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Message: [QUOTE="Alsacs, post: 3910443, member: 652"] Every confederation in FIFA has a regional tournament. Europe and South America, Asia, do it every 4 years. Africa and CONCACAF(N and C America do it every 2 years) These regional tournaments are done mainly for contential pride. CONCACAF can only realistically hold their tournaments in USA, Canada or Mexico. Prior to 2017 the tournament in the CONCACAF had some value as a the champion of the tournament the year after a World Cup would guarantee the champ a spot in the Confederations Cup which FIFA would hold the year before a World Cup in the World Cup host country as a trial run. You would have the host, the reigning WC champion, and 6 contentential champions from each confederation play in 2 groups of 4 and have a mini-WC. The USA had its best success in a Men’s FIFA tournament at the 2009 Confederations Cup. We lost our first 2 matches to Italy and Brazil but beat Egypt and got help from Brazil over Italy to qualify for the semi finals. Where the USA beat the world’s number 1 Spain 2-0 in one of the biggest upsets of alltime. Spain had the world record longest winning streak and Jozy Altidore, Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard played outstanding and we beat Spain. In the Final against Brazil the US scored 2 goals in the first half and were up 2-0 at halftime. Brazil made some subs and a Brazil 3 goal second half and we lost 3-2 in the final. The Gold Cup is useless now without the confederations cup berth. The Euro competition has a lot of pride because the quality and depth of teams in the tournament plus its 2 years before the WC except this year. If CONCACAF didn’t treat it like a cash grab they would make it every 4 years if they wanted it to be more prestigious. Their have been 15 Gold Cups and only 3 winners Mexico-8 Times, USA 6 times and Canada won it in 2000. The region used to invite teams from other regions but stopped doing that until this year. Qatar was invited into the tournament this year with a deal CONCACAF made with Asian federation to share strategies and help Qatar who is the reigning Asian Cup region champion get preparation for next year’s WC. WC 2022 is the last WC that will only be 32 teams with 8 groups of 4. 2026 will be 48 teams with 16 groups of 3 teams. CONCACAF wants the smaller confederations to grow which would be good. Jamaica and Canada are getting better. It’s still though Mexico and USA at the top and Costa Rica 3rd. The Gold Cup is during the MLS season it’s kinda pointless now and MLS has really helped the rest of CONCACAF except Mexico a lot. In 2016 the South American federation held the Copa America 100th anniversary tournament in the USA. 10 COMEBOL teams and 6 CONCACAF teams. It was a huge success. It should be done like the EURO competition honestly. It would help the US soccer federation. The USA used to get invited into the Copa America but they offended the South America federation in 2007 when they sent a bad roster and prioritized the Gold Cup after that the USA wasn’t invited till 2016 when it was done in the USA. [/QUOTE]

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