After reading the book Soccer Against The Enemy I realized that soccer is no longer the game that is was 20 years ago. It use to be that the game was based off of domestic leagues in each country and each town would take great pride in their team no matter what division they were in. Often times, teams in the same town were divided along religious lines like in Glasgow where Celtic represents the republican catholics and the the Rangers are supported by the working class protestants or by nation-pride in Barcelona where Barcelona represents the Catalans and Espanol represents the non-catalans. Now a days, the game is so globalized that fans no longer route for their hometown team but for any team they know of growing up. Manchester United is one of the most popular brands in the world and they aren’t even the best team in their own city. To adjust to this there needs to be away for the best players in the world to compete against each other at all times. The World Cup allows this every 4 years and attempts by the Champion’s League, EuroLeague, Copa Libertadores, and the FIFA Club World Cup have attempted to do this on a yearly basis but their needs to be a change of strategy. These tournaments take the best teams from their respective region (in FIFA’s case the world) to compete in the tournament but that doesn’t produce the most desirable soccer on the planet.
Under the old system some of the world’s greatest players would not be able to compete in the elite tournaments because there team wasn’t good enough, the solution, make each team have some of the best players in the world. You need to be careful with this because you cannot destroy each country’s domestic league.Another benefit of a global elite league is that players will not be forced to leave their native country to play elite soccer so players will not be as effected by home sickness. 96 teams may seem like a lot for one league but in reality this will be 4 leagues that combine for a season ending playoff with a league representing each North America, South America + Caribbean, West Europe, and East Europe.
League Setup
North American Cities
- New York (2 teams)
- Philadelphia
- Los Angeles (2 teams)
- Denver
- Seattle
- Toronto
- Montreal
- Washington DC
- Portland, Oregon
- Boston
- Vancouver
- Dallas
- Mexico City (2 teams)
- Guadalajara
- Monterrey
- Tijuana
- Puebla
- San Francisco
- Houston
- Chicago
- Columbus
South American and Caribbean Cities
- Santo Domingo(Dominican Republic)
- San Juan(Puerto Rico)
- Havana(Cuba)
- Port-au-Prince(Haiti)
- Kingston(Jamaica)
- East-West Corridor, Trinidad and Tobago
- Greater Sao Paulo area, Brazil (2 teams)
- Bogota, Colombia
- Lima, Peru
- Greater Rio de Jaeiro area(2 teams), Brazil
- Porto Alegre, Brazil
- Montevideo, Uruguay
- Greater Buenos Aires area, Argentina(2 teams)
- Caracas, Venezuela
- Santiago, Chile
- San Cristobal, Venezuela
- Cordoba, Argentina
- Quito, Ecuador
- Belo Horizonte, Brazil
- La Plata, Argentina
- Asuncion, Paraguay
Western Europe
- London (2 teams)
- Manchester
- Madrid
- Barcelona
- Paris
- Milan
- Liverpool
- Amsterdam
- Berlin
- Munich
- The Hague
- Hamburg
- Athens
- Rome
- Naples
- Zurich
- Valencia
- Vienna
- Lisbon
- Dublin
- Glasgow
- Marseille
- Turin
Eastern Europe
- Bucharest
- Moscow (2 teams)
- Istanbul (2 teams)
- St. Petersburg(2 teams)
- Kiev
- Baku, Azerbaijan
- Minsk, Belarus
- Warsaw
- Budapest
- Belgrade
- Cairo
- Katowice
- Stockholm
- Prague(2 teams)
- Helinski
- Saratov
- Odessa
- Zagreb
- Alexandria
- Casablanca
Each team would play every member of their own league both home and away with 3 points for a win and 1 win for a draw. The top 4 teams from each table would qualify for the league playoffs which would be similar to the EuroCup. 4 pots would be created for drawing of groups for the tournament with each cup consisting of teams that finished the same place in their league so that all #1 seeds could advance to the finals. Each group would play a league with home and away matches similar to the regular season with only the number 1 team advancing to the semi-finals. The semi-finals would be a little Americanized with the team having the better regular season record getting home field advantage in a best of three game series. The final would be like the super bowl with the game being played at a pre-determined location.
In a later post we will establish the rules for players on each team as well as how each team will work with teams in their respective country’s domestic league.
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