It’s being held in the U.S.
For starters, the tournament will be held several thousand kilometers closer to Canada than ever before! UNCAF (the Unión Centroamericana de Fútbol, a sort of a regional sub-organization within Concacaf) announced last year that the tournament would be played in the U.S. "What!" you might shout. A Central American tournament in North America? That’s just crazy. But organizers felt moving the tournament within reach of the millions of Latin American immigrants living in the U.S. -- who presumably have more disposable cash to spend on soccer than their compatriots back home -- would boost both fan interest and revenue. The logic holds up, at least on the balance sheet. The seven participating nations - Belize, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras and El Salvador - will play matches in Dallas, Los Angeles, Houston and Washington, D.C.
MLSers in action
Several MLS players are likely to feature at some point in the tournament, including Vancouver Whitecaps Honduran defender Johnny Leveron. Other recognizable names include Roy Miller, Rodney Wallace, Marco Papa, Jaime Penedo, Blas Perez and Gabriel Torres. The cat-and-mouse game of clubs agreeing to release players is messy, given the tournament runs from Sept. 3 to Sept. 13 and the official Fifa match window goes Sept. 1-9. This means clubs are theoretically obligated to provide their players for some, but not all, of the tournament. Some of these MLS players will likely shuttle in and out of their national squads as the event progresses.
Direct ticket to Copa America
The winner of this bad boy gets one direct ticket to the 2016 U.S. special edition Copa America. That in of itself is reason to rouse interest in Canada men's national team supporters. The favourites are Costa Rica and Honduras. (It’s a young tournament, started in 1991. Costa Rica has seven titles, Honduras three and Guatemala and Panama one each.) So if say, Costa Rica does win, Canada won’t have to qualify ahead of Los Ticos the 2015 Gold Cup in order to secure its own spot at the Copa America. Conversely, it means Canada would have to get past its nemesis Honduras by whatever method the organizers use to determine the final rankings. Weighing the strength of each squad (in terms of things like whose players are playing at the highest levels in Europe) and factoring in the relative importance each nation would place on being in a Copa America, this author would rather see Canada forced against Honduras with a spot on the line. I know, yay!
Heavyweights debut new managers, inexperienced sides
The tournament’s two historical big boys are both managed by different men than the ones who took them to this summer’s World Cup. In Costa Rica’s case it’s more of an interim deal for Paulo Wanchope after the mess that unfolded between Jorge Luis Pinto and the country’s football association in the weeks following Los Ticos epic achievements in Brazil. Honduras is a different situation, their new manager - the earring-wearing Hernan Medford - takes the job after successful club stints across the region. For this tournament, both sides mostly opted for younger, domestic-based players. The Ticos signed on eight players from its Brazil squad, most of whom sat on the bench during the World Cup. Honduras brings just four foreign-based players and only four members of its World Cup squad, with none playing a major role in Brazil. The edge goes to Costa Rica, as its squad will feature Arsenal's Joel Campbell, along with World Cup heroes Óscar Duarte and Celso Borges.
Panama and El Salvador re-arm
Both Panama and El Salvador are managed by relatively new appointments. The latter by Spaniard Albert Roca, who is tasked with reinvigorating the country’s football following a matching fixing scandal involving several high-profile players. There aren’t likely to be a ton of recognizable names (and by ton, I mean ‘any’) on the squad, beyond a handful of guys who play in the NASL. (New York Cosmos midfielder Andrés Flores... anyone?) Roca’s preparations for this tournament have been hindered by scheduling clashes with the Concacaf Champions League. Panama, for its part, will mix untested youngsters with national team stalwarts like Blas Perez. The Canaleros are also newly managed by the somewhat volatile Colombian “Bolillo” Gómez. Earlier this month he brought in several players from Panama's recently successful U20 side to the senior team. After getting whipped by Peru in a friendly he told local press that the process of introducing a new playing style "is going to be painful, and the criticism is going to rain down."
Well, if there's anything Canadian supporters can identify with its pain and criticism. Canada certainly hopes to be involved in a four-team playoff at next summer's Gold Cup to determine who goes to the 2016 Copa America. At least two (if not three) of the sides playing in the Copa Centroamericana would probably join them (Assuming Jamaica wins the upcoming Caribbean Cup and gets its direct Copa America ticket, other possible playoff participants are Haiti, Trinidad or Cuba). However this tournament shakes out, it should offer Canada supporters a glimpse at what to expect when the games finally start to mean something again next summer.