If you’re really good, you could be playing in a lot of games in a calendar year.
Concacaf and CONMEBOL announced a “strategic partnership” on Friday, bringing the two confederations closer to one another moving forward.
The nuts and bolts of the new deal center around teams from each region playing in each other’s major tournaments. So, six Concacaf teams playing in Copa America (also hosted in the US in 2024) and four CONMEBOL teams playing in the Women’s Gold Cup.
But the big part that sticks out for FC Dallas reasons is the new tournament being created by the two confederations for a ‘final four’ type club competition starting in 2024. The details are still being ironed out, but we know that two teams from each federation will qualify through their existing competitions.
What existing competitions are they referring to? In some regards, it could be an MLS Cup winner and a Liga MX winner joining two South American teams. It would be a huge deal to see an MLS club annually face off against the top clubs in Brazil and Argentina.
The other side of all this is the addition of at least two or possibly four games to the calendar for an MLS team. Again, we don’t know the format yet since this is day one of knowing this new competition will even exist.
But simple math when thinking through this MLS teams competing in this could be playing many games in 2024. Say you’ve done well in 2023 by winning an MLS Cup, US Open title or Supporters’ Shield. You would then have 34 games in the regular season, along with up to six or seven US Open Cup games, toss in six or seven League’s Cup games, possibly a Campeones Cup match, as many as eight Concacaf Champions League games, and if the playoff format doesn’t change, up to four playoff games. Oh, and say you are like Seattle and won a trip to the Club World Cup; that could be an additional three or four games there too.
Yeah, that could be a ton of games. Like on par with the top European teams in what they play each year.
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