The process of naming a new continental club champion in North America has changed drastically. CONCACAF announced a new Champions League format on Monday to align with the schedules of the top domestic leagues on the continent.
Starting in August, the new Champions League will feature 31 teams and it will only have a home-and-away knockout format. From August to October, 16 clubs from the Caribbean and Central America will compete in Phase 1, with the winner advancing into the 16-team Phase 2 that will include sides from MLS and Liga MX.
The first 16 teams to enter the competition will be the runner-up, third and fourth-place finishers from the 2017 Caribbean Cup as well as two teams each from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama and Nicaragua. Belize will send one participant to the tournament.
The champion of Phase 1 will qualify for the main Champions League, or Phase 2, that begins in February 2018. Four teams from MLS and Liga MX will make up half of the qualifying teams. The 2017 Caribbean Cup winner, Canadian Championship winner and first-place sides from the domestic leagues in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama will round out the automatic qualifiers.
From that point on, teams will be draw into home-and-away fixtures for the round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and the Grand Final, which will determine the CONCACAF representative in the FIFA Club World Cup.
The Seattle Sounders, FC Dallas, Colorado Rapids and New York Red Bulls qualified for the 2017-18 Champions League through MLS and Toronto FC will be involved as the Canadian champion.
Without group stages, how are seedings determined for knockout rounds? Canada should have to qualify through phase 1 only because it seems unfair that costa rica only has 1guaranteed team.
This basically triple tiers the confederation, NAm plus other haves plus 1 qualifier. UNCAF plus haves plus 3. The 25 countries in CFU quietly would have to play 3 rounds since they have a tournament to decide who gets CFU’s 3 slots.
The facts don’t support this. T&T has gotten 2 teams out of CFU past two years. They don’t get an auto slot to round 1 but Belize and Nicaragua does? Granted, UNCAF is better than CFU, but Puerto Rico has gone deep, and T&T and Jamaica have had some decent teams who have beat MLS before. So why do they get CFU “pool” competition while every UNCAF team no matter how sorry gets 1 auto slot. This feels like payback for the demise of Warner, combined with MLS and MX making it easier for themselves, and UNCAF wedging themselves slightly ahead of CFU at the expense of Carribean soccer.
I also feel like this foolishly undermines the television quality of the product. People would watch CCL before to see the variety of teams, and them playing some of the big dogs. Why on earth would we show an entirely UNCAF/CFU playin round in the fall now. Arabe United vs W Connection. Hankook Verdes vs Real Esteli. That is going to land with a thud at Fox Sports, and we will skip to the second round for TV interest, losing half the fun. I like seeing all the different teams from all the different countries, and the “hook” to watch the first round was our teams participated, even if the odds favored advancement. By booking them straight through, who will care? Who will pay to broadcast it here? The knockout round will remain good TV but will they pay as much for half the show?
Would love to hear what the Don has to say about this pile of poo. The format is fine. The scheduling is awful.
What?
One, why February when the Club World Cup is in Nov or Dec?
Two, why would you use the 2016 winners for the 2018 tourney? Glad my Sounders are in, but are they going to use the 2017 winners in 2019 or are they going to skip next year?
This makes no sense to me at all.
yeah, noticed that. Since,
Since MLS teams enter in Phase II (Feb 2018), why not have the 2017 results determine entrants. So does this mean no CCL in 2017?
This is actually worse for MLS. It’s the same as now but instead of at least having a semifinal spot to play for, it will be your first fixture AND STILL in preseason. I always like group stages but this is what we have now.
So does this alleviate in any way one of the big problems which is IMO is sending MLS teams in preseason form to the latter stages of the tournament, to face Liga MX clubs in mid-season shape?
No
It does shift the schedule congestion in the latter part of the MLS season to the beginning portion of the season, which could be helpful for teams like Portland, who last year who were eliminated from the CCL and MLS playoffs. I wonder if this will effect USOC scheduling at all