Final 2009 CONCACAF Champions League Results By Country

I'm finally getting around to mopping up some things. Here's the final CCL results by country. I'm sure everyone is surprised to see Mexico at the top of the list for the second year in a row.

                W  L  T  GF  GA  DIF  Win%  PPG
Mexico         25  8  7  79  36   43  62.5  2.05
Honduras        9  9  0  29  39  -10  50.0  1.50
Panama          5  6  1  17  18   -1  41.7  1.33
USA             8  9  7  35  36   -1  33.3  1.29
Guatemala       3  5  1   9  21  -12  33.3  1.11
Costa Rica      2  5  3  11  20   -9  20.0  0.90
Puerto Rico     1  3  4   7  12   -5  12.5  0.88
Trin & Tobago   4 10  2  21  31  -10  25.0  0.88
El Salvador     1  5  2   5  21  -16  12.5  0.63
Canada          0  1  1   0   1   -1   0.0  0.50

Thanks for Nothing MLSsoccer.com

MLS revamped their web site to coincide with the start of the season, and to say that this was a debacle is a disservice to debacles. When the commissioner has to address how terribly broken the league's web site is during an interview with Sports Illustrated, that's failure on an epic scale.

I won't bore you with the list of all the things that went wrong Fake Sigi has already done a great job explaining that. The thing MLS doesn't seem to understand is that since things are still broken now five games into the season is that they are preventing people like me from giving them free publicity. I use their stats and player profile pages a considerable amount in my blogging. You still can't search the alumni database for a given player. There is still no way to get more than the top four leaders in any statistical category for any year. There's no way to get the career leaders in any category that I can see.

At some point I'll start blogging again... if I can ever get some source material to back things up with.

An Embarrassment of Riches

The recently-signed MLS collective bargaining agreement raised the salary cap to $2.55 million per year, with 5% increases each of the four years after that. If you think that's a small number, take a look at our neighbors to the south in Jamaica.

Howard Hamilton recently published a summary of a couple of articles showing just how cash-starved the Jamaican federation (and it's club teams) are. The Jamaican league has decided not to participate in the CFU Champions Cup - the regional tournament which is used to qualify teams for the CONCACAF Champions League. The reason was that the tab for playing these games was too much for the teams to bear. So what is the estimated cost for making it through the tournament?

$65,000

That's right -- an extra $65,000 is enough to put these teams significantly in the hole. There's your dose of perspective for the next time you want to complain that MLS teams aren't spending enough.

Best Beyonce-Sauron Connection Ever

One of the funniest things I've seen in a while... yes, I'm a huge geek. If you like it check out xkcd.

USL1 Instability Update

A while back I wrote a post showing how unstable USL1 has been in the last few years.

This offseason things got even worse, with the USSF having to step in and cobble together a second division consisting of USL1 teams and those who are breaking away to form the reincarnated NASL.

Technically Rochester might still be in the USL -- both the USL and NASL web sites list them as a team. At the very least they will officially be done with the USL next season. The same can be said of the reborn Tampa Bay Rowdies and the new NSC team in Minnesota, which I neglected to put into the "in" column.

Here's an updated chart reflecting the chaos.

2010
In	Out
none	Charleston Battery (dropped to USL2)
	Cleveland City Stars (folded)
	Minnesota Thunder (folded)
	Carolina Railhawks (moved to NASL)
	Miami FC (moved to NASL)
	Montreal Impact (moved to NASL)
	Vancouver Whitecaps (moved to NASL)
	Rochester Raging Rhinos (moved to NASL)
2009
In	Out
Cleveland City Stars	Seattle Sounders (moved to MLS)
Austin Aztex	Atlanta Silverbacks (on hiatus)
2008
In	Out
none	California Victory (folded)
2007
In	Out
California Victory	Virginia Beach Mariners (folded)
Carolina Railhawks	Toronto Lynx (folded)
2006
In	Out
Miami FC	Richmond Kickers (dropped to USL2)
2005
In	Out
none	Syracuse Salty Dogs (folded)
	Milwaukee Wave (folded)
	Edmonton Aviators (folded)
	Calgary Mustangs (folded)
2004
In	Out
Puerto Rico Islanders	none
Edmonton Aviators

Choosing an MLS Team to Support

Need to figure out which MLS team to support? Check out this awesome flowchart created by "cowtown" of BigSoccer fame.

My favorite question on the flowchart: "Do you secretly kind of like the idea of following a team named after a horrible disaster that destroys lives and communities?" Hilarious.

Herculez Unchained

Stop me if you've heard this one before. An American player heads overseas to a league considered superior to MLS. He settles in immediately, scoring goals and turning heads in the process.

The only thing is, I'm not talking about Landon Donovan.

Herculez Gomez formerly of the Kansas City Wizards, Colorado Rapids and Los Angeles Galaxy transferred to Puebla in Mexico this offseason and the change has done him a world of good. Gomez went goalless in 26 appearances with the Wizards last year, and scored just three in 25 games the year before. So far this year Gomez has already scored five goals in just eight appearances for La Franja.


Here he is opening the scoring for Puebla just last week.