Can anyone explain to me how all the leagues work? I know that each country has its own league, but exactly how does the UEFA Cup and Champions Cup and all of the other cups work? How do they qualify? When do the seasons begin and end? Do they ever end? Also, I was looking at the standings for the Bundesliga and Bayern has played more games then anyone else, have more wins, but are in last place in the standings? Explain. I just don't get it. Love the sport, but never got educated on European Soccer.
- The European seasons start in late summer/early fall. Different leagues start at different times but they all start around late August/early September. The season ends, right about now, in May. Almost like the NHL season, except pushed up about a month or so. - Champion's League basically determines the top club team in Europe. You actually don't have to be a champion to qualify. For example, in England and Italy, if you finish in the top 4, you qualify, whereas the top 3 in Holland qualify. Lesser countries receive only one or two places. The number of places each country receives is based on a formula determined by past record in the competition, and also your national team's record in European competition. It used to be that you had to win your league to qualify and it was single elimination rather than a "league", but UEFA (the sport's governing body in Europe) realized that they can make more money if the played more matches, and got more high profile teams in at the same time. - UEFA Cup is the second tier European tournament. Unlike Champion's League, there is no round robin stage, just single elimination. Each round is a home-and-away series, and the aggregate score from both matches determines the winner, except the Final, which is one match. Qualifying for UEFA Cup is similar to Champion's League - the top teams that didn't qualify for Champion's League get in. To use England as an example, Liverpool and Blackburn, the 5th and 6th place finishers, are in. You can also qualify by winning the domestic cup, but FA Cup winners Arsenal are already in Champion's League so they won't play in UEFA Cup, and Worthingtom Cup winners Liverpool also qualified with their league finish. - I'm not sure what you mean about Bayern. If you look at the table here, all teams played 34 games (you play all 17 other teams in the league, home and away) and Bayern are at top with 75 points. And welcome to BigSoccer.
Let's see if I can help here... Seasons begin (for most countries) in late July or early August and run until mid-May. Some have a winter break, others don't. Certain countries where weather is a major factor (Russia, all of Scandinavia, the USA) play a summer season instead (March to October or so.) *********** Bayern won the league, they're not in last place. Not sure where you saw the standings, but here's soccernet's site: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/tables?league=GER.1&cc=5901 *********** Countries who win their domestic league are eligible to play in the Champions League the next year. For some major soccer countries, second and even third place teams also qualify. The next few highest finishers make the UEFA Cup. For example, in England, the teams that finished 1, 2 and 3 make the CL; 4, 5 and 6 make the UEFA Cup. In previous years, CL teams that were eliminated at the group stage were given places in the UEFA Cup. From what I hear, that's ending next year. ***********
Re: Re: Soccer 101 Actually, four English teams will play CL next year, ManU, Arsenal, Newcastle and Chelsea. Liverpool and Blackburn have qualified for UEFA Cup, and it's looking likely that Manchester City will also qualify because of the Fair Play ranking. Each country receives a rating based on 'fair play' (I'm actually not sure how this works, but I assume it's based on fouls and cards, etc) and England is likely to be the top Fair Play country. Man City are in 5th place in Fair Play rankings, but they will qualify since all the teams that are ahead have qualified for Europe already. Ipswich qualified for UEFA this way last season, iirc.
uefa.com has most of the information. For the latest news, check out: http://www.uefa.com/competitions/UCL/News/Kind=1/newsId=71528.html
Re: Re: Re: Soccer 101 Wrong. Only the Top2 are qualified directly. The third and the fourth are only qualified for the qualification of the Campionsleague. That means they have to play against other teams before they will play in the CL. If they fail they will only play in the UEFA-Cup.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Soccer 101 Not really. Not to get bogged down in semantics but I conisder the qualifying rounds a part of Champion's League and apparently, UEFA does too.
Don't Forget the Intertoto Cup! There is also an additional way to qualify for UEFA Cup - the third tier tournament that no one likes called the Intertoto Cup. Teams have the option of applying to enter this tournament (one per major league at least). They then play several knockout rounds (same as UEFA Cup) until six teams are left. The winner of each of the three games are given berths into the UEFA Cup. Last year Fulham followed this course and got into the UEFA cup. The prior year (I think) Aston Villa used this method to get into the UEFA cup. This is a very unpopular tournament due to the fact that it is played in the late Summer (while most teams are playing friendlies and are in "training camp"). As a result, players get much shortened breaks. There are also serious health issues as a team that plays Intertoto and UEFA and league play and makes domestic cup runs could easily end up playing 60 - 65 games in a season. For instance, Fulham had several Internationals (Junichi Inamoto among them) who went straight from the World Cup to the Intertotos and broke down before the end of the season. This accounts (to some extent) for their swoon in the second half of the season). As a result, some "qualified" teams (such as Everton this year) choose not to apply for the Intertoto Cup.
Also - I think Southampton gets the FA cup birth for the EPL this season: Champs League - Man Utd Champs League - Arsenal Champs League Qual - Newcastle Utd Champs League Qual - Chelsea UEFA (Position/Worth Cup) - Liverpool UEFA (Position) - Blackburn UEFA (FA Cup) - Southampton *UEFA (Fair Play) - Man City *Intertoto (Possibly UEFA) - ????? * not yet certain
Intertoto Cup The Intertoto Cup starts June 21. Pairings and schedule for the first three rounds is at: http://www.uefa.com/competitions/IntertotoCup/news/Kind=1/newsId=63377.html The English and Scottish teams have opted out, but teams from 38 countries (manual counting) have signed up.
With a few exceptions. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, and I believe Finland play their leagues during the summer for obvious reasons.
Learn something new everyday. It makes sense, but I did not know that. Though it gets complicated for teams that qualify for Europe, doesn't it? If Rosenborg were to make the latter stages of CL, they would essentially be playing year round?