“This is a transition,” Garber told MLSsoccer.com. “SuperLiga was a great tournament which served its purpose during its time.

“CONCACAF got more and more committed to a continental tournament with the Champions League, which we’re very supportive of. It has delivered the value we intended [in SuperLiga] to put our teams against the best competition in this region.”

There, finally, the announcement we’ve been waiting to hear. SuperLiga is no more. While Garber said the new WFC tournament is meant to be more of an additive to SuperLiga rather than a replacement, we all can read between the lines on that one. The WFC will certainly bring in better clubs, which will bring in higher gate numbers for the clubs and hosts involved. This was always a struggle with SuperLiga and the league and it’s clubs had to have seen that over the course of the tournament.

It seems now that the summers will be packed with a couple MLS clubs hosting teams like Barcelona and Manchester United instead of playing teams down in the middle of the FMF standings. In a way you want your clubs to be able to beat up on FMF clubs at any point but there is something to be said about playing competition like Barcelona once in the summer. I’m fairly sure most fans and players would agree, they’ll get more out of a game with Barcelona than they would a game with Atlas.

If you believe Columbus Technical Director Brian Bliss, it could be true.

#Crew96 TD Brian Bliss said he is doubtful the SuperLiga tournament will be played this season. Crew might sked some summer friendlies.

That is news a lot of MLS fans will be happy to hear. Some will be upset their clubs won’t be hosting Mexican clubs this summer but I can imagine RSL, San Jose, New York and Columbus fans are mostly excited about that news.

The scheduling of this tournament never made sense to me and the coverage was extremely weak for it as well seeing how there wasn’t any English-speaking broadcasts for it.

I think if MLS clubs want to face Mexican teams in the summer they should just schedule friendlies with them. Most clubs seem to already be doing that as it is anymore.

According to MLS head of Communications Dan Courtemache, the league will have the 2011 season schedule and Superliga details finalized “soon.”.

Guess we’ll know more in a couple weeks. What do you want to see happen here with SuperLiga? Keep it or dump it?

New England has been a SuperLiga staple these last three years but the tournament has to go. (Getty Images)

I may get some negative comments from folks in New England and possibly down in Houston but across the board most folks will likely agree with the following: its time to end SuperLiga once and for all.

We know the tournament is just a cash grab for SUM, Major League Soccer and USSF’s marketing arm. It brings in four Mexican teams each year to give our league some international exposure and experience which is nice but it doesn’t do much for the average MLS fan.

In year one of the tournament it all made sense as the league hyped it nicely and got four good Mexican teams to play in it. Its helped create a nice little rivalry between Houston and Pachuca but outside of that I’d imagine that most of the league’s fans couldn’t tell you what SuperLiga even is.

I’ve made my issues known about this tournament for a while now and after this year’s edition I see no reason for it to continue. Its not due to the MLS clubs not winning it each year. Nor is it about the lack of success for MLS clubs in it, in fact its pretty split overall.

After four years the exposure to the common fan isn’t there. When you can’t even watch the game on a local channel in English then getting this tournament across to fans doesn’t happen. Nationally you can watch it on a Spanish channel and maybe FSC if you’re lucky. It may be broadcasted online but sometimes that isn’t good enough for some fans.

I don’t think I even need to go into the attendance of this tournament, which has dwindled over the years.

Can fans and even players get excited to win a trophy that literally doesn’t mean anything? Sure the extra cash incentive the players get is there but the fact that we’re getting mostly mid-level teams from both leagues doesn’t always produce an exciting tournament. But this tournament doesn’t mean the winner moves on to another tournament or even gets to do anything other than say they’re the SuperLiga champions of North America.

I could be wrong about this tournament and next year’s could be the best one yet if it is able to get some fresh faces like a New York, San Jose or Colorado. I just think its time for the league to refocus their international tournament participation to the Champions League and maybe revisit this kind of tournament when fans are actually interested.

I mentioned earlier on Twitter that I will be doing a post about each club’s remaining schedule. That may be up by the end of the week. I was hoping to get it out today but again work kept me from getting finished with it. I believe my stopping point was either Dallas or Houston. I do hope to finish it soon though.

Anyways, down to the business at hand, a few links/stories for your evening reading.

2009 SuperLiga Final

Chicago Fire host Tigres UANL of the Mexican Primera Division.- 7pm CST on Telefutura

I would expect nothing less than a Fire win really. I hear the Fire are taking this game serious and from the sound of it so are their supporter’s, which is really good to see. Tough part is until this tournament gets an English broadcast on FSC or something like that no one will care about it (you can watch it online though). I asked folks on Twitter earlier if they cared and those that responded didn’t see too unless they were actually a Fire fan.

CONCACAF Champions League Play-In Round

New York Red Bulls host Trinidadian side W Connection – 8pm EST on FSC

This is big and it is a make or break kind of game. If the Red Bulls win and advance they could at least salvage a little bit of their pathetic season. All they need is a win or even a 0-0 or 1-1 tie to advance. It is that simple. All MLS fans need to get behind New York tonight and hope they advance. If they don’t it will just add fuel to the fire on so many things surround this club.

International Friendly

Seattle Sounders FC host FC Barcelona – 10:30pm EST on ESPN

This should be fun. Tune in to ESPN2 tonight for this one folks. I know Seattle held their own against Chelsea a while back but I would be impressed if they are able to do the same against Barca. If I were Sigi Schmid I would be resting key guys as much as possible in this one, even if it means getting beat. With the playoffs coming up you don’t want to lose someone because of this game.

Jozy Moves To England

Link

The big topic today was Jozy Altidore and all his tweeting about moving to England to play for Hill City. The best part was reading all the reports with quotes from Jozy’s Twitter feed. I guess that is the world we are starting to live in, when players say something on twitter before the press get ahold of them in person.

Cooper Introduced in Germany

Link (to photos)

No need to say much, Cooper is finally over in Europe and looks happy in the process.

Argentina League Season Put On Hold

Link

Wow, big news down in Argentina is that a new season was suppose to start in two weeks. However that has been put on indefinite hold due to a deep financial crisis at many of the clubs. No other actions were announced. This could very well mean we could see a flood of players come north if nothing is resolved soon.

Okay, while I was gone a lot changed in the landscape of Major League Soccer. And by a lot, as you all probably know by now means a lot. One club punched their ticket into the post season while everyone else made it a little more interesting to see just who will get in the playoffs.

East v. West

One thing that is funny is how we talked all year how great the East is and how poor the West has been. Funny story though, right now four eastern clubs are in the playoff picture and so are four western clubs. That’s exactly what MLS went for when they changed their playoff format in the manner that they did. It created more push for the playoffs and right now its all about who’s got the hot hand and out west you are seeing some hotter hands.

Not to say the East is losing their steam this season but it means the West is finally waking up and realizing that in order to play for a MLS Cup you have to reach the playoffs to do so. A 30-game season is long, and as some say its a marathon and not a sprint. The clubs that have paced themselves the best are doing the best while the others who ran out in front too soon lost momentum and now are looking at a top three draft pick in January.

MLS Calendar Still Sucks

MLS Commissioner Don Garber told Luis Arroyave last week that there is still little that can be done to help out the clubs in terms of scheduling.

“There are 13 weekends affected by international play and we have a 30 week season,” said Garber. “To not play on those dates is impossible.

“In those markets — and Toronto is one of them — where they can play a disproportionate number of games during the week, then we’ll schedule more games during the week up there. But most markets are unable to handle that.”

“Starting at the end of February would be a little difficult to do here [in Chicago],” Garber said. “Even the first or second week in December would be almost impossible to do in most markets.

“We could look at extending it a week or two, but we can’t fit those 13 weeks into our schedule while we’re playing in this part of the world and have a fan base that disproportionately comes to games on weekends versus during the week. In almost all markets, the difference in attendance is over 50 percent for games played on a Wednesday or Thursday night than a Saturday night.”

Read more of Arroyave’s interview with the Don here, its pretty typical stuff really but worth a read when you get the chance if you haven’t already.

Probably the biggest nugget we got from that interview is SuperLiga and CONCACAF Champions League discussion. It sorta sounds like the league is listening to people when it comes to which clubs they send to which tournaments. Again I am all for the league sending its top three (plus USOC champion) to CCL and the next four to SuperLiga. Its a win-win for all in my book.

Speaking of CCL

The MLS clubs are still struggling. Surprise right? Also those USL teams are still rolling. Crazy right? I’d honestly love to see a USL club do well in that tournament and so far we are seeing two USL clubs do extremely well. I guess low expectations do breed good results sometimes.

Coaching Hot Seat Update

Keeping Carver at the top again. But adding KC’s Curt Onalfo to the bottom between DC’s Tom Soehn and New York’s Juan Carlos Osorio. I think it is safe to say all four should feel heat. For some reason should RSL really bottom out I would consider Jason Kreis, even if their management really does have a boy crush on him.

Hot and Not

Hot

Dallas: Probably one of the hottest clubs at the moment thanks to Jeff Cunningham. Looks like that deal is working out after all for the Hoops. Three game unbeaten mark right now has them within reach of a playoff spot. Not just an automatic spot but a wildcard spot as well.

Not

New England: The Revs chances of a MLS Cup look slimmer and slimmer to me after seeing them drop a vital home game to Columbus. The Revs will still be in the top three in the east but don’t be shocked if they just run out of gas by the start of the first round.

Hot

Colorado: Maybe this club really just needed to get rid of Fernando Clavijo sooner. They’ve been on a solid run as of last and their big win against New York (5-4…gotta love those scorelines in New Jersey) has their fans believing once again. I’m starting to think that final game of the year against RSL will determine which of those two head into the playoffs.

Not

Toronto: Look at who Mo Johnston has gotten rid of in the past couple seasons: Edson Buddle, Jeff Cunningham and Alecko Eskardarian. Yup, at least the first two have produced plenty of goals. Oh yeah, he also had to part with Ronnie O’Brien and others who just didn’t want to be there. Tough times. At least they have around a million (yes a million) in allocation money and few early draft picks.

Now, they get two American teams that have played each other in the MLS Cup final each of the last two years. I’m not saying this won’t be a great game but clearly this isn’t what SUM and the directors of this tournament wanted in the beginning.

Having one Mexican team and one MLS team would have worked fine and been great, so would have two Mexican teams. But two MLS clubs just won’t sell, especailly for a tournament that has lost it’s luster since the first kick a couple weeks ago.

But in all honesty, the two clubs that are left deserve to be where they are…in the final.

Right now MLS fans couldn’t have asked for a better matchup. New England has clearly been the league’s best club for a while not and Houston is starting to really hit their strides here (thanks to SuperLiga). To say this match won’t be at least half way decent is an understatement.

So the game will be in New England, a place where the Revs have dominated the Dynamo in recent years (another annoyance of this tournament is that the final isn’t on a neutral site). The last meeting in Foxborough was a 3-0 slamming on the Dynamo on the first day of the MLS season. Sure that game was ages ago but the sting is still there for the Dynamo and the sting of two straight losses in MLS Cup by the Revs is still there.

Tonight’s game will be good, probably a bit sloppy at times as both clubs will want to win but will not want to risk too much for the rest of their season. I see New England coming out on top though. As good as Houston has played recently, a trip up north just doesn’t sound good for them right now. Plus I really like how New England has played in this tournament.

As usual, Steve Ralston and Shalrie Joseph are the difference makers for the Revs.

WVH Prediction: New England 2, Houston 1

“That’s not something that is permitted in the CBA [collective bargaining agreement], it’s not something we are going to allow and something, should they decide to do, we will have to manage it the way we would manage any other violation of the collective bargaining agreement. I believe we have got great players who have strong levels of integrity and competitive spirit, and I believe they will play this game the way they play every other game. … We will pay the prize money as it was originially dictated as determined by MLS ownership. If there is something we determine is a violation of the CBA, we will address it.”

Sounds to me like the next round of CBA discussions are going to be mighty interesting. It also sounds like the players will be taking a big time stand against the league to get what they want.

Also, for those who you who’ve asked where the “million-dollar” payout all goes to…Donny G spoke on that too:

“It goes to the club owner. It’s no different from a NASCAR tournament where the team owner wins prize money and the team owner has a driver under contract, and whatever his agreement with that driver is is what that driver receives. … What I have found very frustrating is that this has been positioned as the league misleading the public by saying that the prize would go to the players. We never, ever implied that the players would get the one million dollars. The winner is the team. The club gets that million-dollar prize, and then we have an agreement as to what that share would be to the players.”

What do you all make of this news?

“The players on the Houston Dynamo and New England Revolution have agreed in advance of tomorrow night’s SuperLiga final that they will split evenly the bonus money at stake in the game. The players have made this decision to show their solidarity and in protest of the league’s violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement with respect to the negotiation of bonuses for this tournament.”

According to the tournament format, players on an MLS team that wins the title are to share $150,000 and $100,000 split by the MLS team that is the runners-up. So two groups of players have decided to pool the $250,000 and distribute it equally, regardless of who wins tomorrow night.

This is a really interesting development here because it sounds like the players really care less about this tournament since they have decided to split the winnings here. We know these two can put on a good enough game but will it be at a high level or just at a play to PKs kind of level?

Also, will the tournament directors (SUM, MLS) allow them to do this? That we will have to find out later on.

What do you all make of this news? Good idea or bad idea by the players? Obviously they want the money that is publicized here but are they doing this at a cost of the tournament?

New England went ahead early thanks to Shalrie Joseph. Atlante lost the match because of that early goal and then a few players due to red cards. They tried to turn the final minutes and seconds of the game into a full fledged battle royal. Players and coaches got involved from the Mexican side and showed just how sore of losers they really were.

Things were just ugly.

With Atlante’s actions last night it put yet another damper on this tournament that has not had the same luster as the 2007 version. I won’t take anything away from what the MLS clubs did on the field because New England and Houston deserve to be where they are at in this tournament, in the finals. I just think this year’s tournament hasn’t been nearly as good as last years.

The use of smaller stadiums, the poor field conditions at some stadiums, poor officiating, and let’s not forget for the MLS sides that this isn’t quite a million-dollar tournament like everyone hyped it to be. All things against this tournament in 2008.

I hope this year’s tournament will serve as a guide that SUM and MLS need to revisit this tournament and redo it a bit. Hopefully the actions by some of the Mexican clubs will cool off in future editions of this tournament and the officiating will improve.

What do you all make of this year’s tournament? To me it hasn’t been nearly as watchable as last year’s.

Live SuperLiga Stream (DC v. Atlante…DC is currently down 1-0)

Live SuperLiga Stream (Houston v. Chivas)

Live PSN Pas�on por El F�tbol Justin.tv channel for those of you who can not get the above streams to work or want the Telefutura stream in Spanish. (Or if MLSnet streams are not working.)

Enjoy!