In Part Two, SuperLiga in a CONCACAF Champions League World.

MLS/SUM needs to reformat the SuperLiga or risk losing it

FACT: The CONCACAF Champions League was reformatted specifically to overshadow the SuperLiga tournament launched by MLS/SUM.

Let’s face it, when CONCACAF announced its new confederation club championship format in November of 2007, it was a direct result of the North American SuperLiga which launched earlier that year.

This new tournament, and its “$1 Million” prize threatened the already low importance and profile of CONCACAF’s “showpiece” club event. So they decided to trump the MLS by recreating their tournament in the image of UEFA’s event, a tournament that arguably ranks second only to the World Cup.

The results for MLS have been worst-case on two fronts: First, their teams have been painfully exposed as not only second rate in CONCACAF, but second rate on their OWN SOIL; Second, MLS’ SuperLiga had become irrelevant in only its second season.

The former issue should result in USL earning one spot for the Champions league. They’ve earned it. MLS has been exposed as not being the premier tier of soccer in terms of on field production.

Anyone looking at the form displayed by teams in the two circuits and says differently is living in a bubble where whatever the MLS/SUM spin machine cooks up is fact (eg. apparently “fixture congestion” and “roster size” does not apply to USL squads in international competition). 

USL has split the Open Cup semi final spots with MLS the past two years, won the 2008 Canadian Championship, and outplayed MLS vs international competition in the CCL.  MLS sides have underperformed for the past eight years in the Champions Cup and then were outperformed when USL had the opportunity.

Case Closed. Just like UEFA, spots should be awarded based on winning. Not if Beckham chose to play 20 games in your league or not.

As for the latter issue, MLS has now been forced to slot in four other “best available” teams to battle Mexico’s Champions League qualifiers for the 2009 edition of the tournament. My, how quickly this tournament has travelled the road to “irrelevant exhibition.”

However, CONCACAF did leave one remaining page from the UEFA playbook for Garber & Co. to use in salvaging some value from this tournament. The SuperLiga, with two key tweaks, can exist just fine as a sub-regional North American cup, much like the Europa League.

First, change the qualification requirements by forcing Primera to also send its fourth-eighth available teams, add the US Open Cup and Canadian Championship runners-up, and add USL's top three teams (excluding the Islanders from CONCACAF’s Caribbean Zone).

Twelve total teams get split into four groups of three; top two teams from each group after a single game round robin move on to two groups of four; top two teams in each group after a double robin move on to a four team knockout stage.

Secondly, stop hosting all games on U.S. soil. Continuing this will not only make the “exhibition” cloud larger and darker, and brings a cold fact glaringly to the fore: U.S. & Canada’s club teams struggle pitifully with Mexican competition on Mexican pitches.

Move to a “home field advantage” format. Period. In order for clubs to get more confident with international competition, and our national teams in turn, we need to stop playing our highest profile matches at home.

If MLS is worried about revenues from the event, they may simply request a percentage of all gates as tourney facilitator, and its settled.

And yes, USL should be invited to the SuperLiga. They’ve earned that too. If this tournament wants to be recognized as a legitimate subregional championship, it should include all leagues where teams are eligible for the CONCACAF.

Otherwise, if all legitimate competitors are not invited, this tournament should go the way of the PanPacific Championship (SUMs other tourney) and be played as a preseason friendly.

Source: Click Here