Welcome, everyone to another episode of Soccer 101, the show in which we attempt to scratch the soccer itches you never knew you had.

My name is Taylor Rockwell, and this week we're looking at the premier international competition in all the world of Conccaf until recently, the Gold Cup. What is this tournament? How has it evolved over time? Is it still as relevant today as it was years ago? What does the future hold and much, much more? Here with me to talk about

that tournament is a man who, like most of the teams in the Confederation, has never won the Gold Cup. It's Graham Rothfin. Hi, Graham. Hello, Taylor Rockwell. Yes, that is true. I have never won the Gold Cup, now known as the Chaos Cup. I might have just coined that, but I'm going with it. I have never won the Chaos Cup

but the way Scotland are going, don't rule us out

that might be one that we end up winning. Hey, you never know. Supposedly expanding in the lead up to the 2026 World Cup, maybe Scotland will get an invite, Graham. Maybe you all will be the Cockat Calf champions one day. You never know. So the invited nations is a really

interesting part of Gook Cup. We'll probably cover this in the episode, but there doesn't seem to be

a common thread between some of the nations that have been invited. I, in my naivety, thought

that it was often, or most commonly like south American countries to create

kind of like an America's Cup sort of thing. But no, there's like South Korea in there in the past

and Qatar obviously in this iteration and in 2021 as well. So it doesn't seem like there's any

rhyme or reason. I think the Qatar one is probably a little bit self-evident, I'm guessing, and the fact that I believe Qatar Airways is the sponsor, maybe has something to do with that, but we will talk about guest nations here in a little bit. First, we should maybe get into the details of what the Gold Cup is itself. What's the purpose of the Gold Cup? Graham,

you want to take a shot at those two questions? Indeed, yeah. So the Gold Cup is the main

regional international competition in Concorda Calf. So in soccer, you have confedrations,

which are there to govern the sport across the different continents. You have six confederation in world football.

You have the AFC, you have CAF, you have Com the Ball, you have the OFC, you have UEFA, and you have

Concaf. And each of those confedrations have a regional international competition. So the ones

listeners will likely be most familiar with, besides the Gold Cup, of course, is the Euros and the Copa America. And the Gold Cup is Concaf's equivalent of that, with Concaf, obviously being the Confederation for North America, Central America and the Caribbean. And the goal cup is held every two years with the 2020 tournament kicking off this weekend with the US hosting Jamaica in the opening game.

We can talk a bit more about what the purpose of the goal cup is in the modern age in 2023, when you also have the Conquer Calf Nations League now as a thing.

But conventionally, the purpose is to

crown a regional champion. So the Gold Cup is there to find the best team in Concordcaf, just as

the Euros are there to find the best team in UEFA. That's the idea anyway, whether it actually

does that in the modern age is another matter. It is indeed. Yes, so we have the Gold Cup starting in 91.

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