HexagonalBlog

Jeffrey Webb confirmed as CONCACAF leader

Cayman Islands FA president Jeffrey Webb is now the 4th president of the CONCACAF confederation.  He was the lone candidate for the position (29 nominations out of the 40 members) and was voted by acclamation at the CONCACAF congress in Budapest today.  Webb has the administrative experience from years of service at the national FA, CFU, CONCACAF, and FIFA committees, and has accumulated the contacts that go along with such service. I'm not surprised that Sepp Blatter and most of the confederation chiefs were in attendance for Webb's acceptance speech.

Webb called for the confederation to renew itself after a tumultuous year and bring the focus back on football.  He also said that the 2026 World Cup "belonged to CONCACAF", but what did he mean, as a host or as a world champion? 

I haven't seen any reports on the composition of the Executive Committee, which will reveal to what extent the North and Central Americans will participate in the operations of CONCACAF. 

Elections and Renewal in the Caribbean

This is the week of elections in the Caribbean Football Union as the region starts to move on from the Jack Warner era.

In contrast to the CONCACAF presidential elections, the CFU race was a contested one between officials from Antigua and Barbuda (Gordon Derrick), Cuba (Luís Hernández), Trinidad & Tobago (Harold Taylor), and Barbados (Ronald Jones).  In the end, Derrick won comfortably, receiving four votes short of a majority (16 votes out of 30) in the first round of balloting and 16 votes in the second.  

Derrick is general secretary of the Antigua & Barbuda FA and owner of Barracudas FC of USL PRO.  He was also reprimanded and fined for wrongdoing in the bin Hammam/Warner affair last year.  It would have been nice to have someone at the CFU helm completely untainted by last year's cash-for-votes scandal, but the big news is that the regional union has severed its last ties to Jack Warner.  Taylor, Warner's handpicked successor, won very few votes in the balloting, and no representatives from the major Caribbean countries were selected to the executive committee. 

So it looks like the CFU has moved on from the Jack Warner era.  However, the Trinidad & Tobago Football Federation will remain under his influence for some time to come.

13th time unlucky for Vucetich: Santos champions

Monterrey manager Víctor Manuel Vucetich has the enviable record of never having lost a final that his teams have contested, whether domestic or international.  That was a streak of 12 finals, but final #13 proved to be his undoing against a dominating Santos Laguna side in the Mexican Clausura final. 

The first leg ended 1-1 in Monterrey, but goals by Daniel Ludueña and Oribe Peralta gave Santos a 2-0 lead on the night and 3-1 in the series.  Monterrey never quit, however, and when Aldo De Nigris scored with 14 minutes on the clock, it set the stage for a dramatic finish.  Both teams had chances to score at the end, and I particularly remember the centering pass that Oswaldo Sánchez initially misplayed, then recovered to make a fantastic save against De Nigris right at the end, but Santos absorbed the pressure and finished as champions.

Santos were well-deserved winners of the Clausura, not just because of their performance in the tournament, but also because of their performance over the entire season.  Hérculez Gómez joined the team in January but made major contributions to the side in domestic and international play.  It doesn't make up for the CCL final, but it is a just reward for the quality of their players and their football.

A roundup of Central American action -- 2012-05-20 edition

League champions are crowned all over Central America.  Here's a review of recent action:

BELIZE

Placencia Assassins won the newly formed Belize Premier League, 3-2 on aggregate over Police United (2-1 and 1-1).  However, Placencia will not participate in next season's CONCACAF Champions League as there are no stadiums in the country with sufficient lighting to host night matches.  I had thought that FIFA had approved the new FFB Stadium for international matches, but this article on Amandala Online states that FIFA had given the stadium a failing grade but that report was not revealed to the new FFB leadership until very recently. 

COSTA RICA

Herediano won their 22nd Costa Rican league championship by defeating Santos de Guápiles 6-3 on aggregate (4-2 home, 2-1 away) in the Verano final.  Herediano have won more championships than any team not named Saprissa or Alajuelense in the country, but this title was their first one in 19 years.  They will join Alajuelense in the Champions League in August.

EL SALVADOR

Season complete.  Águila are champions of the Salvadoran Clausura.

GUATEMALA

Xelajú won the Guatemalan Clausura (and their 5th league title) today, defeating Municipal 3-1 on penalties after the final ended 2-2 on aggregate.  Xelajú and Municipal will represent Guatemala in the Champions League.  Comunicaciones, who led the regular season table by a large margin, were left out in the cold after falling to Municipal in the semifinal round.

HONDURAS

Olimpia completed a clean sweep of the Honduran tournaments this season after defeating Marathón 1-0 in the Clausura final series (0-0 in SPS, 1-0 in Tegucigalpa).  The winning goal was scored by Douglas Caetano, which Marathón players and officials protested was scored from an offside position.  In addition to the bicampeonato, it's a quarter-century of league titles for the Honduran giants.  Olimpia and Marathón will be in next season's CCL.

NICARAGUA

Real Estelí swept the Nicaraguan tournaments after routing Diriangén 6-1 on aggregate (3-0 away, 3-1 home) in the final.  Estelí had already locked up Nicaragua's lone spot in the CCL with their superior regular-season record, and confirmed their status as the best club in the country with their finals triumph.  It is their 12th league title.

PANAMA

Tonight's Clausura final between Tauro and Chepo has been suspended due to torrential rains at Estadio Rommel Fernández.  It will be played on Tuesday night.  The winner of the final will join Chorrillo in next season's CCL.

 

WPS officially expires

It was inevitable, but the news finally arrived: Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) has permanently suspended operations.

WPS also settled their suit against magicJack owner Dan Borislow, which is just as well.

It's a sad day for women's professional sport in the USA, but crippling news for women's professional soccer in this country.  After two failed leagues in ten years, I'm not sure if another one will arise anytime soon.

A roundup of Central American action -- 2012-05-06 edition

The playoffs in Central America have reached the latter stages, so here's a roundup on action down there.  Who's playing Champions League football?  Who's going up? Who's going down?

MLS' competitiveness in CONCACAF Champions League

After Real Salt Lake's run to the CONCACAF Champions League final last season, and the first-ever wins by MLS  teams in Mexico this season, there was a lot of misplaced optimism about the chances of Major League Soccer teams to contend for the CCL.  That optimism was swiftly dispatched by Mexican clubs in the knockout stages.  Jeff Carlisle wrote a column on ESPN Soccernet inquiring if MLS clubs were doomed to second-tier status against Mexican sides in the competition.  I don't believe that they are, but it takes a special team with a combination of depth, maturity, and good fortune to be competitive in the competition.

Monterrey chases history, Santos chases confirmation

The final is coming up in about 40 minutes, so I better hurry...

So after a Champions League final last year between the top Mexican side and the most competitive MLS representative CONCACAF had ever seen, and a Champions League season in which Mexican sides lost home matches for the first time, the final reverts back to a familiar type.  The two finalists aren't unbeaten, like Monterrey was last season, but they have demonstrated that they are the best teams in the competition.  Los Angeles might have been able to challenge that, but they never woke up against Toronto FC in the HDC, so we'll never know.

Monterrey are chasing history over the next two weeks -- no team has won the Champions League in its current format in successive seasons, and no club has won CONCACAF's highest competition two years in a row since the all-conquering Pachuca sides in 2007 and 2008.  The attacking core remains intact between Humberto Suazo and Aldo de Nigris, as well as José Basanta in central defense and Ricardo Osorio at right back, but their midfield has changed significantly from the one that took the field in Utah last year.  The Rayados didn't have a good Apertura, but they are playing much more strongly in the current short tournament (4th place on 28 points).

Santos are seeking confirmation of their dominance in Mexico over the last 9 months.  They have been the dominant team in Mexico this season, and they finished runner-up to UANL in the Apertura final, but in CONCACAF they have never advanced this far before.  Montreal Impact fans will remember the epic comeback in injury time during the 2008-09 season, but that team fell to Atlante in the semifinal round.  Some of the midfield from that season are still in the lineup for Santos, such as Daniel Ludeña and Carlos Quintero.  But the impact player from this season has been Hérculez Gómez.  After scoring seven goals for Estudiantes Tecos in the first half of the season, he joined Santos in January and has since scored twelve goals over all competitions.  Even after playing just knockout round matches in the Champions League, he is now tied for top goalscorer.  If Santos goes on to win the Champions League, and if Gómez scores a goal over the two legs, he will be given strong consideration for best player in the competition.

The first leg starts in Monterrey, and the Rayados will seek the same kind of first-leg knockout that they earned in the previous rounds.  It won't happen tonight, but both matches will be closely fought.  In the end it will be the goalscorers who have the final say.

Caribbean asserts its numerical advantage in CONCACAF presidential race

CONCACAF announced a few days ago that Jeffrey Webb, a banker and current president of the Cayman Islands FA, will be the only candidate for the CONCACAF presidency.  The vote won't occur until CONCACAF's Extraordinary Congress in Budapest in late May, but given that Webb received endorsements from 25 of the 40 member associations, something significant would have to happen for him to lose support.  (This article from Honduras sports daily Diez says that Webb received 29 endorsements.)  Alfredo Hawit of Honduras is the acting CONCACAF president, but he knows math as well as any Central or North American in the confederation, and he has decided not to stand for election.

When the election process started, I said that the Caribbean nations will have a very strong say over who will become the next president, and in fact they have.  The Caribbean Football Union has 30 members, 75% of the total membership of CONCACAF.  If we only consider the English Caribbean members, there are 17.  So the English Caribbean members, by themselves, can decide who the next CONCACAF president will be, and the remaining Caribbean associations will go along.  (Who else are they going to follow, a Central American candidate who they don't relate to, or a North American who they'll never support?)  I've read a couple of articles expressing surprise that Webb will be the next president, but why should there be?  It is nothing more than the rule of the majority in CONCACAF.

The next executive office to be filled will be the general secretary.  Given the way that power has been shared in the confederation in the past, I would not be surprised if a North American takes that seat.

Giorgio Chinaglia, RIP

Giorgio Chinaglia, the former Swansea, Lazio, and New York Cosmos striker and current soccer radio talk host, died in Florida on Sunday at the age of 65.  The AP has a long obituary of him here.  Frank Glase of the Star-Ledger has a remembrance here.  The new Cosmos club -- of which Chinaglia was a highly visible supporter -- has also released a statement.

On these shores, Chinaglia was best remembered for his goal-scoring feats with the NASL Cosmos, scoring 262 goals during his 8-year NASL career, and later for partnering with Charlie Stillitano on The Football Show on SiriusXM radio.  Listening to The Football Show today was bittersweet as Stillitano and Neil Barnett were sharing their recollections of Giorgio, along with special guests such as Ray Hudson, Roberto di Matteo, Tommy Smyth and Fabio Capello, yet at the same time it was clear that they were hurting over the loss of their close friend and colleague.  Giorgio had some very strong opinions -- he was fiercely critical of Major League Soccer, for one -- and I certainly didn't agree with him often, but he loved the game from the perspective of someone who had spent almost all of his life around it.

May his family be comforted in the days and months to come.  RIP, and Arrivederci.