So as all of you are well aware, i like football, a lot(yes i'm using the european football cause i've lived over here long enough and no longer feel like a poser when using it). I just wanted to give you a few reasons why, if any of you are interested, now is the perfect time to follow the beautiful game as it nears the end of the season. A little side note: when i say football i mean soccer and when i mean soccer i just mean EPL or English soccer. There's so many arguments on the SPL and Serie A and all that but i focus on the EPL and that's where the bulk of my knowledge lies so just bare with me.
Anyway, I've been amazingly lucky this season to be over here. I'm getting more coverage than i ever have before. I haven't been to as many matches as i'd like to have been but work keeps me pretty busy so that i can't go every weekend or anything like that. However, it's like American football in that it takes up most of the sports coverage over here so on any day i get more news about the EPL than you do in a month in the States. I've been to 6 matches so far and hopefully can go to one more before i leave. The best part for me is that this season has been awesome. With that said, i encourage all of you to check soccernet and at least the tables at the end of the weekend to see how the league is shaking out. Some reasons to get into it now:
1. The title race is far from over. While only 2 weekends ago it seemed like Man United would be celebrating yet another title not only domestically but possibly in the Champions leage and FA cup. With the Carling Cup already in their trophy cabinet and the World Club Cup there as well, they're going for an unpresidented quad! That'd be 5 trophies in one season which would be nutty. However, they were beaten badly by Liverpool 2 weekends ago at Old Trafford which has revitalized the title race. That and the fact that Man U went to Fulham this weekend and got beat 2-0 against a team that hadn't beaten them since the 50s, well it seems like the unbeatable are certainly not that. So for the first time in a few years we're going to have a genuine title race with Man U., Liverpool only 1 point behind, and Chelsea 4 points behind Man U. Needless to say, the last few weeks of the prem should be interesting with 3 teams so close to each other at the top of the standings. On form alone i'd say that Liverpool could have a real chance of catching Man U. and ending their long drought without a domestic trophy. However, with 2 weeks off due to international fixtures the momentum that Stevie G. and the reds have built up is going to go away. It's not really fair but i think Man U. will come back resettled and refocused for the rest of the season. But who knows, i hope that Liverpool, even though i'm supposed to hate them as an Evertonian, comes back and takes the title.
2. Maybe better than the fight at the top of the table is the fight at the bottom. All season long there has been a nearly 10 team pile up to see who will get religated. At this point, no one can really say who's going down, except for West Brom, but the other 2 spots for religation are wide open between about 7 or 8 squads. There are only 7 points that separate 19th place from 12th place leaving everyone in between these spots as serious and realistic canidates for religation to the Coca-Cola Championship. This is going to leave a serious fight for all these teams to stay up and bring with it some great 6 pointers between religation threatened sides. Another great thing about this bottom of the table pile-up is that there are some big and well established premier league clubs in the mire. Bigger teams with large payrolls like Newcastle and Portsmouth are still in danger of going down making it that much more intersting. Unlike with other American sports, the bad teams in the league still have something to play for rather than trying to tank to get a better draft position. The end of the season race to see who goes down and who stays up should be a close one.
3. I know most of you don't really watch football and don't have a good outlet to watch the matches, but there are some good websites with highlights on them if you wanna catch up on the weekends action. The one i mostly use is http://www.footytube.com/. The best part about highlights is that it cuts out what most people consider boring parts of the game, just giving you all the best chances, yellow card offenses, and of course goals.
Anyway this season has been extremely satisfying for me and i feel really lucky to have been over here for most of it and to actually be immersed in it rather than scraping the internet for information and trying to find matches to watch at 8 in the morning. If you wanna get into football, now is the perfect time.
Mar 23, 2009
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What is this relegation comparable to? Is this like an NBA team being demoted to the NBDL? And are teams from the lower level bumped up into the better league? And who decides and enforces this?
ReplyDeleteIt is so hard for me to stay with a sport that nobody around me excites me about. Like, there's this one kid that I know that is all about Mariners baseball... so I'm sort of excited for the season to start because I know all the players just from him talking all the time. Now, I still stand by my statement that baseball is the most boring, least athletic, and least team oriented team game out of the big ones, but I actually check the stats to see how players do.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping that when we live together, that will rub off onto me because I actually like watching soccer (not cool enough to call it "football" yet) and I do love my team England. I have been watching the UEFA cup championship games on ESPN when they are on, but other than that... nothing. I don't even know how my team is doing. Well, not until this post. They better get out of the gutter in time for next season! I might ask for a Owen jersey for my birthday, because that would be super sweet to wear around. Then I can wear it on gamedays and be a super superstitious fan.
Yah so i guess i should have explained relegation a little bit. So basically there's a bunch of football leagues all in different tiers here in this country. The best is the prem with 20 teams, then the Coca Cola Championship which has 24 teams, and then league 1, 2, and finally on down to English conference and local teams. Each league has a slightly different system but the basis is that the worst 3 teams in every league get relegated down to the next lower league. So teams from the prem that finish in the bottom 3 move down to the Championship for the next season. This takes a lot of money away from the club and a lot of times the good players on those teams don't want to spend a year of their careers in the lower league so they ask to be sold. With this going on there are also 3 teams that get "promoted" from each lower league, so 3 teams from the Championship come up into the prem for next season. Usually these teams are the worst and get relegated right away and go back down, but usually there's one of the promoted 3 that are able to stay up and try to solidify themselves as a prem team. It's great cause it makes all 20 teams play hard until the last day of the season really. Who enforces this? The FA, the government run sports association, basically like the ministry of sport.
ReplyDeleteI love the relegation/promotion system. I really wish America utilized it becasue it just makes the season so much more interesting. You actually get to care about the lower half of the league rather than just glossing over those games.
ReplyDeleteIt sucks that the season you are in Europe Mark, is the season that I spend zero time paying attention to football. Stupid MCAT. I barely have enough time to manage my fantasy sports teams.
I do try and hitup footytube occasionally though.