The Transatlantic Imperative: Analyzing the Joint UEFA-Concacaf Nations League Blueprint

We'll bring you everything about the U.S. National teams, the players, the leagues, everything else that impacts Game of Soccer in the U.S. United States. We're going to do a fun activity on this episode because a couple of weeks ago, it gets about about a week and a half ago, they're in the midst of all of this back and forth with Johnny Emphantino and the FIFA forward project that he was trying to do to usurp control of the row cup and put it in the hands of private equity. There was this proposal, if you will, and in discussions and reports about cock-a-caf and UEFA meeting to form a new nation's league that would kind of rival the row cup. In a way, not necessarily replace it, but to have some sort of competition that would be a major competition between two confederations. It struck me because one, you all know how I feel about cock-a-caf nation's league. It's the greatest tournament because islands are involved. There's also UEFA nation's league, which kind of started this whole thing. I say that UEFA started nation's league, but cock-a-caf perfected it. The idea of the two confederations coming together in the midst of trying to get Infantino out of power to create a joint nation's league of some sort, I thought to myself, what would it look like? What could it look like if the word was given and these two confederations were to proceed with a joint nation's league in 2028-2029? Let's talk about it. We're going to talk about, on one half, we're going to talk about the men on the other side. The women. I think what we would focus on is how it would affect obviously the United States, both the men's national team and the women's national team, and whether this is a good idea for cock-a-caf and for UEFA, but let's focus on the fact that if this were to happen and we're doing hypotheticals for this whole episode, if this was supposed to happen, then we would have 96 teams in this joint nation's league, 96, almost half of the world involved in this joint tournament. Obviously, you would have multiple two of leagues, and if you broke it down, the great thing is 96 is a number that is divisible by 16, so you can have six leagues of 16 teams in each of this, and I'll talk about the women on the other side because there's one that we have to look out for. But 96 teams divided into league A, league B, league C, D, E, and F. I think that's first of all that setting itself up to be great, and to have that kind of table and have the promotional delegation between the two, between the six leagues would be awesome, but the question would remain is how do you shape these leagues? Well, the first thing you could do, and maybe the easiest thing to do, at least for the first nation's league, is to divide all the leagues up, rank everybody and take their current FIFA rankings, and rank them one to 96 essentially, divide by 16, and you take those 16 teams and go to league A, B, C, D, E, and F. So what would that look like if that was the case? If they decided to just go off FIFA ranking and ranked everyone for the top ranked team to the lowest ranked team, in the case of Coca-Caf, the non FIFA countries that are in Coca-Caf, they're not rated obviously in the FIFA rankings. So the way that would be set up is league A would be the top 16 teams between the two confederations. And thankfully, the United States national team would be in league A under that scenario. You'd have Spain, France, England, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Mexico, Germany, Croatia, Switzerland, Italy, USA, Norway, Denmark, Austria, and Turkey. Now for the United States national team, that would be incredible to be able to be a part of a competition that had their facing essentially top 10, top 15 teams. In that group, seven of the current top 10 in the FIFA rankings are there, 13 of the top 20 and 16 of the top 27. That's really, really good and that's great competition and would, you know, answer the call for so many people to say, hey, the United States needs to be test themselves as often as possible against the best teams in the world, not just like the 15s and the 20s, but the top 10, the teams that they know they need to beat if they're to win a world cup. And the way that it would be divided, if you have pots, obviously, the US at 16th in the world would be in pot three in this league A because you have Spain, France, England, Portugal, that's one, three, four and seven in the world. That's pot A Belgium, Netherlands, Mexico, Germany, eight, nine, 10 and 12. That's pot two, USA, we have Croatia, Switzerland, Italy, USA, 13, 14, 15 to 16th in the world. That's pot three and then Norway at 19, Denmark at 21, Austria, 23 and Turkey at 27. There is your pot four and from there, you could divide and run any list of scenarios again in your group, you can have a Spain or a France, you can have a Netherlands or Belgium in pot out of pot two, you have a Germany out of pot two. The obviously wouldn't be able to face anyone in pot three that'd be courageous Switzerland and Italy, but then you can have a Norway or Denmark or Turkey again in your group to round out your group. And that would be incredible to test for, incredible test for the United Statesman's national team. And I think one that a lot of people would welcome, you also would get to travel to some of these countries which would be amazing. And I think the United States, in general, US soccer needs to have these teams go out on the road more because that's where they learn more about themselves. And it shouldn't be just for real qualifying and for nations when they're required to, they should try to schedule friendly against teams in on the road because that's where they're going to shape how they outlast everyone in work of qualifying and in world cups that aren't on American soil. So that would be a great thing. And again, to do that in the homes of some of these really good teams I think would be great. But I think the problem with it is, is that in league A, if you just do the rankings, the current fee for rankings, of the 16 teams in league A, only Mexico and the United States are from cock a calf. You even go down to league B, 13 UEFA teams, three cock a calf teams, league C, 12 UEFA teams, four cock a calf teams, league D, 10 UEFA teams, and six cock a calf teams. You have to go all the way to league E to find a league that had more cock a calf teams than UEFA teams. And obviously, if you're going to do a joint, you're a joint nation's league, you'd probably want some balance. So maybe you kind of take the current league A of UEFA, the current league A of cock a calf, and you just kind of do like a deck of cards, put them in the middle, fold them, shuffle them, and then see what spits out. Eight teams from cock a calf, eight teams from UEFA, and you kind of do that as far as you can until you get to leagues E and F where you might have to do some finagling with that. But if you do the current nations league for UEFA, league A, there's only a few changes. Spain, France, England, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Croatia, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Turkey, Wales, Serbia, Czechia, and Greece. So those last four teams are really what's changing here. And for cock a calf, if you look at league A, all 16 teams, Mexico, the United States, Canada, and Panama, of course, are having a buy through the group stage that's starting in September. But then you have Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica, Curacao, Haiti, Martinique, the Lone, not ranked or non FIFA team, Guatemala, El Salvador, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Nicaragua, and Dominican Republic. That would be interesting. And Dominican Republic at 144th in the world, Nicaragua at 131st, Suriname at 125th, Trinidad and Tobago at 102nd, El Salvador at 100th, they're all in the league A. And then you also have Martinique who is not ranked because they're not a FIFA member. So do they divide it that way or do they just go with the strength and say, Hey, if cock a calf wants to get into league A, they got to earn it through promotion and relegation, take the top teams, organize them, and let's go. But so for cock a calf as a whole, it might be weird to try and make this work, where they're getting their teams into as high a league as possible. But they still get the benefit of these tests. Canada is not one of the top 16 teams if you combine UEFA and cock a calf. They're number 17. They would be the top team in league B, but they would get to face a Ukraine, Russia, if they if they ever got unbanned, Poland, Switzerland, Wales, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Greece, Chechiia, Romania, Ireland, those are teams that they could play and those are really decent teams. Panama and Costa Rica will also be in that mix for league B league C. You have like teams like Bosnia, Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Finland, Montenegro, Bulgaria, those are teams like Honduras and Jamaica, they get to face each other. And I think that'd be really, really interesting. And I think for cock a calf, they would get the better benefit of this because in every scenario, they're facing teams that are better than in UEFA or at least at the very least ranked higher. And for the United States, scrolling back up to the A, there's a lot of opportunity here to get better and to test themselves against the best teams on the planet, at least some of them, to show, hey, when the next World Cup comes around in 2030, sign us up as a contender because we're not going to be afraid of facing an England or a Portugal. We're going to know what to do next time against Belgium to come out with the result. Germany and Croatia are going to come in and we're going to say great, that's awesome. Hope you had a great trip. Here's your loss. Like those are the things that they are aiming for. And I wonder if it was all just, you know, a lot of smoke, but it's really interesting if they were able to do something like this. And it doesn't have to be a full-fledged competition all up and down, but maybe even setting up a series of friendly similar to what FIFA does with lower ranked teams to try and get them in this, you know, get some of these teams in, could competition with each other. Think of it kind of like this. Think of it kind of like the ACC, SEC challenge in basketball or the former ACC Big 10 challenge where UEFA could say here's our 16 teams. Coca-Cola can say here's our 16 and you just line them up. Who's facing who? Eight of them are in UEFA territory, eight of them in Coca-Cola territory. You might see the United States travel to Switzerland to face Switzerland, but you might see Jamaica hosts Bosnia at the office. That could be really intriguing and I wonder what comes of this and it'd be fun to see that on the men's side. We're going to take a quick break because on the other side, we're going to talk about this, but we're going to talk about it from the women's perspective. Just as intriguing in the women's side, so stick around. Hey everyone, are you looking for the latest gear for your US national teams? Major League Soccer, the NGBSL, or any other team in the world soccer? The USA Soccer cast has affiliate partnerships that are ready to help you out. Head to linktree.com. Slash USA Soccer cast where we have links to homage, fanatics, to Emma's store, and breaking feet. You can get the jersey, shirt, hat, or accessory you're looking for to support your team while also saving some money and helping this show in the process. Again, linktree.com. Slash USA Soccer Cast. Click on the links and get your gear. And we thank you as always for your support of the show. We're back and we're continuing this hypothetical discussion about what a joint UEFA ConquerCalf Nation's League would look like and how it could help the United States. We shift to the women because of course the women are a little different in how they're set up, but funny enough, the way that these leagues would be comprised is similar. If you look at league A again, if you take the women's FIFA rankings right now, and you took all those teams from number one Spain all the way down to the not ranked teams, here's how league A could shape up if he came to fruition. If Spain, the United States at number two, Germany at number three, England number four, Francis six, Sweden eight, Canada at nine, Netherlands 10 in the world. And then you also have Denmark, Italy, Norway, Iceland, Belgium, Ireland, Portugal and Austria. Now of those 16 teams, all of them are in the top 23 in the world. Eight of them in the top 10, 13 in the top 20. That's awesome. And the United States on the women's side, they usually test themselves against teams of that magnitude in the top 20 top 10 in the world. They're not usually playing teams in the hundreds, except when they have to in ConquerCalf competitions. For the most part, they're trying to schedule friendlies against a Spain like we're going to have in October against the Germany against the England against Canada against Netherlands. They try to schedule these type of friendlies. Most of them are here in the United States, but they're at least scheduling the best teams they can every single time. And they're playing them multiple times in a window so that they can get those reps. So this would be at least in the women's side, it wouldn't be a departure from what they're normally doing, which I think is great. But it would maybe codify it, I guess organize it a little bit better. And if you even take my proposal or my idea before the break about having like an ACC SEC style challenge, that's where this could get lopsided on the women's side. Because there's not a lot of women's teams in ConquerCalf that are doing what would be required to go up against some of these top teams. It would be a little bit more of a challenge, right? Again, in league A, you have 14 you way for teams and two ConquerCalf teams if you just took them straight ranking style. The United States and Canada both in the top 10. But in USA at number two, but they're the only two ConquerCalf teams in that 16 team league A, this proverbial league A in league B, you have four ConquerCalf teams. You have Mexico, Jamaica, Costa Rica, and Haiti. And I think those teams are teams that are on the cusp. They want to announce themselves by getting to the women's world cup and then being able to play their way into later rounds and show that they have improved as squads. If you go down to league C in this scenario, 11 UEFA and five are from ConquerCalf. The five from ConquerCalf, Panama, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Trinidad, Tobago, and Guatemala. They're growing up against teams like Northern Ireland, Belarus if they got their, got unbanned, Romania, Slovakia, Greece, Croatia, those type of teams in the 50s and 60s. So this would be a start challenge for the women. But I think going back to the US women, I think the great thing is they faced all these teams before. If you think about the last but four years, going back to the 2023 World Cup, they face Spain many times and they're going to face them twice more. They face Germany several times. They face England several times. They face France a couple of times. Sweden, they've played Canada, they've played many times. The Dutch, they've played Italy, Iceland, Ireland, Portugal. They've faced almost all these teams. And for them, it would just be business as usual. But to maybe put some skin in the game and have groups and have it where they can play for a title, that would help them out. And it's not necessarily what helped their ranking like it would on the men's side by getting those tournament points. But at least for the United States, they would be testing themselves every single time out against somebody. And I think for some of the other teams, they would get their chance to play the United States in play Spain and play Germany in England, those top four teams, which I think is pretty cool. I mentioned that the women's brackets would look a little different from the men. And the reason why I say that is you got to scroll all the way down to League F. As I mentioned, there are 96 countries in Coca-Caf and UEFA combined. 55 for UEFA, 31 for Coca-Caf. And so that splits evenly into 16 groups or six leagues of 16 teams. On the women's side, though, there is one team that has never played a match. They technically have formed, technically formed 20, 30 years ago. But Montserrat has never played a match. And I think the one thing about nation's league that has helped on the men's side is to rejuvenate, revitalize or otherwise create national teams for some of these nations that never play. The only time they would lace them up would be for those one or two World Cup qualifiers at the very beginning. And then they would go dormant for four years. Nation's league kept them active and kept them investing into their teams and kept them, you know, searching for talent and developing that talent and putting them out in the field and getting them games where they can get better. This part of the joint nation's league would be incredibly important for teams like Sam Reno, who is who plays, but it's so bad they're not ranked. British Virgin Islands, once again, not ranked because they're that bad and they haven't played in a long time. Teams like, again, Anguilla in the Bahamas that came in islands, it feels like if they can get their act together and start playing some games, you can rise up from the bottom of the women's rankings. A lot faster than you can on the men's side. Because again, between you, there are some teams that aren't playing a lot of games. And so they're not getting the points necessary to move up or down. And so if you start playing consistently, which this nation's league would do, then those African teams and Asian teams that aren't playing that many games, you will rise up over them very quickly. And going from 196 to 150 isn't a, you know, is not going to turn heads at FIFA's headquarters and go, oh, wow, this is a nice change for going, but for those teams, it means that they enter World Cup qualifying a little bit later, that they get to play some better teams if they were in a nation's league format, which again allows them to get better. You get to play on the field and get the results and get the promotional relegation that they desire. But I think it would be interesting to have a nation's league a full-fledged one on the women's side in ConquerCalf, but also this joint one would be fascinating because I think some of these teams would not match up well against each other. I would love to see a North Macedonia travel to Suriname in Leegi. That would be amazing. Cyprus, hosting, Belize, Latvia, going to Cuba. Like this would be fascinating. Cuba would probably not play in Cuba, but the point remains that you get to see some of these matchups that you had never seen before. And I think that would be so, so interesting to do. But I also think ConquerCalf, the reason why I think nation's league is so important is that these island countries, the Caribbean football union, which is the greatest sub-confederation on the planet, and I think the most powerful and the most dangerous, because the world does not want them to get their act together. The world does not want to see them get better because they have untapped talent and untapped resources. And if they are able to invest it correctly and put it in and not have outside interference and put it in the right places, those teams can be the teams that may not win World Cups, but they certainly will end your quest to win one. I think that is where they can ruffle some feathers and it really make a difference in how qualifying goes, not just in ConquerCalf, but how some of these tournaments might go around the world because you don't want to see Jamaica at the office. You don't want to see Costa Rica at home. You don't want to see El Salvador, I'm sorry, train to add Tobago at Hazley Crawford, if they get to the point where they are able to host games like that. Entirely fascinating to me, I think it would be a fantastic idea. It would take a lot of logistics for a joint UEFA ConquerCalf nation's league to come together. And I don't think it actually will. But this hypothetical was really fun. So I thank you for indulging me and allowing me to do this. This is what these type of games, these tournaments could be about getting ConquerCalf better for us on the men's side, especially getting better competition to allow them to develop and show that they can improve against the top 10-5 teams in the world. And on the women's side, once again, being able to test themselves every single time out, which is what they tend to do between World Cups. That would do it for episode 198 of the USA Soccer Cast. Thank you for listening. Remember, you can find us on Blue Sky, Twitter, and YouTube. 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