At least you aknowledge it depends on the pairing of the clubs and it can be till close to the end of the competition (actually for the most it is up till the end). Kcbus stated 10 out of the 18 clubs play meaningless games, which is a gross ....
Until you get enough points to stay up or until you can't attain enough points to obtain a goal then you are striving for something! 4 points above the drop zone with 18 points to play for isn't even close to being a dead rubber! I think it's time to just admit you mis-calculated, as has been pointed out there are very few dead rubbers in any given season with pro/rel or European qualification involved in the competition.
Seriously, would you please read what I write before commenting. Actually stop, read the words, think about the definition of the words I've written, understand how they work in context to each other, THEN compose a reply that actually replies to the words I've used and not whatever scenario you've made up in your head? Is that too much to ask?
https://throughitalltogether.sbnati...-do-make-the-championship-unfair-leeds-united ^ BAM, there you go. They've been studying it. You can admit you're wrong now.
@feyenoordsoccerfan There are fewer meaningless games in the Premier League thank other European because 7 teams can qualify for Europe and 3 get relegated, so 50% of the teams are "in the mix". In other leagues maybe 3 teams qualify for Europe and 2 get relegated. Some countries, like the Netherlands and Belgium have introduced playoffs to increase the number of teams with something at stake towards the end of the season. Last season 14/24 MLS teams qualified for the playoffs. LAFC won their Conference, the Supporters Shield, a place in the CONCACAF Champions League (CCL), home advantage throughout the playoffs and a bye in the first round of the playoffs. NYCFC won their Conference, the Supporters Shield, a place in the CONCACAF Champions League (CCL), home advantage up to the Eastern Conference playoff final, and a bye in the first round up until the Eastern Conference Final. Atlanta, Philadelphia, Toronto, Seattle, Salt Lake and Minnesota(!!!)* all won home advantage at various points of the playoffs. DC United, New York Red Bulls, New England, LA Galaxy, Portland and Dallas all won away ties in the first round of the playoffs. Atlanta, Philadelphia, Toronto, New York Red Bulls, DC United, Seattle, Salt Lake, Minnesota and Portland all won places in the Leagues Cup (vs Liga MX clubs). Despite LAFC and NYCFC having already wrapped up their conference titles before the last round of matches, 11 out of the last 14 games played had consequences for the teams involved. Just mathematically, more teams will be involved in the end of season melee in MLS than the Premier League. That will change when the number of teams increases beyond 28 unless the number of playoff spots also increases. *I still can't believe it!
City vs Aston Villa mattered but I turned it off after 2-0. Not in the mood for that type of one way traffic matchup today. Sometimes importance level is just a matter of subjective opinion.
Nobody us saying it makes a mockery of it, as has been pointed out though, it's not a way to determine the seasons best team either? There are also FA Cup winners but that's not a trophy the best team necessarily wins (unless of course they do the double), however the league Champions are undoubtably the best team of the season.
It's a little hard to gauge the "best team in the NFL" due to their unbalanced schedules. I mean, sometimes it's obvious, but it's inherently a subjective metric since, by design, one team plays less than half of the league.
I've seen it described as such. It should be noted that the high-scoring nature of games like American football do make shocks a bit less likely than in soccer. Of course, in the other three big American leagues, playoffs are determined by multi-game series, so that greatly reduces the odds of a weaker team progressing on a fluke win. One could also argue that in some ways, the playoff series method is a more robust test of the best team. The one potential weakness of the single-table round-robin is that it's technically possible to win the title based more on your results against the rank-and-file than your immediate contenders. You can't often win the NBA, MLB or NHL without beating a selection of strong teams. Now the biggest argument against playoffs in general, is that a bout of injuries and/or poor form around the post-season can sink a team's campaign, despite the same scenario being recoverable during the regular season. Of course, the single-table method isn't entirely immune to this, as you could still get a badly-timed spate of injuries during the hardest part of the schedule.
Given the length of American sports seasons,all of the seasons are either too short (NFL) or too long (everyone else) to allow for a balanced schedule. So, I think playoffs are a fair way to determine a league champion. A lot of times, a team can feast off of a weak division to juice its win-loss ratio, so playoffs are needed to show just how good a team is against the other top teams in its league.
Since a balanced schedule is not possible in a league with an 82 or 162 game schedule, the playoffs exist as a final arbitrer of the league champion. It's a two-step process, really. A team has to be good at both types of competition.
It's not a way to decide the best team, it's a way to decide a championship. And either you or ExP used the term mockery.
I'm not arguing against playoffs or unbalanced schedules (although I will admit I prefer the alternative, when possible) - I'm saying that declaring "the best team in the NFL" is usually highly subjective because of it. Nobody in their right mind wouldn't say that the 2007 Patriots weren't the best in the NFL that season, but even going to the Superbowl (i.e. having the longest schedule possible), they still only played 14 teams. And, of course, they lost the only game that mattered. But in most years, the "best team" is pretty arguable. And, again, there's not really anything wrong with that.
I guess the leagues schedule is more geared to making money than to real competition. There are ways to make balanced schedules by different organisation of the competition.
If over half of the teams qualified for the playoffs, I think there would be a strong case for the regular season being significantly devalued. But, as I posted last week, the NFL does playoffs just about as well as the concept can be.
As usual, you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to American sports. It's best if you limit your opinions to the Dutch league. There's no viable way to make a 162-game baseball season or an 82-game hockey season balanced. And no one has any interest in seeing those leagues decide their champion without a playoff, because that would be boring as hell.