July 2 – The Concacaf Gold Cup kicks off tonight in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with the first of three triple header preliminary knockout rounds that will decide the final three qualifiers for group stages that start at the end of next week, July 10.
When Concacaf was forced by the pandemic to come up with a new qualification format for its Gold Cup group stages, the centralisation of a 12-team knock-out phase just a few days before the main event started looked like a stop gap solution to get the numbers done.
In reality what the quick fix solution has provided is the opportunity for 12 extra teams to experience what it is like to be part of the Gold Cup experience. It is an opportunity and experience that all the teams gathered at the Inter Miami’s DRV PNK Stadium have embraced.
“I would like to say that the decision to run the prelims just before the Gold Cup was a deliberate stroke of genius. That wouldn’t really be the truth, we needed to fix a problem with the calendar and this was the best fix we had available. But it has become much more than a fix,” said Concacaf president Victor Montagliani.
“By bringing these 12 teams into the Gold Cup environment and so close to the group stages we effectively expanded our competition with a very competitive and meaningful format. We have some big teams still to qualify, and we have some smaller nations that have never had this kind of showcase before. They have really embraced the opportunity and done everything they can to prepare for it. It really shows the development we have made as an organisation, with this competition and within our nations.”
The biannual Gold Cup is Concacaf’s blue riband competition and has grown over the last two editions in stature as one of the world’s major world football tournaments.
The preliminaries rounds are a value addition that could stay as part of the competition structure going forward, says Montagliani.
The group stages proper for 2021 have been focussed around metropolitan hubs, with Texas hosting a bulk of the competition across venues in Dallas and Houston. It is a schedule that for 12 consecutive days will see double headers played in stadia that can be filled to capacity.
Tickets or the final in Las Vegas on August 1 sold out in just 90 minutes.
While this is very much a Concacaf event, it has the added spice of the AFC champions Qatar guesting. It will be something of a symbolic World Cup 2022 meets World Cup 2026. It will also be an intriguing measure of how close the two federation’s top teams are in terms of performance.
For Montagliani, it is not so much about who is the overall winner. “Who win and who loses, let the chips fall. What I want is for every player who comes to this tournament to have a fantastic experience. I want fans to have the exact same experience. These are the things that are important for me – that the football is good, the environment is good, the logisitics are good. Then we have a top class experience.”
With the region battling its way out of the pandemic, Gold Cup 2021 promises to be a passionate celebration of football. But it actually feels a bit more significant than just that.
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