football thread No11

[Takhisis]

This might be a stupid question, but what happens if the same team wins the spring and the fall competitions? Are they champions on the spot? Do the runners-up have a playoff for a berth in the final?

 

[warpus]

We've discussed this quite a bit in /r/CanadianPL

If that happens then the runner-up in the fall season plays in the championship. Some people feel that it's an inferior solution, since it would give the winner of the spring season nothing to play for during the fall season.. but.. I think if you want to win the championship, which every team will want.. you will want to stay in form. you can't just not care for 3 months and then get into form suddenly. So IMO if a team wins the spring they will be all pumped up and will continue trying to win games. What better way to prove your superiority in the league than to win both seasons and then the championship? Plus they will have an incentive to play well against teams they consider rivals for the championship - to take away points from them and hopefully play against a weaker side in the finals.

 

[Takhisis]

Hmmm. It's a bit of an imperfect solution but it'd be workable. I still prefer a double round-robin format, as Argentina and Uruguay (and others) have shown how the winner of the title might not be anywhere near the most points.

But then this is a work-in-progress and in a few years there'll hopefully be enough teams, as you say, to enable better formats. So let's drink to that.

 

[warpus]

Cheers!

The league expects 1-3 expansion clubs per season, and by the time the world cup arrives in Canada (2026) we should be close to splitting the league into 2 divisions and introducing pro/rel. The spring/fall solution is mainly a way to keep people interested without playoffs and without pro/rel (I think), but I also think you are right that they might tweak it from year to year. Once there's enough teams for pro/rel they might very well totally revamp everything, or.. the fans might tell them that we love the format and then they would be tempted to keep it.

For now most of us are just excited we're going to get a league. We can also see that the league braintrust is actually competent, they have billionaire club owners, they secured partners in MediaPro and Volkswagen, they are talking to the fans and getting our input, they even have a guy on reddit responding to our posts.. It's easy to be optimistic, but the future is so.. unknown. We have no idea how many people are going to actually tune in or show up to games. I think the league is going to surprise a lot of people personally, but I'm just passionate about the sport in this country advancing, so I'm really biased

Once the first game kicks off, I'll post streams here, if there are legal ones. First game ever is going to be between 2 clubs in the (extended) Greater Toronto Area, a team from Hamilton and a team from North Toronto. I think it's going to be an amazing atmosphere, but like I said I'm biased

 

[Hrothbern]

Yesterday evening there was a wonderfull nice football match (for me at least) in the Champions League between Real Madrid and Ajax. Real Madrid lost at home with 1-4.

At 0-3 and still half an hour to go, I had some hope it could even become 0-5 (like in the classic match in 1974 of Real Madrid-Barcelona where Johan Cruijff started to play for Barcelona), but 1-4 was thrilling enough
Looks like it's time for a generation change of Real and I am afraid Ajax will lose many of its best players next season to clubs able to pay more.

Real Madrid have been European Champions for 1,012 days, but their time is up. In 88 days, the 2019 final will be held just 14km away at the home of rivals Atlético, but for the first time in three years they will not be there. In a single week at the Bernabéu they have been knocked out of the Copa del Rey, now the league, and the competition they made their own.
When the end came, it was brutal. It was also brilliant. Ajax came and tore them to bits, scoring four goals, each more impressive than the last.

This is the third timeAjax have won here in this competition, after 1973 and 1995. The last two times they won the European Cup; few would expect that now, those days long gone, but on this evidence that romantic idea may not be so misplaced.

Madrid are bad, it is true. Their “horsehocky season” in Dani Carvajal’s words, is over in March, thanks to three home defeats in seven with an aggregate score of 8-1. But it is also true that Ajax are very good. Goals from Hakim Ziyech, David Neres, Dusan Tadic and Lasse Schöne were the consequence of a collective superiority that was startling and they are deservedly through: too fast, too incisive, too well organised for a team that is disintegrating, a generation that has come to a close.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/mar/05/real-madrid-ajax-champions-league-match-report

 

[JohannaK]

I wish I could have watched it now.

 

[Takhisis]

Real Madrid didn't deserve any single one of the four European trophies they were awarded in the last half-decade. That is why I hope leagues like the Canadian one can slowly build up and become an example.

But, sadly, I keep seeing press giants just hailing them unqualifiedly as ‘the champions’.

 

[Snerk]

Mmyeh by now I think it's safe to say that Ole nailed the job interview for long term mufc manager.

also:

 

[Takhisis]

Iker Casillas outdoes Real Madrid at long last.

 

[BirraImperial]

Real Madrid have basically stolen their last 3 UCL titles...I love that the biggest thiefs in Europe are out of the competition...

 

[Josu]

Real Madrid have basically stolen their last 3 UCL titles...I love that the biggest thiefs in Europe are out of the competition...

Real Madrid have basically stolen

Fixed!!

 

[Takhisis]

In a strange move, Argentina is now set to have its own professional female football championship.

 

[Arwon]

Why is that strange?

 

[Takhisis]

Because the prevailing culture among fans in general, the players, and the AFA management is profoundly mysogynistic. It was just last year that the men's football team had as many sponsors as they could find while the women's team was in all sorts of financial trouble, with both having to play their respective World Cup tournaments.
The persistent singing regularly uses rape metaphors more often than Spaniards throw bananas at African and South American players by an order of magnitude or two.
And the players… well, you take a look at how their women are invariably attractive and how they keep exchanging them for younger iterations and you'll see.

 

[Takhisis]

And to add some levity, a 22-year-old had a stroke, was left unable to walk and, when he finally was able to speak again, the first thing he said was ‘Hearts is horsehockye’, which proves that football is much more important than life and death.

(I hope @Lambert Simnel is still around somewhere)

 

[Takhisis]

Because the prevailing culture among fans in general, the players, and the AFA management is profoundly mysogynistic.

Case in point: the home team at a regional match was winning 1-0, their fans thought that the linesman had made a mistake so they threw a thermos flask full of hot water at his female colleague and she suffered some burns to her back. The match was not suspended because it was about to end anyway.

 

[Arwon]

Because the prevailing culture among fans in general, the players, and the AFA management is profoundly mysogynistic. It was just last year that the men's football team had as many sponsors as they could find while the women's team was in all sorts of financial trouble, with both having to play their respective World Cup tournaments.
The persistent singing regularly uses rape metaphors more often than Spaniards throw bananas at African and South American players by an order of magnitude or two.
And the players… well, you take a look at how their women are invariably attractive and how they keep exchanging them for younger iterations and you'll see.

Hmm, interesting.

I kind of assumed most soccer countries would have women's leagues by now, certainly the richer countries.

I've been coming to the conclusion that, problematic though we still often are, this country is still doing relatively well in terms of women's sport. Our cricketers would be some of the best paid female athletes in the world, the soccer team has legitimate aspirations of winning a world cup, the soccer league pulls across off-season American players, basketball is also going fairly well, netball is fully professional with a high wage floor, the Australian Football grand final just got 53000 spectators in its third season, there's also fledgling rugby union and rugby league competitions.

With the recent collapse of the CWHL and the apparent lack of Canadian teams in the NWSL and WNBA, I think there's more Australian teams in women's pro sport in North America than there are Canadian... at least til Canada also joins the softball this year.

 

[BirraImperial]

Well, in the case of Mexico, female soccer is growing pretty well...Most of the first division teams have their own female professional teams...In Costa Rica, it is growing a bit slowly, we even have a small league, but other that a few women that have made it to Europe (Like Shirley Cruz who won 2 Female Champions League titles with Lyon) and Noelia Bermudez from Levante UD, football is developing slowly...

 

[BirraImperial]

It also doesn't help that 2 of the World's most powerful teams (USA and Canada) are in the Concacaf region...

 

[warpus]

If anyone's curious about the level of play in the new CPL, here's the highlights from the first ever 2 matches in league history! I attended the one in Hamilton and had a blast. It was really cold and windy but a good time was had by all

edit:

A new video highlighting the inaugural game

edit2:

If you actually want to watch games, the streaming service for the league is free right now

You can watch from whatever country you want