Football Thread No. 9

[Takhisis]

You need a license?

 

[Arwon]

That's how most franchise-based sports leagues work. It's certainly how major sports in Australia work so of course the soccer is gonna copy that too, since promotion-relegation is just not viable in Australian sport.

Licenses are a pretty perfunctory legal mechanism by which a sport league controls who gets to participate. So all it means is they've said "we're not participating next year".

 

[Takhisis]

So, how do these franchises work in football? Most other football leagues wouldn't even consider it.

 

[Verarde]

Oh, and I went to the Reading v. Leeds United match last week. Good game, with Reading on top 2-0, looks like they'll be moving up to the EPL.

 

[Takhisis]

It's sad if you've gone see clubs you don't support but not the one you do. My condolences btw.

 

[Verarde]

It's sad if you've gone see clubs you don't support but not the one you do. My condolences btw.

Well, I was supporting Reading just for the day. Some friends who live in Reading took us to the game, so it was fun. I got into it a lot. Yelling, cheering, the whole bit. It was great. Too bad the atmosphere for the MLS games aren't really the same, AFAIK.

and thanks.

 

[Arwon]

So, how do these franchises work in football? Most other football leagues wouldn't even consider it.

Pretty similar to US sports or to Rugby League in the UK.

Soccer works like other sports here, except it's appallingly run and has pretty severe delusions about its popularity.

The peak professional league of each of Australia's four codes of football (Aussie Rules, Rugby League, Rugby Union and Soccer) has one league and the same teams fielded from year to year. Occasionally there's expansion, with new clubs being set up in new areas (Gold Coast United were an A-League expansion club and I'm hoping they bring in Canberra to replace Newcastle next year).

The big difference is there's no promotion or relegation, and a lot of equalisation in terms of drafts, salary caps and restricitions on player movements which ensure every club has the chance of occasionally winning the whole thing.

There's generally some sort of second tier state-based league sitting below the peak professional league (eg the NSW Cup and Queensland Cup, or the VFL, WAFL and SANFL). There may be a reserve-grade competition or a junior league as well, and professional sides might have reserve teams or feeder clubs or partner clubs in these lower leagues. Depth and development is provided by these structures.

The franchise model doesn't imply private ownership is essential. In the AFL (Aussie Rules) all clubs are currently owned by members. The Rugby League has a mixture of membership-owned and privately-owned clubs. The soccer A-League, however, appears to be all privately-owned clubs.

 

[Takhisis]

Well, I was supporting Reading just for the day. Some friends who live in Reading took us to the game, so it was fun. I got into it a lot. Yelling, cheering, the whole bit. It was great. Too bad the atmosphere for the MLS games aren't really the same, AFAIK.

That's 'cos people in the US are used to having cheerleaders and having music played so they can sing along.

and thanks.

The condolences are for the demise of your title hopes .

Pretty similar to US sports or to Rugby League in the UK.

Soccer works like other sports here, except it's appallingly run and has pretty severe delusions about its popularity. I assume the American soccer league has a similar set up to here, as well.

The peak professional league of each of Australia's four major codes of football (Aussie Rules, Rugby League, Rugby Union and Soccer) has one league and the same teams fielded from year to year. Occasionally there's expansion, with new clubs being set up in new areas (Gold Coast United were an A-League expansion club and I'm hoping they bring in Canberra to replace Newcastle next year).

The big difference is there's no promotion or relegation, and a lot of equalisation in terms of drafts, salary caps and restricitions on player movements which ensure every club has the chance of occasionally winning the whole thing.

I like the equalisation (how do drafts work?) but no promotion and relegation makes it impossible to have the amount of teams you have elsewhere.
Which is something I always criticise about the SFA as I think the South- and East of Scotland Leagues should be added to the SFL as lower divisions.

 

[Arwon]

Yeah, it's just simply not practical to have promotion/relegation in a continent the size of Europe with 20 million people playing four different types of football.

The AFL drafts works like this:

Talented kids nominate at the age of 17 (or later) and then there's a draft night at the end of the year. Selections are assigned in reverse order to how clubs fared, with the team who finished last getting the first pick, and the team who won the Grand Final getting pick #16 or #18 or whatever. Then they go back to the first side and cycle through again, until everyone's had enough picks.

Teams' lists are restricted (42 senior players) and the only ways to get players onto your list are to either draft them, trade with other clubs, or occasionally nab a speculative player from another sport playing overseas (so far, basketballers and Gaelic Footballers). So the draft ensures the talented players all funnel through this fair process rather than being bought by the richest clubs.

Together with the salary cap it ensures evenness and a degree of cyclicalness in the competition - in theory no club is further than say 8 years away from potentially winning a premiership. In practice, basket case clubs like the Melbourne Demons fail consistently through their own internal issues.

I don't think the A-League uses a draft, however. It'd be a lot less practical in a sport played in many countries where you're not a major player.

 

[azzaman333]

<snip>
Together with the salary cap it ensures evenness and a degree of cyclicalness in the competition - in theory no club is further than say 8 years away from potentially winning a premiership. In practice, basket case clubs like the Melbourne Demons fail consistently through their own internal issues.

I don't think the A-League uses a draft, however. It'd be a lot less practical in a sport played in many countries where you're not a major player.

A tad harsh to single out Melbourne. At least they occasionally reach finals, unlike Richmond.

And yeah, there's no draft for the A-League.

 

[MCdread]

You could be right about the "let's blame Balotelli" slant, but it is quite a cynical way to look at Mancini's behaviour. I prefer to believe that Mancini has continued to trust Balotelli's ability will win out over his temperament, and is now running out of patience (actually, it might be the rest of the team have run out of patience and made that clear to Mancini). If the manager is trying to encourage a focus on one player to distract attention from his own shortcomings, that would be pretty contemptible.

Fair enough. I didn't mean to say that it was devised by Mancini as a strategy of disinformation. Mancini looks a like a decent guy. He's just not a very good coach, but that's another story.
He did try to amend Balotelli's ways, but just the other day he said publicly that he doesn't trust Balotelli. And yet gives him a starting place! I find this sequence of events amazing.
This just makes Mancini inherently responsible for the fiasco. And he brought it all on himself. And also this:

I don't see why they let Tevez come back as Mancini had said he would never play again so to backtrack must have surely hurt his authority with the rest of the players even if some wanted him to be allowed to come back.

I guess my frustration with the Balotelli blaming game came more from seeing the press and bloggers writing article upon article about Balotelli, but very little analysis about Man City, as a team, bottling it dramatically (and being comprehensively outplayed in this game).

Also the comments after the match report make a fair point about how the Guardian have had a million crisis articles aboout Liverpool, Man City and Arsenal but none about Spurs yet. Presumably because they are trying to avoid criticising the next England manager until he gets appointed. To go along with the Tevez thing I'm still not sure how Redknapp got off the tax evasion case.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/apr/09/tottenham-hotspur-norwich-city-premier-league

I guess it's still more useful for a lot of people to avoid portraying him in a negative light. The man has not even started coaching England yet. The cycle of messianic hope -> euphoria -> "still in the learning curve" -> back to euphoria -> disaster -> sack is yet to begin. Criticism and inconvenient truths are only fully released at the latter stages.

But yeah, at this pace Chelsea will qualify for the CL by default because Spurs is collapsing.

Do you think 'Arry will be coaching England in Euro 2012 or just taking over at a later stage? If I was an England fan I'd be hoping that, at least, he wouldn't be there for the Euro. Normally a new coach inspires a spike of enthusiasm that can last for 4 or 5 games, but not sure about one that comes in right after having lead a team to implosion...

 

[pesgores]

Yeah, it's just simply not practical to have promotion/relegation in a continent the size of Europe with 20 million people playing four different types of football.

The AFL drafts works like this:

Talented kids nominate at the age of 17 (or later) and then there's a draft night at the end of the year. Selections are assigned in reverse order to how clubs fared, with the team who finished last getting the first pick, and the team who won the Grand Final getting pick #16 or #18 or whatever. Then they go back to the first side and cycle through again, until everyone's had enough picks.

Teams' lists are restricted (42 senior players) and the only ways to get players onto your list are to either draft them, trade with other clubs, or occasionally nab a speculative player from another sport playing overseas (so far, basketballers and Gaelic Footballers). So the draft ensures the talented players all funnel through this fair process rather than being bought by the richest clubs.

Together with the salary cap it ensures evenness and a degree of cyclicalness in the competition - in theory no club is further than say 8 years away from potentially winning a premiership. In practice, basket case clubs like the Melbourne Demons fail consistently through their own internal issues.

I don't think the A-League uses a draft, however. It'd be a lot less practical in a sport played in many countries where you're not a major player.

That's just wrong and not how football should work.

 

[Dell19]

Do you think 'Arry will be coaching England in Euro 2012 or just taking over at a later stage? If I was an England fan I'd be hoping that, at least, he wouldn't be there for the Euro. Normally a new coach inspires a spike of enthusiasm that can last for 4 or 5 games, but not sure about one that comes in right after having lead a team to implosion...

There isn't really a strong alternative, maybe Pardew if Newcastle do end up getting a Champions League spot at the expense of Spurs. Would be interesting to know if the FA would have still sacked Capello if they had known Spurs were going to struggle at the end of the season, although they could still come back.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

Well, I was supporting Reading just for the day. Some friends who live in Reading took us to the game, so it was fun. I got into it a lot. Yelling, cheering, the whole bit. It was great. Too bad the atmosphere for the MLS games aren't really the same, AFAIK.

Hey, good for you. I had mistakenly sized you up as the sort of guy who was "passionate" about soccer from a distance, but wouldn't have bothered actually going to a real game if you were over in Europe. I was obviously quite wrong about that, and my apologies for mistakenly judging you so.

I still don't like al-Citeh, though

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Liverpool win. Convincingly. Against Blackburn. Who is their 3rd keeper?

 

[Takhisis]

Yeah, it's just simply not practical to have promotion/relegation in a continent the size of Europe with 20 million people playing four different types of football.

The AFL drafts works like this:

Talented kids nominate at the age of 17 (or later) and then there's a draft night at the end of the year. Selections are assigned in reverse order to how clubs fared, with the team who finished last getting the first pick, and the team who won the Grand Final getting pick #16 or #18 or whatever. Then they go back to the first side and cycle through again, until everyone's had enough picks.

Teams' lists are restricted (42 senior players) and the only ways to get players onto your list are to either draft them, trade with other clubs, or occasionally nab a speculative player from another sport playing overseas (so far, basketballers and Gaelic Footballers). So the draft ensures the talented players all funnel through this fair process rather than being bought by the richest clubs.

Together with the salary cap it ensures evenness and a degree of cyclicalness in the competition - in theory no club is further than say 8 years away from potentially winning a premiership. In practice, basket case clubs like the Melbourne Demons fail consistently through their own internal issues.

I don't think the A-League uses a draft, however. It'd be a lot less practical in a sport played in many countries where you're not a major player.

42 players? That's way too much, a couple dozen suffice.

I still don't like al-Citeh, though

Keep that healthy footballing attitude Lambert!

Liverpool win. Convincingly. Against Blackburn. Who is their 3rd keeper?

Convincingly? WHAT? I saw them, Blackburn could have destroyed them at points, Liverpool defends horribly and their goalkeeper saved them from an Andy Carroll own goal which would have made goal of the season through sheer silliness.

 

[Takhisis]

Interesting news on the CONMEBOL front! Apparently there's a chance that the two continental Cups (Libertadores and Sudamericana) will be played simultaneously and the Sudamericana finally would take its rightful place as second-best!

Yet another idea has been proposed for reforming the Argentine football system but no one's sure what it would be.

 

[dosed150]

Liverpool win. Convincingly. Against Blackburn. Who is their 3rd keeper?

brad jones, apparantly hes pretty awful

was thinking everton would win at the weekend anyway, but now surely a certainty

 

[classical_hero]

brad jones, apparantly hes pretty awful

was thinking everton would win at the weekend anyway, but now surely a certainty

He had some time away from the game with the death of his son, so he is not at his best right now.

 

[Verarde]

Hey, good for you. I had mistakenly sized you up as the sort of guy who was "passionate" about soccer from a distance, but wouldn't have bothered actually going to a real game if you were over in Europe. I was obviously quite wrong about that, and my apologies for mistakenly judging you so.

I still don't like al-Citeh, though

Thanks, I appreciate that. It's harder over here in the States, what with professional soccer not necessarily being extremely popular. I'd love to go to some local games, but I'm only 16 and can't drive yet. I keep making subtle hints to my dad though. Maybe after seeing that match he'll be more apt to see D.C. United play.

Don't worry, al-Citeh will be here for you when you decide to change.