Taking a knee is losing `strength'

Chelsea's Alonso adopts his own gesture to indicate support for anti-racism efforts

Chelsea defender Marcos Alonso has stopped taking the knee before matches this season because the anti-racism gesture is “losing a bit of strength”, the 30-year-old said.

Players and staff have been taking a knee prior to kickoff since the league returned to action in June last year to show their support in the fight against racism.

Alonso said he has decided to stand while other players kneel and will instead point to the “No Room For Racism” badge on the sleeve of his kit to highlight the issue.

“I prefer to do it this way and, of course, to say very clearly that I am against racism and I respect everybody,” Alonso said.

“I think it's losing a bit of strength the other way, so I just prefer to do it this way.”

Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel said he trusted Alonso to be “1,000 per cent absolutely committed against racism” and agreed that the gesture of taking the knee had become routine and lacked the effect it first had.

“Isn't it always like this? Once you do a gesture, then everybody is doing it. Once you do it so often it becomes normal and maybe it lowers the effect of it,” Tuchel told reporters on Tuesday.

“Maybe it takes sometimes an action against the routine to wake up again and have another good discussion, which can go only in one direction, because all of us have the same point — to stand up against (racism).”

Chelsea are joint top of the standings after five matches. They host Aston Villa in Wednesday's League Cup match.

Leagues Cup to expand in 2023

Major League Soccer and Mexico's Liga MX are expanding the still-nascent Leagues Cup competition to include all clubs from both leagues beginning in 2023.

Introduced in 2019, the Leagues Cup featured just four teams from each league before Tuesday's announcement. MLS and Liga MX will pause their respective seasons for one month to accommodate the competition annually.

The tournament is now officially sanctioned by CONCACAF, soccer's governing body in North and Central America, and the top three finishers at the Leagues Cup will automatically qualify for the continental CONCACAF

Champions League.

“The new Leagues Cup with every club in MLS and Liga MX competing in an intense, month-long, tournament will establish new standards for what is possible between our two leagues, and further

showcase our players and clubs to a global audience,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said in a statement.

“Since its launch three and a half years ago, our partnership with Liga MX has grown quickly and the competition

has brought out the best in both of us.

“On the path to the FIFA World Cup in 2026 hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico, this is the perfect moment to produce a tournament that will elevate the profile of

CONCACAF and showcase the incredible passion our region has for soccer played at the highest level.”

Cavalry `ready to go' against Pacific FC

There's something to be said about having the stinker of your season at just the right time.

Two weeks ago, Calgary Cavalry FC crapped out in Victoria, losing to host Pacific FC in ugly fashion.

It wasn't so much the 3-1 score line that ticked the Cavs off as it was the effort they put forward in that Canadian Premier League match.

“The performance is what hurts,” said Cavalry star Sergio Camargo after a game that decided first place in the CPL standings.

Since then, they've held on to that feeling — “reflection time” Camargo called it — anxious to get another shot at first-place Pacific.

That comes Wednesday night in the most important tilt of the campaign. It's a loser-go-home Canadian Championship quarter-final contest at ATCO Field (OneSoccer.ca).

“We'll take what we learned from them,” said Cavs goalkeeper Marco Carducci. “We're ready to go.”

The best part is that Carducci, Camargo and Co. are at home for this elimination game. They've never lost a match against Pacific on home turf.

To boot, home is something the Cavs have ached for in recent memory, having been on the road for four straight games.

This “Battle of the North” quarter-final should be as entertaining as it gets on the pitch this season.

“We've played Pacific already how many times, and every time it's a battle,” Carducci said.

“What it's developed ... is a West Coast rivalry,” said Cavalry general manager/head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr.

He'll get no argument from the other side.

“It's a brewing rivalry in a very positive way for the league; both teams are at top of the table,” said Pacific head coach Pa-Modou Kah.