boasting about how many MLB draft picks they have among their ranks is ultimately not that impressive, yet those boasts draw in respectable crowds. The USL League Two makes similar boasts (75% of the players drafted in 2020 played in the USL2), yet it does not draw in fans the same way.

I don't really have a grandiose point to make about the USL League Two, but I feel like this conversation is worth having. US Soccer fandom seems to emphasize local soccer so much; fans love to talk about what it means to support their local club and after the recent Super League debacle I think fans all over the world have taken a closer look at what they can do to support the local game instead of the big boys. And yet, the USL League Two, a fantastic product with an interesting player pool, cheap tickets (often free tickets), and a summer schedule that largely doesn't conflict with European or Mexican leagues, doesn't seem to be gaining any traction. 

If you have a local League Two club, and unless you live in Montana you most likely do, I really recommend checking out a game this summer and seeing how it is. Thank you as always for reading, and enjoy this week of Nations League and World Cup qualifying!

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.

What's in a Playoff Format? (And a Brief International Review)

Our neighbors in Central America have been devastated by two horrific hurricanes in as many weeks. Before reading this post, please consider donating to one of the relief efforts linked in this thread.

Now that the international break has ended, football fans in Concacaf turn their focus towards two major events: The Liga MX playoffs and the MLS Cup playoffs. The region's two largest leagues will both resume this weekend with new play-in rounds that have expanded each tournament beyond what it has been in previous years.

This prompts the question among fans: How big is too big for the playoffs? Of course, these expansions were supposed to be a measure to make up for lost revenue during the pandemic, but I don't think fans of either league would be particularly surprised if the changes are here to stay.

Let's start with Liga MX. As a Tigres fan, my first thought upon seeing the expansion to 12 teams (up from 8) was that this change was awful. Tigres already rarely missed the liguilla, and while I don't ever actually want that to happen, there has to be a chance that it happens, or what fun is the regular season? Even during our terrible stretch in the beginning of the year, the fans joked about how it was fine because there was no way we finished outside the top 12.

But as the season went on and the race for the top 4 (and a precious bye) heated up, the idea grew on me a little. That first wildcard round or play-in round or whatever you want to call it is one leg and is going to be very random. Teams want to avoid it at all costs, which makes the race for the top 4 the compelling part of the regular season, while even the bottom half of the table now feels like they're in the playoff hunt for most of the year. And of course, we do get extra playoff games now. As much as expanded playoffs can potentially ruin a regular season, more playoff matches is always a lot of fun.

I still prefer the old 8/18 system (8/20 was even better!) but I can live with the change. Will it be permanent? This is not actually the first time Liga MX has done more than 8 teams in the postseason. For much of 2000s there used to be 10 playoff teams every season, but eventually the idea was scrapped when the league moved away from divisions and just did a single table. So maybe they actually will reduce it back down when fans are allowed back into the stadiums.

MLS loves their playoffs. For much of the league's existence the regular season has been a complete snoozefest for many fans because the playoffs are so inclusive. In 2020 that remains true, but obviously much moreso because of a certain global pandemic than anything the league decided on back in January. 10/14 teams in the Eastern Conference will head to the postseason, while 8/12 will qualify in the West. Again, I want to stress that MLS was put in a tough spot with so many games being cancelled that I can't blame them for putting almost the entire league into the playoffs.

And the playoffs, if they run smoothly (let's hope they do), will be a ton of fun! MLS is an anybody beats anybody league, and with every round being a one-off now this will have a real US (and Canada) Open Cup feel. I think this was ultimately the best solution for the strange 2020 season.

But, when there is a somewhat normal season next year, I think this number needs to come way down. In 2019, 7 teams from each conference qualified to the playoffs. I have expressed in the past that I still think that's too many, and especially so with the single elimination setup they have now. I don't really like that a team can fight for the #2 seed over a long 34-game season and then go home in the first round on a 0-0 draw where they lose the penalty shootout. I think in a season that long (remember Liga MX plays two short seasons instead) you need to have your playoffs be 2-legged or even revive the old 3 game series idea of MLS' past to give the better team more time to separate themselves. If they insist on the single-game format (and it is a lot of fun most of the time, I can't deny) then the playoffs should be shrunk way down so only the truly deserving teams have a crack at the title.

Anyway, enough about playoff formats, I also wanted to do a quick thought dump on the international break. Most of Concacaf's top teams were in action this week in some capacity, so I'm just going to run through each of them real quick.

Mexico have climbed into the top 10 in the FIFA rankings after comfortably beating South Korea and Japan. It's hard to argue that they aren't top of the region at the moment, and in both games they really turned it on in the second half. Tata Martino is doing a great job.

USA are an interesting one. The game against Wales was meh, and the game against Panama saw pockets of absolute brilliance but also some moments where they looked shaky. Obviously it was a very young and new team playing in a neutral site and I don't really know how much there is to glean from either of these games, but we can definitely all agree there is good reason to be excited about the future of the USMNT.

Costa Rica played very well against Qatar (a much tougher opponent than you may think), drawing 1-1 and completely controlling the second half. They dropped the second game of the window 2-1 to the Basque Country, meaning they finish 2020 winless. Not great. Costa Rica are definitely in the process of finding themselves, and while I expect them to get back to the World Cup I'm not convinced that they'll reach the heights of the 2014 and 2018 cycles.

Panama lost 1-0 to Japan in a game I admittedly did not watch, and then got shelled by the US 6-2. But they did have the lead against the Americans early, and pulled it back to 3-2 late before giving up another flurry of goals in the final 10 minutes. And that was the story for Panama. Two complete collapses where they were overwhelmed for a short stretch and paid dearly for it. Besides those two glaring weak moments, they looked decent enough. Panama are no longer a top 5 team in the region, but making the Octo is definitely doable.

Jamaica played Saudi Arabia twice, getting cleaned up the first game but bouncing back with a 2-1 victory in the rematch. I'm pretty sure the team was discombobulated and jet-lagged and out of practice leading up to the first game, and Saudi Arabia are a good team, so I won't hold it against them too much. Daniel Johnson scored a beauty in the second game, and Jamaica looked a lot more like the Jamaica we know can be one of the best teams in Concacaf.

I did not watch Honduras vs Guatemala :( 

As always, thank you for reading and stay healthy out there!

 

Motagua Squeezes Past Comunicaciones in Penalty Marathon

I just posted about why I love the drama of this tournament not two days ago, and just 48 hours later we are gifted with an all time classic. The Concacaf League is a young tournament, but this has to be the wildest game in its history. Motagua trailed 2-0 in the 48th minute and looked absolutely toasted, but quickly fired back with two quick goals and looked to be en route to a furious comeback. The winner never came, and instead the teams went to penalties. About 35 minutes later, after 36!! spot kicks were taken, Motagua came out on top. Watch the whole thing here, if you'd like.

I have watched a lot of soccer in my time on this earth. I have watched plenty of penalty shootouts. And this was not only the longest I had ever seen in my life, this was the longest I had ever even heard of! 18 rounds?!? I recall Liverpool went something like 14 or 15 in the League Cup a few years ago, and that was the longest I knew of. And perhaps the title of craziest I've ever seen still goes to the 2015 AFCON final, when Ivory Coast's backup goalkeeper made a few huge saves and converted the winner in the 11th round, but I think last night's shootout has a case.

Gerardo Gordillo, a fine player on the Comunicaciones back line, had a chance to clinch it in the 7th frame. No luck. Oh well, it happens. What doesn't usually happen is getting a chance at redemption. He came up again in the 17th frame, with another chance to clinch it. Oh. My. Goodness. You already know what happened.

I did a little research on where this ranks among the longest shootouts of all time. I found that the 2005 Namibian Cup final went an impressive 24 rounds, apparently the world record. Now this is one I wish I could have seen; after 24 rounds KK Palace won it 17-16! How the heck did they miss that many and it still wouldn't end?

I also found that while that Namibian Cup game is the professional record, two teams in the Czech 5th Division final went on for 52 kicks back in 2016. Madness. Gordillo is certainly not the first player to miss twice in the same shootout, though maybe he is the first to miss two game-winners. But I wonder if anyone in either of these marathons actually missed three times? 

Anyway, penalties are pretty great. Are they the best way to settle a game? Maybe not. But are they the most fun? Oh yes, yes indeed.

You Don't Need Quality to Have Drama

The Concacaf League returned on Tuesday night with an absolutely electric game. Heavy favorites FAS of El Salvador dominated the first half while visiting Managua FC clung on for dear life and were lucky to be down only 1-0 at halftime. But in the later stages of the game Managua completely took charge and overwhelmed FAS, not only scoring an equalizer but threatening for more. In this single elimination win or go home format, the tension during the final 10 minutes or so was palpable through the TV screen. Managua eventually clinched a historic upset victory after a lengthy penalty shootout.

 

People sometimes ask me why I'm watching a match between two teams that in the grand scheme of the world are so tiny. Surely I'd be more interested in watching the glitz and glamor of the UEFA Champions League? Now don't get me wrong, the high level European game is amazing. It brings incredible star power and so many players who are absolute wizards on the pitch, and the communal experience of seeing half my twitter timeline explode at the same time when there's a terrible VAR decision is special. I love it. And I'm a Liga MX fan, a league with no shortage of bright lights surrounding it.

But there is something very different about watching smaller teams, something that can simply never be replicated by the world's most prestigious leagues and clubs. I don't know what to call it other than magic. 

Football is a game that is about so much more than the quality of play, or the stature of the players. It is a story; unscripted drama, and competitions like the Concacaf League offer a different type of drama that cannot exist in football's upper echelons. Managua are a side comprised of many players who need to work other jobs during the off-season to make ends meet. They play football in a country where baseball and boxing reign supreme, and are fighting for the entire soccer fan base in Nicaragua in an attempt to build more excitement around the sport. 

A lot of these players had never played a match outside of their home country before; and if they lost last night, perhaps they never would again. This tournament is a once in a lifetime experience for clubs like Managua, (and Arcahaie and Verdes, who will hopefully get their chance one day soon), and they marched right into one of the most daunting stadiums on the continent, empty or not, and won a battle against relative giants. That's magic.

I don't say this to patronize or belittle the Managuas of the world. Lots of small clubs have great players and show a level of professionalism that Liga MX teams could never dream of. They aren't a curiosity; they are a testament to how great this game is and what makes it special. Hardworking dreamers who can accomplish extraordinary things as a team.

And we cannot forget teams like FAS on the other side of the table, who have their own unique stories to them. Once the kings of Salvadoran football, they haven't won a league title in over a decade and have watched arch-rivals Alianza achieve great success both at home and on the continental level. They purchased Colombian striker Raul Peñaranda, who led Alianza to great success in this very tournament just one year ago, and dreamed of a dramatic run of their own. Instead, they have gone home in the preliminary round, unsure of what the future holds for the once great club.

The storylines surrounding soccer teams are ever-present. It doesn't matter if you are in Concacaf, UEFA, CAF, or anywhere else, and it does not matter if the team is rich, poor, or somewhere in between. There will always be drama. I'm sure if you regularly read this blog you don't need much convincing, but I urge every fan to take some time to watch the unknown teams of their region battle it out. Learn their backstories, soak up the raw passion for the game, and enjoy the magic. That's what I'll be doing tonight with some more delicious Concacaf League, and I can't wait.

 

2020 Concacaf League Preliminary Round Preview

The Concacaf League, the region's second-tier continental club competition, is finally set to return on October 20, with the preliminary round matches to be played as single-legged affairs rather than the usual two legs. It's a very weird time for any sort of international games in the Americas, and I really don't know if all of these games will be played, or if this tournament will ever finish, or if they will go into a bubble in the later rounds like the UEFA Champions League. We just don't know right now. But regardless, previewing the Concacaf League is a tradition of mine that predates the existence of this blog, so I'm going to do it anyway. There are a total of 6 matches slated for next week, with 10 countries represented.

Alajuelense 🇨🇷 vs Cibao 🇩🇴

Cibao have been in the continental picture for a few seasons now, but they've never really been drawn against a team they could beat. The streak continues with this match against the Costa Rican giants Alajuelense, but at least in a one-legged affair they've got a chance. Cibao just started their domestic season last week, while Ala are 9 games in and boast the most impressive record in Central America right now with 8 wins and 1 draw. The ageless Alvaro Saborio leads the team in goals. I don't think they can completely look past a normally defensively sound Cibao side, but Alajuelense have to be thinking that they can go all the way this time.

FAS 🇸🇻 vs Managua 🇳🇮

A year ago in this tournament Salvadoran teams made quite a splash, but FAS was not among that group. FAS recently returned to play in the El Salvador Primera last week, losing 3-1 to Isidro Metapán. The Salvadoran league, by the way, is playing in three separate geographic bubbles, before converging down to two geographic bubbles, before then meeting in one more serious bubble for the playoffs. One of the more unique ideas we've seen, but let's hope it works out alright. Veterans of the Concacaf League may recognize Raul Peñaranda for FAS, who has featured for both Alianza and Arabe Unido in the past. The Colombian striker scored the club's only goal in the season opener. Managua are the two-time regining runners-up in Nicaragua, having lost both finals to Real Estelí. They won their first game of the season 2-0, and the core of this team does have some good Concacaf experience having put up a great fight against Motagua a year ago. FAS are the favorites, but this one could get interesting.

Motagua 🇭🇳 vs Comunicaciones 🇬🇹

If you like brand names, this is your match. Two of the biggest clubs in Central America going at it in a do or die showdown? That's good eats. Motagua are 3-0 in their return to play so far in Honduras, but the results have been a little shaky to get them there. They have conceded in all three matches, and two of them were against teams that failed to make the playoffs a year ago. On the flip side though, this Motagua team has been here before, going all the way to the finals last year before falling to Saprissa. The club also recently signed Argentine journeyman Gonzalo Klusener, who already has made his impact felt with two goals in league play. Across from them is the 30-time champions of Guatemala and current co-leaders in their domestic group (they also have a game in hand), Comunicaciones. Earlier this year Los Cremas took Club América all the way to penalties in the CCL, and they've got great momentum after a big win over rivals Antigua yesterday. Quality wise, this is the best game of the preliminaries, for sure.

Arcahaie 🇭🇹 vs Verdes 🇧🇿

Conversely, quality wise, this is likely to be the worst game of the preliminaries. Certainly on paper it looks that way. But this match-up between Haiti's most recent champions and Belize's most recent champions is a real chance for the little guys. Looking ahead on the bracket you have Waterhouse of Jamaica meeting the winner of this game. That means a team from Belize or the Caribbean is guaranteed a spot in the quarterfinals; a fantastic achievement for all three clubs. Verdes have recently resumed play, but Arcahaie have had more time to get back into a groove, having played seven games so far this season. I don't have much to say about these teams but I am really excited to see one of them advance.

Municipal Limeño 🇸🇻 vs Forge FC 🇨🇦

Municipal Limeño (legendary crest) are traditionally one of those mid-tier teams in El Salvador that qualify for the playoffs and then get knocked out by one of the big boys. But times have changed for Los Chancheros. This team is looking more like the Limeño side that reached two finals back around the turn of the millenium, and their Concacaf debut is a huge moment for the club. They will face Forge FC from Hamilton, Ontario, the two-time reigning Canadian Premier League champions. Forge just finished a very impressive campaign up in the CPL's bubble, gaining steam as the tournament went on and closing it out with a 2-0 victory in the final. Fans may recognize their 2020 top scorer Kyle Bekker from his MLS days. Limeño lost their first game of the season to Aguila 2-1, but La Selecta veteran Edwin Sánchez did at least get on the board for them.

Independiente 🇵🇦 vs Antigua 🇬🇹

Independiente secured their place in Concacaf lore when they dismantled Toronto FC in the Champions League two years ago. They did fine enough in the Concacaf League last year; there's no shame in losing to Saprissa, but this club can smell revenge. If they can get there, a rematch with the Costa Rican giants will likely be waiting for them in the quarterfinals. But play has not yet resumed in Panama, and CAI were floundering in the league before it was suspended, so they've got a long way to go before they need to worry about the quarterfinals. Antigua are putting up a meh campaign so far in Guatemala, but games are always better than no games. CAI have played some friendlies and a handful of the players have been at national team camps, but jumping straight into a continental match will not be easy. I don't want to call either of these teams washed up, but I think two or three years ago this match would've been a lot more compelling.

Jamal Charles and Grenada are Ready to Shoot for the Stars

The Spice Boys of Grenada have never really found themselves among Concacaf’s elite. They’ve never made the final round of World Cup qualifying and have made the Gold Cup just twice, in 2009 and 2011. They certainly lack the reputation of the Caribbean’s top sides like Jamaica and Trinidad.

But in these turbulent times, with a new cycle of World Cup Qualifying on the near horizon, Grenada may finally be poised to make a big splash. Concacaf’s new World Cup Qualification format sees the Hex expanded to eight teams and rebranded as the Octo, meaning it’s now just a tiny bit easier for dreamers like Grenada to get in. The new format has also thrust the bottom 30 teams directly into a four match group stage that will immediately narrow the field to just six teams, three of which will join the top five who automatically qualified to the Octo via their FIFA ranking.

The Spice Boys were among the most impressive teams in the Nations League B last cycle, going undefeated in six matches and finishing with 14 points. Jamal Charles, already a budding star for the national team, really came into his own during the campaign, tallying 6 goals and dominating throughout. The highlight of Charles' hot run came in the final match, when his team needed all three of his goals to edge out Belize.

And the draw for that group stage I mentioned? It was quite frankly about as good Grenada could have hoped for. Being placed in Pot 3 seemed disastrous but the Boys ended up with one of the more well balanced groups in the field. El Salvador are always a threat and will be itching to set the record straight after being denied a Hex place by the format change, Antigua are talented and looking to bounce back after a poor Nations League run (albeit in a tough group), Montserrat are the upstart darlings and the US Virgin Islands proved very difficult to put away for their League C opponents.

With just four matches to be played and little room for error, smaller sides have a real chance to shake things up. A draw with El Salvador, if Grenada can take care of everyone else, may very well be all it takes to top the group. When La Selecta host the Spice Boys in the first match on October 8th, the normally imposing crowd at the Estadio Cuscatlán will, presumably (and hopefully for safety reasons) be greatly diminished or nonexistent, making life a heck of a lot easier for the visitors. With no return fixture, it’s the most important game of the group. If this team plays at the level they did last fall, I expect them to win the other three games, especially considering Montserrat will likely be lacking more than a few overseas based players.

I wouldn’t hold my breath, but hopefully when October rolls around we actually do get to see these matches safely played, and if you like underdogs in World Cup Qualifying (and we all do), there are perhaps no minnows with as good of a shot as Grenada right now. If they could topple El Salvador, they'll get a date with the Group F winner (likely Trinidad or Guyana) for a place in the Octo. Who's to say they can't get that far? I certainly wouldn't count them out.

Concacaf Stadium Series Episode #2: Estadio Universitario Alberto "Chivo" Córdoba

For this edition of our Concacaf stadium tour we head down to central Mexico, to the city of Toluca. Toluca's most famous ground is the Estadio Nemesio Diéz, which has been home to the city's main club since 1954, and while it's an impressive stadium that has even made its way into that weird Geico ad, it is not the subject of today's tour.

We are headed to the city's lesser known stadium, the Estadio Universitario Alberto "Chivo" Córdoba. The 32,000 capacity venue actually makes it the largest in the city, but its main tenants, the UAEM Potros, rarely if ever fill it up. The Potros have bounced around the lower divisions of Mexican football since their formation in 1970, but never reached the top flight. They currently sit in the 4th tier of the pyramid, and with the uncertainty surrounding Mexican pro/rel they may never climb higher than that again.

Although the Potros may not be the biggest draw in the world, Mexican soccer fans are still probably familiar with the Universitario due to its use as a temporary home for Toluca in 2016 while the Nemesio Díez underwent renovations. It only takes one glance at the western stands for the place to grab your attention:

The gigantic coliseum style concrete seating is a sight to behold on its own, but the mural that covers the grandstand is what makes the Universitario one of the most beautiful stadiums on Earth. The mural, created by famous artist Leopoldo Flores, was added to the stadium in the mid-1970s, about a decade after the stands were first constructed. Flores called the abstract depiction of a person grabbing the sunlight from the sky the Aratmósfera. I do not have an eye for high art, but I think it's impressive how the mural remains so captivating even though I struggle to see anything other than a splash of colors and shapes.

In addition to the mural, overlooking the stadium high atop a painted cliff that acts as an extension of the Aratmósfera itself, is a gigantic statue of the head of former Mexican president Adolfo López Mateos. The mural is among the most beautiful backdrops you'll ever see in a football stadium; the president's gigantic head is among the most unique.

From up on the cliff you get a fantastic view of not only the stadium, but the entire city. The view is nice on google maps, but certainly this is an overlook worth seeing for yourself.

Sadly, unless Toluca ever returns to the stadium it is unlikely we'll ever see it full again; with only the Potros playing there regularly it may be tough to catch a game with a lively atmosphere. But that shouldn't stop you from seeing the ground altogether. If you ever find yourself in Toluca, the Universitario is a must-visit.

 

Concacaf Stadium Series Episode #1: Canada

Hello Concacaf fans! Hope you are all staying safe and healthy! It sure has been a while since I posted here. Unfortunately, the current state of the region has left us without all that much soccer to watch, though of course Costa Rica managed to sneak in the end of their season and other leagues are beginning to trickle back in. So perhaps there will be some "regular" content to talk about in the near-ish future, but for now I want to introduce a new series of sorts to Concacaf Lives!

What I have cleverly titled the Concacaf Stadium Series will be a series of brief looks at some of the more interesting venues around the region. There are some absolutely tremendous grounds to look at, and since we are not going to be traveling or attending matches for the time being, I wanted to take you all on a virtual soccer pilgrimage. Perhaps, when this is all over, some of you will be inspired to visit these places on a real soccer pilgrimage. For now though, enjoy the images and Google StreetView links when applicable.

Our first stop will be in Concacaf's largest member nation: Canada. While known much more for its ice hockey, there are some beautiful pitches dotted across the northern lands. Canada will of course be co-hosting the 2026 World Cup, and just hosted the 2015 Women's World Cup, and the country's biggest soccer venues, many of which double as homes for CFL teams, are pretty well known.

And perhaps none moreso than the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Originally built for the 1976 Olympics, the stadium is the current part-time home of the Montreal Impact, who use the building exclusively for their biggest games. The iconic 2015 Concacaf Champions League final, in which Dario Benedetto netted a soul-crushing hat trick for América to deny Impact fans the ultimate prize, took place inside the Big O.

In the upper reaches of the country, soccer pitches become increasingly rare. It's just too cold. But Shell Place in Fort McMurray, Alberta, acts as one of the game's northern outposts in the country. The venue hosted FC Edmonton for two special games during the 2015 NASL season, making it, to my knowledge, the northernmost venue to host professional soccer in Concacaf. Seriously, look at Fort McMurray on a map, it is waaaaaay the heck up there.

You can actually find one of those FC Edmonton matches in full here, which can give you a pretty good feel for the stadium.

At the very Western tip of Vancouver, where the land meets the Strait of Georgia, lies the campus of the University of British Columbia and Thunderbird Stadium. The main tenants are various teams of the UBC Thunderbirds, for which the stadium is named, but the Whitecaps reserves used to play here when they fielded a USL team from 2015-2017.

I'm sure the gridiron football lines are upsetting to a lot of people, but I have always liked the cozy look of the single grandstand. It's so neatly tucked into the surroundings.

Our final stop takes us near the Arctic Circle, to Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut. As far North as Shell Place was, it has nothing on the Artic Winter Games Arena. The turf field inside the complex, which hosts local adult and youth leagues, is a testament to the sport's ability to survive in any conditions. Even here in a remote community of just over 7,000, where the temperature is rarely warm enough for an outdoor game, players of all ages take to the pitch each week.

The arena itself is nothing too out of the ordinary for an indoor field, but indoor pitches don't get enough love as it is and it's cool to see the game being played up here. It really speaks to the universality of soccer. You can explore pretty much the whole arena on StreetView, albeit with ice installed over the turf. Just walk right through the front door and take a peek!

The Hawaii Tsunami: American Soccer's Best Kept Secret

As a blog that mostly focuses on the lesser covered nations in the Concacaf region, the United States is not a place I get to talk about too often. As MLS continues to grow in size and in popularity, it's sometimes easy to forget that the US has its own bottomless supply of interesting teams and stories to tell. The USL Championship today has 36 teams, and it's 2nd Division adds another 12. The third tier, which was formerly called the PDL, has about another 80. There's a lot of history there that is seldom spoken about.

And while the USL divisions today are beginning to stabilize (and hopefully will remain stable through the current crisis), lots of minor league clubs pop up and fold as quickly as they appeared. So often while surfing Wikipedia I see the names of teams I wish I could know more about: The Jackson Chargers from Mississippi, the New Orleans Riverboat Gamblers, and countless others.

But the one team that had always stuck out to me more than any other was the Hawaii Tsunami, a professional team based in Honolulu that played four seasons in the USISL from 1994 to 1997. For the unitiated, that's the United States Interregional Soccer League, and also the United States International Soccer League, and also the United Systems of Independent Soccer Leagues. They loved changing the name but keeping the acronym. Eventually it became the United Soccer Leagues (USL), and now finally has settled on the singular United Soccer League.

"Hottest League/Coolest Teams"

The Tsunami were the second professional soccer team on the islands, after a failed attempt at a franchise during the 1977 NASL season. They played four seasons and had one great year in 1995; reaching the Sizzlin' Nine (yes, that's really the name) playoffs and bowing out in group play. And, without some digging, that is nearly all you'll ever find out about them online. No pictures, no club logo, almost absolutely nothing.

So of course, I did some digging. I found some interesting articles. I read a book on Hawaiian sports history. I even tracked down David Trifonovitch, a former player and coach for the Tsunami who was kind enough to answer all of my questions. Here's my expanded history of the Hawaii Tsunami, America's forgotten club:

The club joined the USISL for the 1994 season with a side consisting entirely of local players and coaches. With a limited talent pool compared to the mainland clubs and a grueling travel schedule that prevented the team from ever truly being at full strength away from the islands, things were tough. The team went 3-15, finishing 8th out of 10 teams in the USISL's Pacific Division.  It wasn't a great start, but the season laid the foundation for greater things to come.

Before the 1995 season, the USISL split its outdoor season into two leagues: The Pro League and the Premier League. The Pro League was, naturally, for professionals, while the Premier League was for amateurs and college kids during their summer offseason. The Tsunami were placed in the professional division, but there weren't many pros on the team. The meager salaries offered in 1994 were mostly returned by the players to help fund the 1995 season, and most of the budget during the club's second year was invested in coaching.

Enter Andrew Rowley, a man who was well-connected in the soccer world of Central California, and was brought across the Pacific to guide the 1995 Tsunami through the newly formed Northwest Division. If it sounds like spending most of your money on a coach rather than players sounds like a bad idea, think again. One of Rowley's first moves was to recruit veteran goalkeeper and Bay Area friend Mark Dougherty, who was waiting for MLS to start up in 1996 and had one season to fill. Dougherty would go on to be the 7th overall pick in the inaugural MLS draft and was by all accounts one of the best goalies in the country at the time.

Dougherty was brought on board as a player/coach, and he and Rowley successfully recruited numerous other top players who were waiting for MLS, including forwards Billy Thompson and Peter Woodring, who both had European experience and would go on to play for the USMNT. They also landed Samuel Ekemé, who played for Cameroon at the 1994 World Cup, and Victor N'Dip Akem, who played for Cameroon at both the 1990 and 1994 World Cups.

Suddenly, the team of Hawaiian locals was now packed with international stars, and the results on the pitch were what you would expect. The Tsunami finished the 1995 season comfortably in first place in the Northwest Division, going 18-2 with a +54 goal differential. They were a perfect 10-0 at home during the regular season, and improved to 11-0 with a 2-0 win at Aloha Stadium in the divisional final against the Salem Surge.

The Tsunami played games at venues around Oahu, and on occasion on other islands such as Kauai, with many matches taking place at high school stadiums. But when possible, the club played at the 50,000 seat Aloha Stadium, arguably the nicest venue in the league. But that alone wasn't the only reason the club enjoyed a home field advantage: while road trips were grueling for the Tsunami, trips to the islands for other teams were naturally just as difficult.

In addition to the long flight, the conditions of Hawaii proved challenging for the outsiders. Mark Dougherty once suggested that the team's opponents, who routinely showed up sunburned, couldn't resist goofing off at the beach before games instead of preparing. Hawaii native David Trifonovitch says while he doesn't know for sure that the opposition were out at the beach, even a day of practicing in the Hawaiian sun would be enough to leave most visitors burned and exhausted.

This dominant home form coupled with near equal dominance on the mainland saw the Tsunami qualify for the Sizzlin' Nine, the national stage of the USISL playoffs. Here the Tsunami dropped both games in group play, the first on penalties to the hometown New York Fever, and the second 2-0 to the eventual runners-up Minnesota Thunder. Though they didn't capture a national title, the team was well recognized for their efforts. Rowley won the Northwest Coach of the Year Award, while Billy Thompson was named Offensive MVP. Ekemé won Defensive Player of the Year. Dougherty and midfielder Sterling Wescott were also named to the All-Northwest XI.

All four players, as well as Woodring and midfielder Josh McKay, would go straight to MLS in 1996. Trifonovitch, one of the club's biggest local stars, retired to focus on coaching at the high school level. Jerry Proctor, another local star from Pearl City, returned for a third year.

In 1996, the USISL reformatted its leagues again, creating the Select League, which was one tier above the Pro League. The Tsunami stayed put in the USISL Pro League, which thanks to the addition of MLS and the Select League, was now the third tier of American soccer. Thus, despite the mass exodus of the team's best players, the club was still able to hold its own.

The quality of the league had dropped, and this time around when the Tsunami fielded a mostly local team they found themselves quite up to the challenge, going 10-6 en route to a first place finish in the Western Conference. Proctor lead the team with 7 goals and 7 assists. Luis Orellana had a team high 9 goals.

After a sluggish start, the team won 7 of their final 8 matches to lock up a home playoff game for the second consecutive year. This time around, playing at Cooke Field on the campus of the University of Hawaii rather than Aloha Stadium, they were eliminated in the first round by the Everett Bigfoot. It would be the final playoff game in Tsunami history.

The 1997 season saw the departure of Rowley and the return of Trifonovitch, this time as head coach. The league had once again been renamed, this time as the USISL D-3 Pro League, and the Tsunami set out for a third straight regular season title. But the team would finish just 5-11, as financial troubles continued to mount and the league itself went through a rough stretch as it continued to lose top players to MLS. Trifonovitch said of the '97 season:

"That fourth year was pretty 'bush league' as they say. There were lots of players just trying to hurt other players and numerous fights in the games. I even had to put my credit card down and pay for hotel rooms on one of the road trips. We showed up at the team hotel in Oakland after a game and I was told the rooms were not paid for. I took over an hour to get in touch with someone from the host team and they said we booked the rooms for you but we cannot pay for them. That expense eventually came out of my salary for coaching the team. It was just another nail in the coffin that ended the Tsunami."

And sadly, that is where the story ends, with the Tsunami folding after the 1997 season. In just four years the franchise had gone through some tremendous ups and downs, and had successfully launched the careers of many future MLS players. Exact roster data for each year is not available, so it is difficult to track down exactly who played for the Tsunami and when, but it is likely that a handful of others not mentioned here eventually found their way to MLS or a different top flight for a cup of coffee at some point.

Oh, and how could I not talk about the jerseys? These are some serious heat! A simple design but that blue and white color scheme is oh so good.

As I mentioned above, David was able to answer a TON of questions for me, some of which don't neatly fit into the narrative of the story. He also kindly provided all of the images used in this post. For more info on the nitty-gritty details of the Tsunami and soccer in Hawaii in general, here is the rest of the interview:

Tim: How many years were you part of the Tsunami as a player, and how many as a coach? Were you ever both at the same time?
David: I was part of the team for three out of four years. I played on the team the first two years. Quit playing for them the third year and then was hired to be the coach for the 4th year.

Tim: How popular is soccer in Hawaii in general? Do you think the Tsunami helped grow the game around the state or was the passion already there?
David: Soccer is the number one participation sport for kids in the state of Hawaii. The love for the game was in a great growth period during the Tsunami years and I think the Tsunami definitely helped fuel the passion for the game.

Tim: Even though there’s no more pro soccer in Hawaii, you’re still very involved in the game today. What exactly are you doing now?
David: I am the Director of Coaching for a club called FC Hawaii, I am the vice chairman of the board for the Oahu League, which is the largest youth soccer league in the state affiliated with USYSA, and I am also on the Hawaii Youth Soccer Association (HYSA) board and head varsity boys coach and program director at Punahou School.

Tim: How was the travel for the Tsunami? Were there some players who couldn’t make the away dates and only played at home?
David: We were sponsored by Hawaiian Airlines, and it was always a pleasure to travel with them. We would leave on a Thursday, play games Friday and Sunday and return on Mondays. It wasn’t very easy due to the time difference of three hours between the islands and the west coast, but we knew it was something we couldn’t use as an excuse. All the players in the first year worked other jobs either full or part time, so some, who couldn’t get away with missing 3 days of work, would have to pick and choose what trips they could make. I think everyone on the team made at least one road trip.

Tim: What was the media coverage of the time like? Were any matches/interviews broadcast on TV or radio or was it just newspapers? 
David: The media did a pretty good job. We were mostly covered through the local papers but sometimes got TV sports news interviews. They would sometimes send a cameraman to the games to get some highlights for the late evening and next-day sports news.

Tim: So if there was a little media coverage around the league was there any sort of scouting your opponents beforehand or was it basically flying blind until the second and third time you played them?
David: The first year was completely blind. We had no idea who we were playing and being it was an all local team with local coaches, there was no information on our opponents. The second year, Andrew and Mark had contacts and friends within the league that gave us some information on teams and players to watch for. In the 4th year when I was coaching, we were pretty much blind again. I could only rely on information from some of the mainland players that were playing with us to tell me about friends on other teams.