Monday, October 4, 2010

Carling Nations Cup should expand …..





My yanks are in CONCACAF which is one of the weakest confederations. The problem is the lack of quality teams within CONCACAF. This has hurt the image and the development of all the teams. The main problem is the lack of competitive matched the top teams play. The top team in particular USA, Mexico and Canada. Yes I will group Canada in there because they do not qualify for the Caribbean Cup or the Central American Cup.


Presently Costa Rica plays very competitive games against Panama, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Costa Rica is always placed in the most difficult group year after year in the Caribbean Cup which is good for them. The Caribbean Cup lets the lesser team play against each other before the Stage 2 round starts. All Stage 2 games are now all competitive. The Caribbean nations now can compete and beat Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica in this tournament. The problem is a tournament for the big 3 populous nations.


Canada, Mexico and the Yanks just do not have a North American tournament. Greenland just started a goal program. Maybe they could be the 4th team in a small competitive North American tournament. Greenland could be filled with Denmark's B team which could challenge the 3 big teams. Bermuda is in North America but just cannot compete. They are actually a weak Caribbean Club.


Maybe the 3 big teams (Canada, Mexico and USA) could join a mini tournament like the Carling Nations Cup. The Carling Nations Cup has Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland playing very competitive matches. Each of these nations are looking for competitive games this time of year. The tournament would also have nice exposure to the national team.


England might join the tournament since it would get exposure from other federations. This was the reason England does not participate now.


This is good for the CONCACAF teams to get competitive games in. It would also get them in a tournament instead of friendlies. It would pit the teams against top European nations in a competitive tournament in Europe. If the yanks of Mexico wants to win a World Cup they have to win on European soil. This would be a great start. This would also give the yanks and Mexico a neutral site to play their grudge match.


The Celtic nations might like this since it would give them great exposure in the states. This would also greatly enhance the image of this tournament to have the 3 CONCACAF teams join the competition. The teams are presently playing 3 games total. The new 8 nation tournament would be 5 games most for any 2 teams.


Presently none of the countries could host the European Championship so this tournament would be ideal to host for them. Ireland did but a bid into host Euro 2012 however they did not have enough stadiums that met the requirements.

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