Lest you think I don’t do anything but complain about MLS, I thought I’d share with you a solution I heard yesterday for the SuperLiga/Champions League problem. I won’t take credit for the idea — it comes from a random e-mail read on World Soccer Daily — but I like it. A lot.
This season, the same four teams (D.C., Houston, New England and Chivas USA) that went to SuperLiga also went to the CONCACAF Champions League. Let’s set it up so that doesn’t happen again.
Columbus qualified for the Champions League by winning the MLS Supporters Shield. Since the Crew is also in the MLS Cup Final, the New York Red Bulls qualified automatically for reaching the final, and Houston qualified as the team with the next best regular-season record. D.C. United got a bid for winning the U.S. Open Cup.
As of right now, the four best regular season teams in MLS play in next year’s SuperLiga. That would be Columbus, Houston, Chicago and New England. So instead, let’s make it so that the four best teams that don’t qualify for the Champions League play in SuperLiga. Thus, Chicago, New England, Chivas USA and Kansas City would go to SuperLiga.
(Mexico actually does something similar to this with Interliga, its qualifying competition for Copa Libertadores. The top teams that don’t qualify for the CONCACAF Champions League compete for Libertadores spots.)
The end result is that MLS would give eight clubs the opportunity to play international matches every year, allowing the league to reach out to Hispanic audiences in more markets. Plus, it would allow each club to focus on just one international competition, which eases schedule congestion and prevents teams from bombing out of a competition early just to avoid exhausting players before the money portion of the season. Oh, and in this particular instance, you get both the names Blanco and Chivas for Mexican TV audiences. That’s a win.
It’s a simple and elegant solution to a problem MLS didn’t foresee, and it benefits all parties involved. I suspect, however, that current contracts will prevent MLS commish Don Garber from putting this in place until 2010. So you Crew supporters better hope your club wins MLS Cup now, because Columbus is pretty much doomed to fixture fatigue in 2009.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Alan // Nov 20, 2008 at 1:36 pm
That would work, but that would give the MLS exposure. I thought they were against that!
2 Dave // Nov 20, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Hey, as long as SuperLiga remains safely tucked away on a Spanish-language cable channel, who needs to know?
3 Will // Nov 20, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Similar ideas have been floating around BigSoccer and Ives & Goff’s comment boards for a while, and I am all for them. Make Superliga our UEFA (sorry… EUROPA) Cup. With the league’s parity, qualifiers 5-8 are not going to be all that much worse than 1-4, and it helps MLS’s hedge its bets on getting big markets into international play.
Of course, what we really need is a giant fleet of fuel-efficient Concordes to jet teams and fans all over the hemisphere, allowing North and Central America to join CONMEBOL. Let the Carribbean champ play off versus Oceania’s for a single WC berth. Wed just need to get rid of Jack Warner — which come to think of it would probably be harder to pull off than that fleet of Concordes.
4 Dave // Nov 20, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Will: Keep in mind that the way CONCACAF Champions League qualification is set up in the U.S., it won’t always be 1-4 that gets in. This year, it’s more like 1-2-8-9, since New York was the low seed in the playoffs, and D.C. didn’t even make the playoffs. So we’d be sending 3-6 to SuperLiga under this plan.
Maybe we can put Jack Warner on a Concorde? Would that help?
5 Will // Nov 21, 2008 at 1:15 am
That’s cool. As long as it’s not the same teams. Spread the
fixture congestionwealth a little.