No more of a flaw than having a perpetual trap door at the bottom of your league granting 6 games against clubs that are new to the level of play. Of course, the it's only a "flaw" in the conference structure when a handful of teams all suck at once. It's fantastic when it's the NFC East had 3 different teams win multiple super bowls 7 out of 10 years.
As a Bills fan, we've largely been a big heaping steaming pile of mediocre shit for the past 20 years (Brady is 30W -3L against Buffalo btw, and 83W-20L against the AFC East overall). McDermott is a hell of a coach, and Bean is proving to be one of the better young GM's in the league. They're turning a corner. They've always been competitive, but haven't been necessarily good either. They consistently finish between 6-10 and 9-7, and win a game or two that surprises people and also lose a game or two that surprises people. They still lack difference makers on offense. Their D will keep them in games, it's just a matter of how much Allen develops and improves over the course of this season, and years to come. To your point, Belicheck is a huge reason the Patriots have been so good for so long. His teams don't beat themselves. Case in point against Buffalo on Sunday. Buffalo turned the ball over too much. One Turnover and the Blocked Punt lead to 13 pts for the Patriots, that was the game. People forget that the Pats went 11-5 the season that Brady sustained a season ending knee injury in game one. With their Defense this season.....the Pats are going to be very difficult to beat. They are the favorites to win the Super Bowl again. I agree with your pint on the system being flawed. I don't like that the division winners automatically get a home playoff game. That should be determined by record. An 8-8 team should not host a playoff game against a team that finishes with a better record. The playoffs IMO should be determined by overall record, and seeded according to order of finish by record. That way the best teams in each conference get in.
Manchester United drawing with AZ and Man City losing at Norwich makes no material difference to the discussion about pro/rels and cartels. Not the case in England where the maximum wage was restricted to that of a carpenter or shoemaker. Not the case in Holland or Germany where most of today's "big" teams established themselves in the amateur era.[/QUOTE]
As I tried to explain time and time again P/R doesnot mean every club...oh shit it's plain useless to tell it to you. Keep it up to have the stupid idea the concept of pro/Rel has to be that all clubs are in more or less the same danger of relegating. None of the P/R people ever claim that but you keep bringing it up...hey there's a system flaw in P/R, the top 6 of a given year arenot under threat to relegate next year....That system flaw is in your head as you keep on transplanting the idiotic idea of a level playing field to P/R on a truly global sport, that makes minced meat with clubs from a league that caters for the mediocre level. Don't give me the shit of the closed shop top 4 sports of the USA as these are in fact monopolistic sportsleagues without a truly threatening non USA league in the rest of the world.
Promotion and relegation: A tiered system of league organization wherein teams finishing at the top of their respective divisions are promoted to take the place of the teams who finish at the bottoms of their respective divisions. That's it. That's what pro/rel is. Nothing more, nothing less. That's promotion and relegation. You: Promotion and relegation is a deep philosophical experience that was first devised by Aristotle or some such nonsense. I know not every club is in danger of relegation. That's my point. There's nothing about "merit" involved in a system where clubs are free to spend whatever it takes to stay clear of the relegation line or consistently in qualification for international competition. That's what you don't understand. I've never said that. In fact my problem with pro/rel is that it's not equal or a meritocracy. There's nothing pure or authentic about pro/rel. You're making my point for me. If people are going to claim that p/r is a superior league structure, I'm going to point out that pro/rel leads to less competition. That's a problem. Good. So you're admitting that clubs can buy their way clear of ever worrying about pro/rel. Please never ridicule the American system of expansion. Who's making minced meat? What? We have truly global sports here (baseball and basketball) that are closed systems and Americans dominate those sports as well. You think you have a point here but you don't. See when someone presents facts about American sports you plug your ears and say whatever the Dutch equivalent of "la la la la I can't hear you" is. Let's review a few things. This is the Soccer in the USA forum. At the end of the day we're talking about soccer in the American context. Soccer doesn't exist in a vacuum anywhere but here in the US it has competition from four of the most popular sports leagues in the world. Baseball, basketball and hockey are global sports that a popular in numerous countries and the US houses the best leagues in those sports. It's relevant to discuss those sports but you're claiming we can't because they're sports you don't like them. Japan, Korea and Mexico have popular and pretty decent baseball leagues. MLB is the La Liga of its sport and no one is going to trash the Korean league because it's not as good as MLB. Same with the Euro super league and the NBA. You're claiming "soccer is different because it's soccer and soccer is different" but it's not. If you can't see that, it's not my problem. Other than MLB, no American sports league is a monopoly (nor a cartel effective or otherwise). We have an alternative football league forming, our soccer leagues all have the ability to play in the top division. Up until a few decades ago, baseball operated as two distinct leagues in direct competition with each other in some markets. Nothing is stopping a competing basketball league other than lack of interest and investment. So have I covered it all or are you just going to keep making my point for me. Pro/rel isn't as complicated as you make it out to be and you're claiming that I'm making arguments that I'm not.
Professional soccer started in 1956 in Holland and 1963 in Germany. Before then it was pretty much an even playing field in which environment teams like PSV, Ajax, Munich and Dortmund were already dominant.
No, it wasnot a level playing field before 1956. Feyenoord was the richest, not because of a rich investor bought the club to the top, but by sheer fan power. Within 30 years after starting with a pub as a dressing room the fans were so numerous they needed a stadium, which was built by means of shares bought by a couple of thousands fans. That while established clubs had a headstart of decades with fancy stadiums. Rotterdam rival Sparta from 1888 already had a stadium (first soccer stadium in the Netherlands) 1n 1916. Ajax wasnot dominant before 1956, neither was PSV. Ajax had 1 title in 17 years and only after pro soccer was introduced they finally had another title in 1957. They almost relegated in 1965. The rise to dominance of Ajax started with Cruijff as a player and had nothing to do with buying it with money from an investor like the crazy one likes to trump around. It was merit based and their financial power now is the result of that, not the other way around by pouring in money and then create success. The same applies to the two other dominant clubs. In the past several money loaden people tried to use money to break the top 3 open, but the matter of fact is that the top 3 clubs built their existance up from humble beginnings against settled clubs that were dominant in those days and somehow caught the imagination of the fans nation wide and from that built the dominance they now have. Several rich guys have tried to buy success and managed to grab titles with their clubs, but what they couldnot buy was the decades long loyalty built up by the top 3. So much for buying your way to success. Didnot work in the Netherlands.
If payrolls are the same, how does crowd size make a difference? Are you suggesting that the Big clubs paid players under the table?
Shhh! That doesn't happen. The big teams in England used to attract the most young players, from wider areas, so the bigger teams would have much bigger squads. Manchester United, Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal would bring in a lot of Irish and Scottish kids. Manchester United were able to field a competitive team weeks after most of their first team squad had been killed or injured in a plane crash, without signing any players.
Pride to make that huge crowd come to see you and the status of Feyenoord as a big club .....might that be a reason?
This has been used as an explanation as to why Chattanooga FC and Detroit City FC have been able to consistently field some of the better amateur teams in the USA, as well. If you're getting paid the same either way (i.e. nothing) environment becomes the differentiator for attracting talent.
No, we introduced pro soccer, because foreign pro clubs lured our best players away with for those days workers astronomical pay cheques. Anyway in those days clubs only had ticket sales income, so the taxman could easily track if something fishy was going on. All clubs though had rich fans, so I donot doubt a player at all clubs after a very good performance got an endorsement brown envelope.
Pride to make that huge crowd come to see you and the status of Feyenoord as a big club .....might that be a reason? After all, you go on the pitch first for love of the game in those days and for being an entertainer. So if you're an entertainer and you got the choice to do it in front of 63,000 or 10,000. What do you think the choice would be? Rethorical question.
Yes they really played above themselves that day. 3 points from their last 6 league games plus a cup exit courtesy of Crawley.
Surely if their plan was to take the parachute payment, they'd have rolled over for Man City - hardly a difficult task - instead of "really playing above themselves"? And wtf does the Caribou Cup have to do with anything? Are Spurs going to take the parachute money as well??