Thursday, September 20, 2007

An American Champions League

The European Champions League always promises great excitement as the top teams from each nation's domestic league participate in an international club competition. Not only do you get to see great international soccer, but you see clubs compete against top clubs in other nations--giving rise to a great question, which league produces the best clubs, is it La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga, the EPL or could a top team from the Netherlands, Portugal, France or somewhere else have a Cinderella run and take the Champions League. You can never tell. Well, perhaps the MLS is looking to create a Champions League in the Western Hemisphere with the top four teams of each nation competing internationall.

Alex and teh MLS blog, wonders how people feel about the idea.

I think it would be wonderful, perhaps having the first champions league among CONCACAAF leagues and perhaps then expanding it to South American clubs in a couple of years. A few things are going to have to happen to make it really work, first and foremost a change to a more international schedule for MLS, that means starting the fall, say mid-august and running until May. MLS's attendence is solid enough in the fall and the spring that it need not avoid the American football schedule to draw attendence. Matching schedules means that American clubs are then following international schedules and would make for a more meaningful match up.

I don't know for certain if American clubs are ready to compete internationally against other clubs. But we need to try. The only way to find out is to compete, and contintue to compete. Eventually, probably within a couple of years, American clubs will be able to compete and the competition will only make American soccer better.

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