Scrapping the Finals System.

It's long been accepted by footballing afficiandos that the Finals System really has no merit in a table-format competition. In my esteemed opinion the top team of any given league is the one that has come first when the season has ended; the 'Minor Premiers' if you will. I'm not exactly sure how we bastardised the European form of "winning" in this country, but now's a good time to discuss changing it (IE: scrapping the cash grab completely).

I've made a similiar post this on YouTube in a discussion with others about the Grand Final system and my declaration is to replace it with a 'Cup' that runs along side the A-League season. I propose to call this prestigous event the 'Australian Cup', for lack of a better term, it gets right down to the purpose of the whole bloody thing.

The purpose of this cup isn't so black and white, however. I also want State League teams to enter into it. I no longer want the great NSL clubs to lay dormant in the other Leagues. I want the borders of "old soccer and new football" to clash on the field.

But enough ranting, here's my proposed format:

16 teams
4 rounds
1 rounds of play each fortnight, played mid-week

The 16 teams will consist of all the A-League teams and 8 top-tier State League teams chosen on positioning in their respective leagues:

1st+2nd from NSW's Premier League
1st+2nd from Victoria's Foxtel Cup
1st+2nd from South Australia's Super League
1st from Queensland's QSL
1st from Canberra's ACT Premier League

With the expansion of the A-League to 10 teams, the entrants from Queensland and Canberra will expand to include their 2nd place teams in the 'Australian Cup'.

The benefits are obvious. State League teams will have a chance to perform against A-League competition, thus bringing some notoriety to their teams (especially in the case of a not-so-expected draw or win). The NSL teams of old are no longer confined to State play and actually have a chance to prove themselves against the best that Australia have to offer - imagine Melbourne Knights packing out Knights Stadium against Sydney FC or Melbourne Victory? Finally the last game of the tournament will be played a week or two after the conclusion of the A-League (hopefully to plenty of media attention), and the trophy given won't be a meaningless offering - the winning team will have legitimately earned it and will be deserved to be called the best team in Australia.

 

The reason to play the regular season is to do what everybody else is trying to do:

Come first.

Like in most sports at a competitive level, the object is to be first. First to reach a certain number of points, first to cross a finish line, first to wear down an opponent to gain victory; the outcome can be twisted every which way.

But never is the outcome to finish in the Top 4 or 5 and then win a mini-tournament that's nothing more than a cash grab filled with empty chest-beating. The best team of any given league is the one that finishes at the top of the league, not the one that plays consistently well for 3 matches at the end of the season in a round-robin affair that really means nothing.

The Premiership is the most important thing in a football league. It shows who has performed the best over the course of the season as compared to a few show matches at the end of the season.

 

Alright then. So what world do you live in when a 5th place team can eventually call itself the "Champion"? The champion of what, exactly? Coming in 5th? You'd be laughed off a track if you ran a race and proudly tried to call yourself a champion for running 5th. You'd never see a podium at the Olympics if you came 5th in any of the events and you'd be a laughing stock in any other sport if you'd claim yourself to be the champion of anything after being removed from top spot by four places.

A finals series is nothing, mate. It's a way for the media to capitalise on the sport-fanatics and get themselves a little money by convincing dumb fans that what they're watching is an occassion where the best team has come out the victor. It's pomp and ceremony and nothing more. It proves very little other than that if a team who is very lucky plays well on a day that the first place team has an off-day, it can advance in a tournament to call itself a "grand final winner".

To quote you directly, "Championships are won on the field not on some table". Well, with regards to the real champion being first on the table, there's a championship that's won with 30-50 odd games on the field. Not just a string of 3 wins at the end of a season.

 

This much I know. I don't know where the unfortunate trend started but it's exactly the same in Australia (and most likely in New Zealand), as it is in the United States. I'm not sure where the sport culture started turning away from a 'First Past The Post' celebration to a 'Mock Series' playoff but dare I say it came about because of the savage nature of the sporting markets in the USA and Australia. Specifically these countries may be dominated by a certain game more than others, there are other sports that also threaten the helm.

I was watching the NFL last year and just discussed this with my wife, actually. I think the NFL almost have it right but I don't agree with the playoffs to reach the Superbowl. The best team of the season is the one that comes first in each respective conference.

My understanding of the NFL - and please correct me if I'm wrong - is that the playoffs consist of the 4 winners of each conference (AFC - N/S/E/W + NFC N/S/E/W) and a further 2 wild card entries from each conference. Now right off the bat tell me: Why the hell are there wild card entries to begin with? Those 4 teams had their chances during the season, once the playoffs hit, they're done, they're finished, send them home and wait until next season.

Due to the expansive nature of the NFL I am in agreement with having playoffs between the North/South/East/West winners within the conference. But in all honesty I'd rather prefer the two teams that have the most wins from each conference advance to decide the Superbowl winner. After all, the best team in each conference is the one with the most wins, right? And not the one that gets lucky in a game or two to advance.

The Giants were the 5th best team and eventually won the Superbowl. That doesn't work for me. All it proves is that an underachiever - a loser team of the season - can string together a few victories in the post-season and be crowned a champion.

Dare show me any literal definition of champion and tell me you've ignored all of them, which all state that is the act of coming first.

I have no doubt that if the MLS adopted a single-table approach it would alienate people. Apparently the greater US public like to shun away from the realism it offers sporting fans and instead thrive on the media-induced fantasy that a Grand Final is actually grand, and what you will be seeing are actual champions.

Sorry mate, but I don't watch a "grand final" to see third place crowned the "champions". They came 3rd, they're no more winners of a league than the last-placed team is.

That's the realism of any competition, mate. The weight lifter from Indonesia knows before the outset, looking around at what seems to be the reformation of the Soviet Union that he will probably have no chance at beating any single one of them - but for pride and love, he still lifts those weights. The 80th seed tennis player going up against a top 10 opponent in Wimbledon knows he probably won't win the match, but still gives it his all because he's at the occassion and wants to impress, wants to say he's been there and at least tried.

If you were a true fan, you'd support your team no matter what. If my team was sitting 7th on the table, or 17th, it would have no effect, because my love is to watch my team play. Sure, I'm not going to be as happy as I would be if they were sitting at the top, but I'm going to watch them anyway, because that's what being a fan is all about.

Well, we know that's not always the case. The underdog has his day, the weak link puts in a strong effort at home to overcome the favourite, the egotism of a group of individuals loses against the teamwork of an individual team...we know those scenarios, so don't sit there and throw the "should be no problem in winning the playoffs", mate. Because I don't buy it, and I don't think you do either.

 

I couldn't agree less as to how the approach to the 'Grand Final' is taken in the MLS.

 

In essence, replacing the Finals System with the Cup venture would give you exactly what you want:

League leaders proving their mettle in a finals format.

I don't know how much more intense you can get having to balance out an every-other-mid-week game with trying to stay on top of the league to boot.

Glad to see that this thread is getting a few more replies now. I was wondering whether I'd magically posted a taboo subject of sorts considering it was me and another bloke for the first day or two.

 

In my original idea posted on YouTube I ran into the same problem trying to get every State League in on the action. I have no idea what stadiums (if any), are in the Northern Territory (a second look shows me a grand total of four, the main one being Marrara Stadium in Darwin with a capacity of 15,000), or in Tasmania...

But allow me a second revision:

Seeing as we're beginning with the expansion next year, there will be 10 teams from the A-League and 16 teams from the State Leagues:

1st/2nd - NSW Premier League
1st/2nd - Vic. Foxtel Cup
1st/2nd - SA Super League
1st/2nd - QLD QSL
1st/2nd - ACT Premier League
1st/2nd - NT Toohey's Extra Dry Premier League
1st from each - Tas. Northern Premier League/Southern Premier League
1st/2nd - WA State League Premier Division

The trouble I run into here is obvious. Australia has 8 states/territories combined, and Tasmania doesn't have a single State League, it has two. Would it be fair to have 10 A-League teams and 8 State League teams? Probably not...but then would it be fair to have 10 from each and give an extra spot to the vaunted stronger leagues NSW and Victoria? Probably a little better, but still not quite as fair. The other option is over the top and that's what I've shown above: 2 teams from each State League, blowing out the total participants to 26, which also doesn't fit too well in either the "Let's have some groups and the winners progress into a finals format" idea or the "Round-robin, usual format expected" idea.

I guess there could be 4 groups of 4 teams and 2 groups of 5 teams, with A-League teams seeded evenly across the groups. That would still leave 6 winners to duke it out in a weird series of events. Perhaps 2 groups of 3 teams after that in the same style of contest? Then the 1st place of those 2 groups would participate in the Cup Final.

This is looking more like mere anarchy and a second competition than a simple Cup. Out of interest here would be the State League teams for next year's cup, if we were to go with what I've named "The Monster Cluster******** Format":

NSW: Sutherland Sharks/Sydney United (after 3 rounds)
Vic: Green Gully Cavaliers/Melbourne Knights
SA: MetroStars/Modbury
QLD: Sunshine Coast FC/Brisbane Strikers FC
ACT: Canberra FC/Canberra Olympic
WA: Sorrento FC/Floreat Athena FC
Tas: South Hobart/Devonport City
NT: Darwin Olympic/Casuarina

 

Now that I can understand and support. As with the AFC/NFC playoffs leading into the Superbowl (which I'd honestly prefer to see the first place from each conference being the Superbowl match), I completely see the necessity of a playoff type of series to determine the ultimate final.

 

Actually if you look into the history of the NSL and how the competition was managed, you can see that there have been numerous changes to how the season was won. I usually don't like referencing to Wiki but in this case I'll make an exception:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Soccer_League#Competition_format

 

Well the answer is simple:

It's an Aussie thing. And we're stubborn enough to keep on using it. I guess to people like me, the Grand Final will never be a marquee event. It will never really prove anything to me other than what I've already stated about it. But to a lot of people it just might be that glorious game they'll keep talking about in the off-season.