CONCACAF has never really got the Gold Cup right. For years it was marred by the inclusion of guest teams (as much as Canadians enjoyed winning the 2000 tournament, it lost something in that it was Colombia in the final) and, everyone’s favourite, three team groups (coin flips FTW – literally in Canada’s case. Twice).
Of late they have addressed those issues by going all CONCACAF and by having four team groups. The problem with that is there is no way to get the field down to quarterfinals without going to a best third place finisher format, or expanding to 16 teams.
Watching Grenada lose 7-1 to Honduras and Cuba give up 16 goals while scoring just one suggests that 12 might be the upper limit to teams that can be competitive within CONCACAF.
Lowering the field to eight would create a more competitive tournament, but you need to find a way to give the smaller countries something to shoot for. Grenada is not likely to ever come close to a World Cup spot, but they can strive to make the Gold Cup.
How about this format:
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]The top 12 teams still make it. However, there is a preliminary round that sees six two game series. You could play those games in the host country, or, better yet, in as home and homes. That way smaller countries have a shot at hosting a big player and countries like Canada get battle tested in what they might see in WCQ.
The winners of the two game series advance to a single six team group that then plays a single round robin.
The one thing most fans from CONCACAF do like is the Hex. This would create a mini version of it to sustain fans until the real thing.
From a scheduling standpoint there are currently 24 games in the Gold Cup. This would see 15 in the mini hex, plus 12 in the first round. If you played a final at the end of the mini hex you would be looking at four more games than is currently the case. Semi-finals would bring it up to six more games.
Is it perfect? No, but no format is. However, anything that gets rid of near arbitrary best third place finisher spots while at the same time keeping the tournament open to the same amount of teams hasa to have some merit.
How (or would) you change the Gold Cup?