European Leagues Thread 2012/2013

[stealthpapes]

30 teams, they play each other once and then get a bonus game against their rivals. Relegation is based on a four year average.

Lovely.

[From Despair To Where?]

A system designed purely to protect the big clubs from relegation, they have to be really shit for 3 years to get relegated, although River Plate managed it in 2012.

[Winston Smith]

30 teams, they play each other once and then get a bonus game against their rivals. Relegation is based on a four year average.

Lovely.

I wrote something on a thread recently about the Argie league and how they have changed that format to an even more complicated one recently, but I can't find where I wrote it, so I am wondering if it was not that league, or this thread, or this website.

[From Despair To Where?]

Only 1 team relegated as well.

The Brazilian league is almost as mental with clubs simultaneously playing in the national and state championships.

Imagine Arsenal playing in the Premiership and simultaneously playing in a London League with the other top 19 teams in London or us playing in a Berkshire league with the top 19 teams in Berkshire alongside a Championship season.

[stealthpapes]

I think more teams get relegated now.

I've got a piece of journalism tucked away somewhere about River's sojourn in the lower leagues. One of the away games - the entire end of the pitch is the seafront. Fans are hanging off chain fence.

[From Despair To Where?]

From my detailed research playing Football Manager it used was 3 but according to Wiki its 1, although the whole system is so convaluted, I could be misreading it because it also says 4 down, 2 up for 5 years to bring it down from 30 teams to 20. Do they still have the Apertura and Closera half seasons? However it works, it's fcuking mad.

[stealthpapes]

I don't think they do anymore - see earlier "30 teams, they play each other once and then get a bonus game against their rivals. "

[double d]

Doesn't make much sense. When they say rivals I assume they mean local and it's capped at one game? Because if you were to spurs, they can have arsenal/chelsea/West ham etc etc, even Liverpool or man United for league positions.

[stealthpapes]

Doesn't make much sense. When they say rivals I assume they mean local and it's capped at one game? Because if you were to spurs, they can have arsenal/chelsea/West ham etc etc, even Liverpool or man United for league positions.

Yup one game.

There are 13, 14 teams in Buenos Ares alone.

[Winston Smith]

Monaco's last 6 league results. 5 wins and a draw.

4-0
5-0
1-1
4-0
3-0
6-0

They went top yesterday having played a game more than Nice & PSG, who play each other today.

[Winston Smith]

Leipzig lost to bottom of the table Ingolstadt. Bayern the only team in the top 7 to win and they go top.

[Winston Smith]

Benfica players leave the pitch via an Emirates check in desk

[stealthpapes]

MeLOLtdown in Scotland

https://twitter.com/chris_sutton73/stat ... wsrc%5Etfw

"Innovator? He's not Thomas Edison, he didn't invent the lightbulb"

[genome]

I don't usually like Chris Sutton as a pundit but he got Craigan utterly rattLOLed there

[stealthpapes]

About 2 second in, this little look goes over his face. RattLOLing incoming.

Craig is about three seconds from throwing some shoes over a pub.

[Winston Smith]

River Plate 2-4 Boca Juniors. Apparently Tevez played an absolute blinder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25kDu-hU8jw

'goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool'

[Winston Smith]

Barcelona flying out to Qatar for a midweek friendly against Christian Gross managed Saudi Champions Al-Ahli, before flying home to play in their derby match against Espanyol at the weekend.

Their full squad are flying out there. Apparently it is contracted that the first team must play in the match.

[sandman]

Barcelona flying out to Qatar for a midweek friendly against Christian Gross managed Saudi Champions Al-Ahli, before flying home to play in their derby match against Espanyol at the weekend.

Their full squad are flying out there. Apparently it is contracted that the first team must play in the match.

I'm sure they'll find a linesman to help them at the weekend.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4024340/El-Clasico-assistant-referee-friendly-Barcelona-players.html

[Winston Smith]

Spanish media say Neymar's new contract is worth €35M per year net (€637,076 per week after tax) and Messi is being offered the same.

That is a commitment to pay 2 players a combined total of €350M over the next 5 years, plus paying the tax on all that.

[Saaaaaaaammmmmm]

The Club World Cup is already proving as irrelevant as any year, I actually quite like the idea of an intercontinental club competition, but FIFA have made it a complete meaningless shambles

So usually my interest lies with following Auckland City, the annual minnows, who will always be a fixture in the competition due to the fact they've won the Oceania Champions League six years in a row now (the closest they came to losing was probably 2014 when they scraped a late winner over the mighty Amicale from Vanuatu)

2014 was the year Auckland heroically reached the semi-finals of the CWC and took the South American champions to extra time, but it'll always be difficult as the format requires the OFC winner to play a play-off round against the host nation's club, then a quarter-final, then the semi-final which is the stage the UEFA and South American sides join

This is the problem, as this year Auckland were knocked out to an 88th minute winner by Kashima Antlers. The Antlers then went on to beat Mamelodi Sundowns of Africa, before seeing off Atlético Nacional of South America yesterday to become the first Asian team to reach the final of the competition (this has been making the news mainly as Kashima were awarded a penalty by the video referee, a process which took over six minutes)

However the Antlers are not even a continental champion, they sneaked in by winning the J-League just two weeks ago. Rather than make the competition for all the continental winners (a fairly round six teams), FIFA try and shoehorn the tournament hosts in. The problem being, the hosts are Japan pretty much every single year, so pretty much every single year there's a Japanese side taking part without even winning their Champions League. This means the format has to adapt to an awkward seven teams, and now one of the finalists of the Club World Cup is a team that aren't even the best on their continent

Also, with a total of six matches played in the knockout format, we end up playing four of those before the inevitable champions, Real Madrid, even join the competition. Real open their campaign today against Club America of, America, and if they win that then it's them against the Antlers for the title of world's best

If you're not going to do this competition properly FIFA, I'm not sure why you're even bothering