11/21/24
April 30, 2006
AskSpoFi: Football?: AskSpofi: I am a Canadian who is finally interested in professional soccer, but the combination of leagues, classes and series confound me. Where would be my best bets to learn a lot about pro football in Europe? Sorry in advance if this is not policy, we post a lot of links but never anything for people who don't know anything like me.
posted by dfleming to navel gazing at 10:50 AM - 5 comments
I'm in the same boat. I started following the Premiership closely in the last couple months, watching games on the Fox Soccer Channel. It's a crazy system to figure out. EPL teams play each other, play an open tournament with all other teams in England, and the top teams play a tournament with the top teams in Europe. This Wikipedia table helped me figure out how the leagues are organized.
posted by rcade at 11:05 AM on April 30, 2006
colour-coding = red is the best score on the week, orange is the second best score, yellow is the third best score, blue is the worst score. I'm sure somebody else can give a better explanation but as rcade has noted, there is a real melange of competition. DOMESTIC: The EPL teams play a domestic league, a 38 game season, home and home against the other 19 teams in the league. The bottom three teams each year will be dropped down one division, now called the Championship (ex-Division One until a couple of years ago, ex-Division Two before the Premiership existed and the top flight was called Division One. So, now, Division One is the third from the top flight, to confuse matters). To replace those three teams you'll take the top two finishers in the Championship and a third which is the winner of a playoff between the 3rd through 6th place finishers. (a similar promotion and relegation scheme happens between the lower strata). Titles are based upon regular season standings. Chelsea won the top domestic honour this year by finishing at the top of the Premiership table. DOMESTIC CUPS: These are cup competitions where they throw all the teams in the mix for the FA Cup (which includes all teams in the English FA) and the League Cup (which is currently called the Carling Cup and includes only the teams in the Premiership and the four next highest divisions). So, as far as I can gather (and not being somebody who knew much about English football until a few years ago) the Premiership title is the big domestic prize (for the top clubs at least), the FA Cup is the second greatest prize (for the top clubs that is, for all the other teams that have no chance to win the Premiership then this would be a crowning achievement for a season) and the League Cup is not something that the top teams get too excited about (often fielding second rate teams). There are two INTERNATIONAL CUPS: Champsions League and the UEFA Cup. The top four teams in the premiership gain a spot in the Champions League tournament (with, the top two starting further along in the tournament than the third and fourth place finishers who have some Champions League qualifications to overcome). The best teams in Europe compete in this competition. UEFA Cup is a second tier competition. The 5th and 6th place finishers from the EPL are in, as are similarly runner up types from other european leagues. or something. There are several other wrinkles about European Cup eligibility depending on who gets into the CL competition. I think.
posted by gspm at 01:11 PM on April 30, 2006
And now, cricket! You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game. Simple really.
posted by JJ at 05:28 AM on May 01, 2006
gspm, good explanation to which I'll add - in other European (and most non-US) countries there's only one domestic cup. - the US has playoffs in MLS (boo!) and only one cup (US Open winner gets the Lamar Hunt Trophy) - UEFA also has a short tournament called the Intertoto Cup in the close season (July-early August) which teams that miss out on UEFA Cup and Champions League can play in and the top three finishers gain entry to the UEFA Cup. - other regional confederations have equivalents to Champions League, USA is in CONCACAF which has the Champions Cup, and South America has Copa Libertadores (which invites a few top teams from Mexico and elsewhere, though I'm not sure the criteria).
posted by billsaysthis at 04:21 PM on May 01, 2006
Me, I'd just like to know what the colour-coding means in the Fantasy EPL posts.