Play-offs to determine the 4th Champions League spot

[pc4th]

Starting in 2009-2010 season, the Premiership (as well as La Liga and Series A) will have 3 guarentees to UEFA CL group stage (new UEFA rule recently if you haven't read it).

The 4th place will have to qualify.

Would you be in favor if that 4th place is gained through a playoff?

6th place vs. 5th place (@ 5th home)
Winner of the above vs. 4th place (@ 4th place home)

[lanman]

Doesn't having a playoff sort of defeat the object of having a 38 game season to determine who the best 4 sides are over the course of the year?
I'm against it existing in the Football League (even as a fan of a team that could benefit this year), so I don't see any reason to support it for European qualification.

[Prenn]

I'm all for it for that 4th place.

[Jono-NZ]

Against, lanman basically took the word out of my mouth

Doesn't having a playoff sort of defeat the object of having a 38 game season to determine who the best 4 sides are over the course of the year?

[soccerislife7]

While I agree, my bigger reasoning against the playoff is happening right now in Serie A. If AC Milan were to catch Florintina, I think it would be cruel. It would be even worse if there was a playoff and Florintina lost that playoff, that would be even worse, because really, Florinina has been better than every other team besides Roma, Inter and Juventes.

In the EPL, wouldn't be a waste of a Champions League spot if a team in the big four (that made it in fourth) lost even though they belonged in the Champions League. If someone wants to make it to the Champions League in the EPL, they have to earn it to show that they have the caliber to compete with the world's best, which can't be earned by winning two games in a playoff.

[chrizzah]

You really want the team that earned 4th place over the course of the season or else you will periodically waste a spot on a team that has a good run in the playoffs, a little bit like Derby County ending up in the Premiership this year.

[Ian Daglers]

Damned right I'd be for it.

And not just to shaft Liverpool, honest...

[leg_breaker]

The problem is, the gap between 4th and the teams below is so vast, that if Spurs or Everton ended up in the Champions League, they'd get smashed.

[Ian Daglers]

The problem is, the gap between 4th and the teams below is so vast, that if Spurs or Everton ended up in the Champions League, they'd get smashed.

I think they'd hold their own. I mean, you only have to go back to 2005 to see the 5th best team in England winning the whole thing...

I mean, if the Old Firm teams can keep their heads above water in the CL, there's no reason a Villa or an Everton can't put in a respectable performance.

[Dbantx]

Absolutely in favour. The dominance of the big four has bored most people to tears. The whole reason they can remain dominant is that they can rely on getting a huge wad of cash for playing in the Champions league every year. Its a cycle, qualify for the champions league and you have enough money from it to buy a place in the champions league the next season because you can just buy all the best talent.

A playoff might just end the dominance of the top four, i can see Aston Villa edging a victory over Liverpool in a playoff final. All of a sudden Villa have megabucks from the Champions League and can afford to compete with the top four. It will lead to the top teams being less dominant.

Yes the point in playing games over a season is for teams ot earn their right to success, but you could make a similar objection to playoffs in the football league but at the end of the day it mkaes the league more exciting and less predictable.

[soccerislife7]

A playoff might just end the dominance of the top four, i can see Aston Villa edging a victory over Liverpool in a playoff final. All of a sudden Villa have megabucks from the Champions League and can afford to compete with the top four. It will lead to the top teams being less dominant.

Yes the point in playing games over a season is for teams ot earn their right to success, but you could make a similar objection to playoffs in the football league but at the end of the day it mkaes the league more exciting and less predictable.

Yes it makes the season less predictable, in the end it's unfair. If a team gets more points in the end of a 38 game season, how is it fair for 2 games to decide if they can leapfrog for a champions league spot. To me it seems like it's giving a hadicap to 5th, 6th and 7th place teams.

[chrizzah]

Yes the point in playing games over a season is for teams ot earn their right to success, but you could make a similar objection to playoffs in the football league but at the end of the day it mkaes the league more exciting and less predictable.

With teams like Watford and Derby, you could also argue that it increasingly makes the Premiership the next year less exciting because the playoff teams are complete crap and the relegation battle between the lower half of the table only involves two spots.

I think they'd hold their own. I mean, you only have to go back to 2005 to see the 5th best team in England winning the whole thing...

I mean, if the Old Firm teams can keep their heads above water in the CL, there's no reason a Villa or an Everton can't put in a respectable performance.

That year was an anomaly and how did Everton do in the Champions' League that year? The point isn't whether the playoff team could hold their own and pull off the occassional "famous" win. Liverpool have made it to the finals and semis in three of the last four years. In the long run, if you field weaker competition who get knocked out earlier, that fourth spot might just go away. Even if it doesn't, it's wasted if you are forcing out the true fourth place side who could legitimately compete to win the competition in favor of a team who might not make it to the group stages and in all likelihood won't make it beyond the group stages.

[The Potter]

The problem is, the gap between 4th and the teams below is so vast, that if Spurs or Everton ended up in the Champions League, they'd get smashed.

Would it be the end of the world if they didn't do well?

I'm in favour because the quadopoly has gotten so monotonous. But I don't think getting that top 4 place is quite the impossibility certain people (Keegan) try to make out. Benitez has never got the hang of the Premier League and if David Moyes was managing Newcastle or Spurs they probably would be top 4.

[The Potter]

And it makes me laugh people saying it would be unfair makes me laugh. The Champions League system as it is is incredibly unfair.

[Ian Daglers]

That year was an anomaly and how did Everton do in the Champions' League that year? The point isn't whether the playoff team could hold their own and pull off the occassional "famous" win. Liverpool have made it to the finals and semis in three of the last four years. In the long run, if you field weaker competition who get knocked out earlier, that fourth spot might just go away. Even if it doesn't, it's wasted if you are forcing out the true fourth place side who could legitimately compete to win the competition in favor of a team who might not make it to the group stages and in all likelihood won't make it beyond the group stages.

Everton got knocked out by Villarreal. The same thing that happened to (with Benfica's help) Man United, as well as Inter. And about that Villarreal side: they made the CL semifinals while only finishing 7th in Spain. So there's another "anomalous" example of an upper-midtable team from a good league going deep into European competition.

Who's to say that the 4th place team is so much better that they absolutely deserve to go instead? If that is really true, then they ought to win the playoff. And England would be in absolutely no danger of losing its 4th CL spot. You'd have to see Premiership teams doing consistently worse than German or French ones, which frankly the top three would prevent even if the playoff winner went out pre-group stage every time (and they wouldn't).

I don't know how you justify saying that a 5th or 6th place Prem team would "in all likelihood" fail to make the last 16. I'm not saying such a team would advance every year, but there's no evidence either way except that every year you have a good number of non-English teams of comparable quality (how would Celtic place in the Premiership?) making the knockout rounds.

[Peakite]

You really want the team that earned 4th place over the course of the season or else you will periodically waste a spot on a team that has a good run in the playoffs, a little bit like Derby County ending up in the Premiership this year.

A poor argument against playoffs - Derby finished third, two points behind Birmingham, four behind Sunderland and eight points ahead of fourth place West Brom.

[chrizzah]

A poor argument against playoffs - Derby finished third, two points behind Birmingham, four behind Sunderland and eight points ahead of fourth place West Brom.

The example might be poor, but I don't think the argument is poor. A team that sneaks into sixth and has a run like Barnsley's FA Cup run is less likely to fare well in the Premiership.

[chrizzah]

If that is really true, then they ought to win the playoff.

Barnsley beat Liverpool and Chelsea over two games in a tournament. Sure they were single games (rather than home and home), but it illustrates that saying if a team is so much better, they will automatically win and can't be of significantly better quality is making it a little too simple.

I understand the excitement of play-offs and I understand that they make the season more meaningful for a longer period of time for several teams. I'm not saying that your Blackburns, Evertons and Villas of the world would be like Norwegian and Austrian teams in the Champions' League; but on the whole, I think they would only occassionally make it out of the group stages. To me playoffs diminish the value of the league and water down the quality of the teams being put forward from the playoff victory.

Just out of curiosity, how does everyone feel about employing a variation on the Dutch style relegation/promotion playoff? I believe this would involve the sixteenth and seventeenth placed teams from the Premier League and second through ninth in the championship vying for two spots in the Premier League.

[Ian Daglers]

Barnsley beat Liverpool and Chelsea over two games in a tournament. Sure they were single games (rather than home and home), but it illustrates that saying if a team is so much better, they will automatically win and can't be of significantly better quality is making it a little too simple.

I understand the excitement of play-offs and I understand that they make the season more meaningful for a longer period of time for several teams. I'm not saying that your Blackburns, Evertons and Villas of the world would be like Norwegian and Austrian teams in the Champions' League; but on the whole, I think they would only occassionally make it out of the group stages. To me playoffs diminish the value of the league and water down the quality of the teams being put forward from the playoff victory.

Just out of curiosity, how does everyone feel about employing a variation on the Dutch style relegation/promotion playoff? I believe this would involve the sixteenth and seventeenth placed teams from the Premier League and second through ninth in the championship vying for two spots in the Premier League.

It's an oversimplification, but it's more inaccurate to say that there would be all these great 4th place teams would have their CL ambitions tragically thwarted in the end of season playoffs. It should only ever happen once in a great while that Big Time FC would have gone on to beat Porto, then Madrid, then Inter and the Bayern in the CL had they only not been tripped up by Villa in the playoffs. Maybe you lose an English CL winner every 20 years (I think this is a generous estimate). Oh well. Maybe you lose one by excluding them for finishing 5th.

And I don't buy that it diminishes the value of the league at all. It would devalue 4th place relative to 5th. But the value of 3rd versus 4th would increase greatly, as would 5th, 6th & 7th v. 8th and below. If more teams would have something to play for later in the season, doesn't that increase the value of the league relative to what we have now, where a good number of teams are on vacation with several games to play (and even worse, with games to play against teams with a lot still at stake)?

[chrizzah]

And I don't buy that it diminishes the value of the league at all. It would devalue 4th place relative to 5th. But the value of 3rd versus 4th would increase greatly, as would 5th, 6th & 7th v. 8th and below.

I said earlier it makes the games more meaningful for more teams and it makes the product (in terms of late season matches) more marketable, but that doesn't mean it makes the league better. Over the course of a 36 game season, you have earned your place based on your ability over the whole season. To me, the playoffs are a little like taking the people who place in spots 3 through 6in the Olympic marathon and then having them run a half mile race to determine the bronze medal winner.