By winning last night Canada finishes top of the group of death. Awesome right? Not really.

We play 2nd place in Group B now. That is most likely Honduras. If we lost to Costa Rica, most likely we would have finished in 2nd place in Group A. Group A's second place team now plays 2nd place in Group C. Currently that is Mexico, but could very well be Guadeloupe.

Sure Guadeloupe beat us last time, I'm sure we all know that was a fluke. I don't really see how we win the group and then get a tougher opponent than the team that finished behind us in our group.

Its too risky to lose on purpose.

If we had lost, combined with an El Salvador win, we would have ended up in 3rd with a game vs. the USA or Mexico.

Better to take your chances with Honduras in that scenario.

I agree... (with narduch)
unless it's the difference between playing someone like Brasil... or let's just pick on someone like Bulgaria ;)

but in the Gold Cup... nah... just go for it
if Mexico finish 3rd in their group though (it's highly imporbable, but mathematically possible)... oh man! :lol:

It's never good karma to throw a game to try and get a better match-up.

S.

Yes, exactly. Do that and you deserve to lose to the team you wanted to play!

Me wants play Honduras.

It was an upset, but given Guadeloupe's march to the semi-finals last time and their early success so far this year, I think we can chuck out the "fluke" tag. They have players playing at good clubs throughout Europe and have scored one of the goals of the tourney. I wouldn't be surprised to see them finish ahead of Mexico.

Agreed, I'd be more scared of Guadaloupe than Honduras in this tournament at the moment.

Regardless, you've got to beat somebody to advance. Beating strong opponents builds confidence that can carry through to later rounds. The only time we've ever won something we beat the (then) strongest team in our region in the quarterfinals and rode that momentum through two more tough opponents.

I don't think that the notion that, for GC tournament success we would have been better off losing, is that far fetched. It happens all the time in international soccer tournaments and though no one will ever saying it, it pretty obvious that teams do play for position and opponent when given a opportunity to do so. If you have watched a lot of World cups, you will see all kinds of evidence and suspicions of this ( ie.: teams playing their final group matches with an eye on the next opponent and placement in the side of the knockout bracket)

That said, given the context of this tournament and what it means for Canada, playing to win was the right thing to do. Right now, confidence building is more important for Canada than actually winning the Gold Cup. There is nothing at stake from this event; no Confederations cup, no Copa America, and most of the other sides have bigger fish to fry in trying to qualify for the WC. So earning a result against Cost Rica ( who lead the hex and are playing like they are quite disinterested) was far more important than the placement in the knockout stage.

The real fault lies with Concacaf and the tournament format. there was just simply no way that Canada could have ended up getting paired with a third place team. Which of course is not the case with the US and Mexico and that is major flaw and very unfair to Canada's group. I simply don't like these formats that call for a best third place finisher and that why a proper tournament should consist of only 8, 16 or 32 teams and why you should have only four or eight groups.

This is the point I was trying to make. Obviously I would never want to lose a game, no matter how strategically important it seems.

The fact that the winner of the group of death has to face a second place team, while the winner of Group B or C (two groups much much easier than group A) get to face off with 3rd place teams is bullshit.

Oh well it's CONCACAF im kinda used to it.

Agreed 100%. I have always hated the best third place ( ie.: Wild card bull shit) in a tournament format. That only works in the NFL and that's because teams play a fair amount of games outside their division (group).

But for FIFA tournaments it makes no logical sence

True, and I think in a sporting sense it's hard to argue for third place teams advancing, but it feels like there used to be a lot more exciting and important third group stage games in the World Cup when it was at 24 teams. With 4 from 6 third place teams advancing there were all sorts of crazy permutations of results and the whole tournament felt much more integrated because you had to look across all the groups to figure out who'd be advancing. Doesn't really work in the 12 team format though because even though the proportions are the same in absolute terms the fact that only one third place team doesn't advance feels different.

It did suck when third place teams went deep in the tournament but we all know the real World Cup only starts in the knockout rounds anyways! Now at 32 teams it seems half the groups are decided before the third round of games even start since there's a bigger difference in quality between top and bottom teams.

Well 8 teams would be too few for this tourney, but 16 would be too many - there aren't enough quality teams. Even at 12 there's a couple of teams that clearly don't belong (Nicaragua, Grenada) albeit there are two teams missing that would have been more respectable (Guatemala and T&T). So I think 12 is the right amount. The 3rd place business doesn't bother me - they could fix the bias if they chose to by saying the two first place teams with the most points, best goals against etc. play against the two 3rd place teams instead of simply skewing things in favour of the US and Mexico all the time.

The answer is 10 teams -- two groups of 5 with the top two going through to the semis.

But it's far more likely that CONCACAF will just bump it up to 16 soon.