WVHooligan - Soccer Blog

1 | Peter C

August 27th, 2008 at 10:51 am

I know I’m going to like this tournament. A true championship(well, relatively speaking) series where all in the confederation are included.
I’m a fairly new fan of the game and I’ve wondered about the CONCACAF Champions Cup, the seeding, the timing, and the inclusions, and found myself thinking there was something missing.
I like that the MLS Supporters shield winner(the REAL MLS champ) gets a berth in the group phase.
I’m also looking forward to the league(MLS) confronting some issues such as roster sizes and payrolls. With New England and Houston(and possibly ChivasUSA and DCU) looking at a game every 4 days for the next 2 months, then the MLS playoffs, rosters will be stretched. But if you aspire to be a top league, this is one of the elements that comes with it. Top Euro clubs deal with this with their domestic leagues, cups, and UEFA CL play.
But first comes this test against the region’s best. Regardless of how MLS clubs perform, this is a good thing for the future of US soccer.

2 | TheUltra

August 27th, 2008 at 2:10 pm

I agree that this is a good thing for the league but they need to hammer out the schedules for it to truly work. Don’t get me wrong as a Crew fan I’ll take any advantage we can get on the Rev’s at the moment, but in all reality the league needs to start off in March again and focus more on making the games more focused on the international events that we insist on taking part in.

And for anyone who claims that we should play over the winter rather than summer you’re flat out wrong too. The weather and competition with the NFL, NHL, and NBA will kill the league. MLS will always be a summer league, but if they don’t start off earlier in the spring we will constantly be dealing with touranments like this clogging up the schedule right as the play off and shield race gets more exciting

3 | henryo

August 28th, 2008 at 3:13 am

Base on the schedule of CCL, I’m afraid MLS teams will not do much better than they did in CCC.

To MLS teams, it just means an extra group stage has been added in the current year for next season’s CCL, while the knockout stage is not much different from old CCC, which happens during MLS pre-season / early season.