Hello all, a yank here curious about the Russian soccer timeframe. It was not too long ago that there was the switch from the Spring-Summer season to Fall-Spring season for the RPL, how has the league held up? Have there been any problems with weather? I ask because there are often arguments for the US switching to a more traditional calender but it's rejected due to cold weather in many cities (not unlike Russia i'd wager), so I wanted a little comparison.
Russian Premier League and Ukrainian Premier League both need to have a winter break, usually from the end of the first week of December to about the end of the first week of March in the next year. And considering that MLS doesn't even wanna stop play during big international tournaments, I have heavy doubts they would have an almost 3 months break in the winter.
MLS can't switch because they'd have to compete with NFL, NBA, NHL. Its perfect right now cause they only have to compete with lame ass baseball.
No. matches are usually played at the week-end. Russia and Ukraine manage to have a long Winter break by having a much shorter Summer break. For example, Ukraine are starting their new season this week-end, which may be a month or two before other European leagues start their new seasons.
Basically nothing's really changed, except for the fact that the season now starts in July rather than March. Before when the season was March to November straight, we'd just have a 3 month winter break and start again in March. Now it starts in July, more condensed (20 out of 30 games are being play July-early Dec), then the same 3 month break and then the last 10 games March-May with the last game synchronized with the rest of Europe and the Cup final on June 1st. I believe that is the last game on the entire continent after the Champions League final to close out the Euro spring. That thing Gooddead was talking about in the Russia thread how our teams don't perform well in CL, it is mostly because of the winter break. They roll into the season sluggish after a 3 month break (let's face it, no amount of friendlies held in southern Spain against Scandinavian teams) could get you ready to face Real Madrid or Manchester United in 3rd week of February. Some teams manage to go far in UEFA Cup (Europa League) as the first two rounds of opponents are usually easy, but when it comes to CL....it's not even about talent, it's about the shape the teams are in. All Spanish/Italian/German/English teams are in full motion and the Russian bear is just awakening. That is probably the ONLY reason why a Russian team won't win a CL, not because they're shit or anything.