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The 2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup is here and the North American soccer world is filled with excitement. The biggest competition in the region has produced many classic moments but also has some gaping flaws that need to be fixed. Here are some suggestions on how to make the tournament better.
1. Get Rid of Teams Qualifying Automatically
We’ll start with something that seems to be on the change.
Three teams have automatically qualified for the Gold Cup since 2003, regardless of their standing in CONCACAF. This has drastically undermined the importance of the tournament and is highly unfair.
While you can argue nations like Mexico and the US (who also always host, more on that later) would qualify no matter what, the same cannot be said for Canada, who are regularly outranked by the likes of Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica and Panama.
It’s better for the competition if all nations involved, except for the host, are required to qualify. Not only does it make things fair, it also gives every nation important matches leading up to the cup and makes the tournament something to be fought for.
Thankfully, with the creation of the Nations League, it looks like these days are over.
2. Make It Every Four Years
Having the Gold Cup every two years is exhausting for FAs, players and fans, and half of the Gold Cup winners have not been able to claim their prize in the Confederations Cup (which is played less than a month before the Gold Cup). The rationale for doing the Gold Cup so often is simple: It makes CONCACAF a lot of money, which in turn aids the smaller nations.
With the Nations League on the horizon and talks of making a Pan-American cup a regular event, it might be time to explore changing the CONCACAF calendar. It will ease stress on all parties involved and give the tournament a higher level of prestige.
3. Could Someone Else Please Host
To host the Gold Cup, you essentially buy it. And to date only the USA has seemed willing to take on the duties, sometimes throwing a few games to Mexico or Canada. This monopoly is incredibly boring and obviously, gives the US home field advantage (despite what the Mexican FA claims).
Thankfully, there are those within the CSA who want Canada to solely host the tournament soon, possibly to promote the CPL. Should this happen, along with the 2026 World Cup, it could easily open the doors to a rotation between the US, Mexico and Canada or even to unified bids from Central American and Caribbean nations in the future to step up to host.
Spreading the hosting duties out makes for a more interesting tournament and could make the event a bigger deal.
4. Do Away with Lucky Losers
One of the biggest flaws of the Gold Cup is how easy it is to make it to the knock-out stages: if you win a game, you’re all but in because two of the three teams that finish 3rd in the group stages move forward. This bar for success is far too low and it’s hard to take a tournament with a team in the quarter-finals that has a -7 goal differential during the group stages (like Cuba in 2015) seriously.
I understand that you need 8 teams to make the knock-out stage work but the tournament is hurt with this format. A better option for the 2005-17 Gold Cup would have been to grant byes to the best 1st place finishers or to have stuck to the 4-group style used prior to that.
Hopefully, with the planned expansion of the Gold Cup, this tournament staple will end.
5. Use the Soccer Specific Stadiums
This year, only three soccer-specific stadiums are being used, this is down from 6 in 2016. This trend needs to go the other direction.
Soccer-specific stadiums provide a better experience to those in attendance and look better on TV than the massive NFL stadiums often used in the Gold Cup. While they are significantly smaller, the use of them assures sold out crowds to show off on TV and help increase the usage and public’s general knowledge of the soccer-specific stadiums in the US and Canada.
A simple proposal for when the US hosts: use the soccer-specific stadiums for all the group stage games at least.
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