Historically, this point in time in the international cycle is interminable, meaningless, and grueling. In years past the gap between the end of a Gold Cup and the beginning of the World Cup qualifiers always seemed like an insurmountable gulf. 

This year, though, things are different. Emulating their European brothers UEFA, Concacaf has created the Nations League — which will be streamed right here on FloFC in English — in order to create more competition and more meaningful games. Similarly to UEFA, Concacaf saw the same gap that many fans saw, and friendlies didn’t provide enough competition. Even though the tournament doesn’t feature a huge number of games, it does offer a competitive environment and a trophy.

To rev up for the inaugural Nations League — which kicks off Sept. 5 — we’re going to take a deep dive into Concacaf history. This series on Concacaf legends is going to put together a starting 11 for the federation and profile each player.

Two things this series is not: 1) The definitive best 11 players; 2) The best player at each position. 

Besides the fact that those are both debatable subjects, the goal of this venture is to identify top players at their position while also attempting, to the best of our ability, to include as many countries as possible. Of course, there’s a spoiler that isn’t going to be hard to figure out: Mexico and the U.S. feature heavily in this list of 11 players, but we managed to include a few players from other countries, too. 

Each week leading up to the kickoff of the Nations League, we’ll profile one to two players, taking a look at their careers, their skills, and their contributions to the world of soccer. 

At the same time, we’ll be looking at some up-and-coming Concacaf players as well.

Mostly we’re just looking forward to the games. 

For a complete breakdown of how the Nations League works, watch this video from Concacaf. But here’s the short version: Every single Concacaf member association will play in the tournament. Teams are divided up into three leagues (A, B, and C), each of which is broken up into multiple groups. Winners of the group are promoted to the league above, and losers of the group are relegated to the league below. The winners of the four groups in League A face off in the semifinals and then finals of the tournament.

The U.S., for example, will play home and away with the two other members of their group — Cuba and Canada — for a total of four games this fall. Assuming they top the group, they will make the semifinal and possibly the final in March of 2020.

For fans, the hope is that the Concacaf version of the Nations League will provide what the European Nations League provided: experimentation and surprise. There were all sorts of shock defeats, rising stars, and underdog stories in Europe, and Concacaf will certainly see the same stories play out on this side of the pond. Even in the smaller Gold Cup, the tiny island nation of Curaçao provided the Cinderella every competition needs. Starting on Sept. 5, we’ll see what this new competition can bring us.

For now, we wait — and read. 

The Concacaf Legends series begins on Monday.