MLS/Gold Cup - Week 19 Notes

1) All time CONCACAF Gold Cup stats have been updated with the completion of the tournament. I've included all time W-L-D records for each team, the top 25 goalscorers, and more. Would you believe that Guadeloupe already has more Gold Cup wins than Guatemala, and as many as Panama and Trinidad? 2) It's not too early to be thinking about the seeding for the 2014 CONCACAF World Cup qualifying...at least it shouldn't be if you read this blog. 25% of the games played data that counts towards the May 2011 FIFA ranking is complete, and Edgar at Football Rankings has posted what the current seedings would be. Guatemala could be the next cycle's El Salvador. No hex, no Gold Cup, and maybe as a result a really hard matchup just to get into the semifinals. 3) It's been a crazy week for the American soccer state attendance records. Three records were set in the last three days: Maryland, Kansas, and New Jersey. That's a preseason friendly between two Euro clubs, an MLS regular season match, and the Gold Cup final respectively. 4) Don Garber's (not mentioned anywhere except for one sentence in an MLSnet article) big announcment is tomorrow in SLC: "Following the press conference, Commissioner Don Garber will make a special announcement." Speculation is fun, though. As somebody mentioned, it's unlikely to be anything competition related since that's usually at the end of the year (single table could be a long shot, though). It's also unlikely to be anything team specific since it's being made at the all star game. If there is to be any actual big news, my guess is that he'll say the designated player rule is being renewed. That's competition-related, but you can't exactly wait until the offseason to decide on it, plus it's already a foregone conclusion since players have multiple year contracts. Such an announcement would be obvious, yet still newsworthy, which makes it perfect for this sort of thing. The really big news never seems to stay secret (witness the expansion race earlier this year). 5) You probably heard this over the weekend. The Columbus Crew have now gone 19 straight home regular season matches without a defeat; that's a new league record (my list of record home/away streaks is due for an update). However, they're still two games away from the all competitions record of 23 in a row. That's held by the 2000-01 Chicago Fire. The Crew are currently at 21 games including the two from the playoffs last year. They'll likely need some results in the Champions League to break that one as well.