Canadian Reacts to Understanding European Soccer in Four Simple Steps: A Guide For Americans
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2024
- Here is my reaction to Understanding European Soccer in Four Simple Steps: A Guide For Americans
Original Video: • Understanding European... - บันเทิง
Three teams up and three down (between Div 1 & Div 2, Div 2 & Div 3, Div 3 & Div 4, etc, etc. is pretty standard in all countries. In England there ared TWO Cup competitions, one, as described in the video for a huge number of clubs all over the country, the other just for clubs in the top four Leagues (called the League or Carabao Cup). You need a big squad to survive the number of games played in 9 months!. North Americans don't seem to understand the difference between CLUB football and NATIONAL TEAM football. The World Cup (and current European Cup) are for teams representing COUNTRIES, not CLUBS. You will find many club teammates playing against one another in these tournaments.
This is club competition. Teams that play league football. World Cup and Championships (The European Championships are going on....now. A month of 2 or 3 games a day. It's in the second round now. Today is Switzerland vs Italy and Germany vs Denmark. England play Slovakia tomorrow) are national teams representing the whole country. National teams are made up from the best players in the country, no matter what league team they usually play for, domestic or foreign. Nationality is the deciding factor. Harry Kane plays for a Bayern Munich in club football, but England at national level.
relegation exists in pretty much every sport that isnt in the US, the US elites and owners are against it since the NFL and all the big US and Canadian leagues have a franchise model where the teams are owned by the league and the league is a monopoly. This isn't the case in the rest of the world
Another difference is we do not have a draft, players here will sign at an academy, which is essentially a youth team ran by the bigger clubs. The whole idea of playing sports for a high school team and then getting a college scholarship and then getting drafted is an American invention, most likely done to increase the brand recognition of colleges and make people want to go to them more. The concept of being a rookie doesn't exist, since most players will play at a professional level at as young as 16, maybe in a weaker league before then getting bought by a team from Europe or England. trades dont really happen that much, players are just bought and sold.
A typical timeline of a football fan will start in
July: with the preseason friendly games, kind of like US exhibition games, this normally means big teams playing in the States or more medium sized teams playing against random opponents they have arranged to play.
August: Not long after Champions League and Europa League qualification begins, half of the teams in these competitions have already qualified based on their result the previous season that ended in May, but the final spots are made up of teams that will play each other for the last spots, this is normally a 128ish team knockout, with teams from places like Iceland and Luxembourg in the early rounds with clubs from bigger nations joining in the last few rounds. Brackets don't really exist as its common in football for draws to happen, not draws as in 0-0 2-2, but where names are pulled out of a ball like the lottery to decide the fixtures.
After the Qualification begins the leagues often start, not all leagues start at the same time but its normally at some point in August. These will normally be played on weekend, occasionally Mondays/Fridays, and the odd midweek game on Wednesday. Some countries play a super cup to start the season, Superpokal in Germany, Supercopa del Rey in Spain, this is where the League winner plays the Cup winner, this game you'd think from an American perspective would be the biggest game, but most people don't value it highly.
A few weeks into the season Cup games which often happen midweek start, these are separate from the league tables and will see teams play teams from other divisions, these are domestic, ie you only play teams from your own country. Cup competitions often predate the league since back in the day leagues where harder to arrange as they required season long commitment from teams rather than playing a few games at a time like a cup. Cup games often lack momentum as they are played weeks apart but they are an important traditional part of football. The league is only valued more as it is the fairest competition, it doesn't have upsets, truly the best team wins, but the cup allows for more underdog stories.
September: Champions League/Europa League group stage begins, this will be 6 games, where you play each team twice, similar to how the Bears have to play the Packers, Lions and Vikings twice a season, the groups are random though as different teams, from different countries enter each year. this last from September to about December.
October to New Years: The season runs as normal, some countries like England and Scotland have two Cups, one called the Leagues cup, normally its ____ Cup after a sponsor, like Carling Cup, Carabao Cup, Viaplay Cup and the more traditional Cup ie the FA Cup or the Scottish Cup. The traditional one features every team in the country where as the league Cup is only the ''league'' teams, which is a term that describes the top 4 leagues in the country ie the leagues that are fully pro and not semi pro/amateur. This is minor but its important to know. Most places dont do this.
January: at this point the season is underway, the Champions League and Europa league group stage will be done and top two teams from the groups of 4 will progress to the knockouts and the 3rd place team in the case of the CL will play an extra round against the 2nd placed EL teams, both tournaments then having 16 teams that will drop to two for the final. at certain weeks during the last 5 months there will have been breaks for national teams to play in friendly matches or against each other to qualify for the World Cup or the Euros(the Euros is the WC but just for European teams, each continent has one). We might also be down to the last 16 or 8 teams in the Cup. The league will be halfway done, we often look at the team who is top of the league at Christmas as the team who will win the league, or if they fall off and choke we say, 'how could you do that you were top at Christmas'.
May: Most seasons often end about May, just like how the leagues start at different times they will often end at different times, if the top teams is so dominant that they have more points than the second place teams and the second place cant mathematically catch up they are crowned champion before the League ends. The Cup finals in most countries happen after the last matches of the league have been played, and that ends the domestic seasons in most countries. Teams that finished in the top 4 places in England, Spain, Germany and Italy are now in the Champions league for the next season. Other countries get less spots which is unfair and maybe the only big downside to Football in Europe.
The Champions League final will now be played in late May early June. This is at a neutral venue that will be selected ahead of time, like the Superbowl, except tickets aren't a rip off so that only the elites can go. There are no halftime shows and only people who like Football will watch it, you won't have watch parties where people make stupid bets and only watch for the singer, not acceptable behavior. in Europe. After the Champions League the season is over and the preseason games begin a month later.
Other things: Transfer of players can only happen during transfer windows, if a player has a contract at a team for say three years and he has only been there a year then he can only move to another team for a fee during the window, these windows normally start at the end of the season and will close a few weeks into the new season, and there is a second window at Christmas to late January. You can sign players outside these time periods but they can only play once the next window starts.
These rules are consistent because European football has an Organisation that maintains every thing called UEFA, often labelled UEFA MAFIA by many ultras. They control the Champions League, they are very corrupt but are necessary evil to maintain order. 2 years ago twelve teams from England Spain and Italy tried to break away from UEFA and found their own league and this failed hard because the fans saw that this was only for greed and they protested, and they had to step away from their multi billion dollar plans.
Last thing is that every two years Either the Euros happen, or the World Cup happens, this is the biggest and most important event in the whole sport, so pretty much 2/4 years there is no off season, meanwhile the off season of college football lasts 8 months, sheesh.
South American seasons start in January due to their seasons being inverted because they are in the Southern Hemisphere, some countries like Japan and the US also do this for their leagues. In Brazil in particular the season starts with state leagues since Brazil is so big it has individual states that are comparable to countries so they play a league competition which last 3 months before the real league starts in about March. Non Brazilian Leagues in the Americas in places like Argentina and Mexico often split the league into two halves with a champion awarded in the middle and at the end so there are two national champions a year plus the cup, I have no clue why this is and this will be foreign to even die hard European football fans but considering Argentina's influence on the world stage with Messi, Maradona, teams Boca Jrs and River Plate and their World Cups I'd thought I'd mention it.
I don't know if anyone read this but thanks if you did.
the reason you can have the cup and other competitions being played by teams at various times independent of the main League is that for instance the Premier League in England does not own Manchester United, they don't own the Cup either. You couldn't have the Habs play against the Laval Rocket or the Toronto Argonauts play the Dallas Cowboys in a competitive, non exhibition game because all teams are owned by separate leagues, where as if the leagues didn't own the teams you could have a separate body come along and create a new tournament for NFL, CFL, and all other gridiron leagues or Hockey, even NCAA or U Sports college teams, to play in.
The on deck circle video is better
Search soccer explained for americans
This video talks about club football
The World Cup is a national tournament (like the dream team or the Canadian national hockey team)
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