Yeah I think going into last weekend Man City needed a win and for Fulham not to win for City to be safe.
So another season of almost complete write-off for non-league football. It seems inevitable that many clubs will go out of business. And of course as there will be no relegation out of the National League this season, the remainder of the season at the bottom of the league will be "playing for better draft choices". So I suspect a bunch of clubs will go the Dover route.
I'll be closely monitoring the points per game table. https://www.footballwebpages.co.uk/national-league/league-table/ppm
It’s pretty safe to say that Fulham will get relegated and Man City won’t, but they still could potentially get to 61 points from today. Man City would be mathematically safe on Sunday with a win and Fulham loss. Fulham plays Sheffield though, so it might take a little longer.
This is sad, but unsurprising. The only reason I think lower leagues here can justify their seasons this year is that they’re kicking off late and just hoping that the vaccine rollout keeps increasing momentum. Do you have a link to more details about the National League situation?
City are safe not because Fulham can't catch them, its because there aren't enough points available for all of 17 teams behind them to share them out to an extent where they can ALL overtake them.
Just like it is having little to no impact on what fan base may lose a team in the lower leagues in England thanks to COVID. Just take a look at the National League and what's going on. The tag line on this particular point is that there's "no risk" in our set up simply because relegation isn't part of it. That flat out isn't true. It actually isn't the playoff debate, it's the debate on the importance of things. I used Derby's promotion winning playoff campaign because it illustrates the point perfectly. The Championship playoffs is the highest level of playoffs in England. Winning them gets you a promotion spot to the Prem. I compared that too a top level playoff here, where winning the playoff campaign earns you essentially a champion of the world title. It's the difference in importance/matter/etc between the two that i'm speaking too. Some think that because Derby's outcome garnered them promotion to the prem that it matters/means more or is a better thing than the Nationals outcome. I chose it because it isolates the pro/rel element in as close to an analogous situation as we have.
Dodge. Complete and total dodge and misdirection. I mean not as epic as trying to bring in the Mexican Italian leagues corruption to a very specific discussion around MLS but pretty close. What we were talking about had NOTHING to do with the financial situation in the National League. Now cue multiple paragraph response trying to explain the most tenuous of tie ins. There is no risk on the field. When you can't counter someone's specific argument you go to the "Others" Or "some" or "lots''. And it is not analogous at all. We don't have anything like it so trying to come up with comparisons doesn't work. I mean listen to yourself, you are saying that challenging for promotion is analogous to challenging for the world series. Great I agree. What you are NOT saying is that challenging for promotion is analogous to winning the Pacific Coast League or even the MiLB championship (when it happens). Because they aren't.
Dodging of what? All I asked was whether or not the product of the Dallas Cowboys was the on field product ... you then moved to contraction because of COVID and results not playing a part in who that'd be ... which would be the exact same as CLUBS ARE IN DIRE STRAIGHTS in England due to COVID (well above the NL too) and it has dick all to do with results (which is what I pointed out). ... I wasn't the one that moved. I simply followed the bouncing ball. For a team's "level" status? Very, very low (but failing on the field HAS had definitive bearing on closing shop/moving). There's several folks in this convo ... and you often ask "who" or "from where" or question where some of our points come from. I reference the discussion and folks in it due to, this being the discussion. Didn't say they were ... didn't speak to it at all actually. What I was stating isn't hard to grasp. In this discussion folks have stated that the act of winning promotion playoffs to the top flight MEANS MORE than winning playoffs and thusly a championship. There wasn't any discerning about equal level or all that jazz ... it was merely the fact that promotion was attached to them that they were deemed as such. We (the discussion) even had a go around about 2014 and San Antonio winning the NASL in this regard. Several folks believe, feel that it isn't as meaningful as a club winning promotion to a higher level ... which simply isn't the case for myself and a hell of a lot of people. We made our playoffs and beat the phucking Cosmos along the way to winning the title. Southend won the 2014 League 2 playoffs and earned promotion to League 1. One is a trophy, experience, and moment that will live with the soccer fans of SA forever as well as part of what helped launch what we have today with SAFC in the USL. We fans were all very much involved with it and hands in it much more than just being in the stands. Southend is back in League 2 and 2014 appears to be just another time they did the lower level shuffle step. Folks can say that Southend's 2014 was more meaningful ... so can SA. THE POINT was that pro/rel has been isolated as determining meaning ... which it absolutely doesn't.
I said there was no risk to being bad on the field. My example was the Cowboys and I threw a Covid reference as a joke. The NFL is NOT contracting. But I was using it as a mental exercise that if the NFL for some reason had to drop teams on the field performance would not matter. Simple. You then responded with something about clubs going out of buisness in the lower divisions in England. Ask the Delta's how that went. Or my San Diego Chargers. Before you pull out some out of context Wikipedia 2014 was the last real season in San Diego. (Yes they technically played in SD for two more years but everyone knew they were leaving). So basically you aren't responding to me you are responding to the nebulous "Them" Okay I can say it would mean more if my team got promoted. Suspected that for a while and know that for sure now. How because last year my club took a brave stance and forfeited games that could have gotten them in the playoffs. I was 100% behind them, but to be honest it was kind of easy. I didn't really care about winning a USL title, not when I'd only been to one match and for a league I knew nothing about. So was easy to accept the club doing the right thing. Now if a place in MLS was on the line, I hope I would have still been behind them because in the cold light of day they did the right thing. But the decision would have been harder.
Yes, and is the product on the field NOT the product of the Dallas Cowboys? Does that performance (or lack of) not affect and determine the rest of the business of the sports club that is the DC? And if, say COVID caused something akin to contraction in pro/rel set ups results on the field wouldn't matter in what clubs go belly up either (like what is actually happening right now). You joked a scenario, but it's one that is literally in danger of playing out and the results on the field, despite being in a pro/rel set up, aren't what's determining which clubs are in real trouble. ... why? They sucked on the business end DESPITE having it handed to them on a platter thanks to their on field play. Fielding a good team doesn't ensure your business practices are worth a flip and vice versa. It's the marriage of the two (or using one to build the other). The Delta's won, but it was literally the only thing they did right. Hell, the SAC KINGS are the perfect example of the circularity of it all. They were a constant relocation fave now due to a myriad of things. Their product on the court had declined ridiculously from the infamous Conf Finals loss to the Mavericks in the way early 2000's to today. Season tickets declined due to payroll cuts (shittier players and play) and att fell off a cliff for a while. Of course there's the (finally) new arena that brought folks back but the fan base IS NOT what it was DESPITE new owners and a new arena BECAUSE of the shit play for over a decade now. I'm responding to you if you're quoted. Not hard. I'm just kneecapping one of the things you love to do before you do it. Yeah, and I applaud them to. But you spoke to what the real issue is ... you've no connection or pull to the Loyal or USL. You've no investment in it at all. Maybe it'll grow this year, maybe it won't. Regardless there is literally nothing TO matter for you right now with it. Kind of easy to fluff off something you have zero skin in eh? Of course it is. Though, had your involvement and fandom been like mine with the Crocketteers and the rebirth of professional soccer in SA and being literally hands on with the creation of the team to winning the league title in three years ... I'm willing to be you'd feel differently about it. Detached from it all it's easy to feel as you do about the Loyal. Would it actually have been though? Do you TRULY believe Donovan would have thought any different about the situation if promotion to MLS was on the line? Complete honesty in asking here.
Not really. There is a broad "gross" connection but the reality is the Cowboys could be terrible for 20 years and might slip from the #1 NFL team to maybe #5 possibly a little lower and under no circumstances would be inline for contraction. Which makes a lot of sense for the NFL. I mean why would they want a system that could possibly send the Cowboys, or this year the Jets, out of their league. I just made your argument for you. The point is this system also reduces risk. It's designed to do that. Still not sure why you are arguing this point with me? This is a wonder of writing a lot of words without actually saying anything. Taking small examples and sending them through the washer and popping out on the other side with a completely unrelated point. I am not talking to you about the struggles of clubs in the national league being so bad that they have to rely on Hollywood actors to bail them out. Let's go apples to apples. Let's pretend the prem is contracting to 18 clubs. We already know the process, they would use, they would use the table. That's what was used when they went from 24 to 20 and any other process would see a riot by fans. Now let's pretend that the NFL is contracting to 30 teams. There is no way that they use the standings. Never. Here is the reality, closed leagues determine their participants based on who is best from a business perspective, open leagues determine it based on who is best on the field. There are advantages and drawbacks to both, but that basic reality is still there. If you are trying to argue that reality with false equivalencies than maybe you should look at your original position. I have never nor will ever argue that one championship (on the same level) is better or worse than another. So not still not sure what your point is with "Them" but hey have at it. First I am a season ticket holder and member of the SG, and have been following attempts to get a professional team in San Diego since the mid '90s. So I do have skin in the game. But yes only being able to attend one match all season hurt my interest in USL. But that's not the point. The point is promotion to MLS would have offered even more. Yes quantitatively more. And that's not going to go down as my interest in USL grows. It's not sliding a scale. I was talking strictly form myself. But to answer your question, yes I think it would have been a harder decision for the players and the club knowing they were giving up a chance to move up. We're talking cold hard cash for the club and the players. Now I hope and believe they would have come to the same conclusion, but there would have been more riding on it.
Keep watching and preferences can change. 5 years ago I didn't really care about my local USL team and now I look forward to their regular season games more than any other soccer aside from competitive NT games.
A comment on an article in the NYT about Barca's fin. woes: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/sports/soccer/barcelona-messi-contract.html#commentsContainer
You just admitted matches of a big number of teams donot matter. Just riding it out towards the new season.
The fact a club is either out of competing for a European spot and/or free from being relegated doesnot equate to being a club with dead rubber matches. That's only true if they play a team that is in the same position. Not when they meet a team still in the running for an European spot or fighting against relegation. And in the case they meet a team in the same position it's not true either if that team happens to be one they have a rivalry with. So I guess the dead rubber games are to be counted with the fingers of one hand.
You stated that the "product on the field" wasn't the "product" in closed leagues, originally. That is what I was addressing. The bottom line of the Cowboys is determined by the success or lack of, of the results on the field (or antics, or stars). [ Nobody (debating in good faith) has ever stated otherwise. ? You answered my question (to your point) about what the product of the Dallas Cowboys "sport club" was with going off about contraction. So a PCL title is "as good" as Championship title? Not so sure about that (not for you specifically, but for folks in general). We've had a pretty good test case in SA. Some folks held out on supporting the Scorpions because they were "waiting for MLS" .... even with those that jumped on board when SS&E brought the USL club and "more backing" there were holdouts waiting for that MLS bid to green light. ... it didn't, the league was in cahoots with the Snake Oil guy the whole time, and we've got an unbelievably solid USL club with a fantastic stadium (by any standard). With that "offering" all but off the table now ... The promise of the club and what we've built/can still build here isn't diminished one bit. It isn't LESSER than when we were in the expansion pool. Truth be told, it probably strengthened things and garnered a resolve among the club itself and the fans base too. Fair Then you need to apply that math to closed leagues too. If EITHER of the teams is a rival or in the playoff hunt or can still get the top seed .... then it matters and there's something on the line. So yeah, one hand .... This is a perfect example of one of the biggest hypocritical and selective applications of an opinion ... .... THE ENTIRETY OF A SOCCER MATCH IS ADVERTS Front of the shirt Back of the shirt Sleeve Adboards surrounding pitch Ads on touch line Ads on the extra time clock Ads played DURING THE MATCH (shrink screen placement) Ads on the game clock ADS ARE LITERALLY EVERYWHERE .... but I'm sure leagues/clubs aren't seeing any pennies out of it In the US we have much more of a break between the adverts and the action while soccer sees it intruding on every part of it.
You're making a comparison like it's the same to have constant commercial breaks in the news interfering with the flow of the programm and a newspaper, having adds between articles. It's not the same.
FYI it happened again. The Sky commentator on Reading-Blackburn (don't know who it is) has been talking about how playoffs are all but gone for Rovers but how they also don't have to concern themselves with relegation. Despite being on their worst form since 2012 (1 point in 6 games). Now to be clear with 13 games left Rovers are 13 points from the playoffs and 11 points from the relegation zone, so both are mathematically possible, but its another example of (presumably) knowledgeable pundits stating that teams in the muddled middle have less pressure on them by this point in the season.
Blackburn are 11 points ahead of the highest placed team in a relegation position - Rotherham, who have two games in hand - with 13 games left. And every other team above Rotherham are 5 or less points behind. The likelihood is they won't get relegated, but that comment is anything but "knowledgeable".