This is why the league champions are considered (rightly so) the best teams in countries and not the domestic cup winners
Certainly not. But peaking in a year when a lot of big clubs were going through a bit of a slump was certainly fortuitous timing. And I think in soccer--in individual games, sometimes you make your luck.
9 Leicester plays made 35 or more League appearances in 2015/16 and 2 more made 32 and 29 appearances respectively. That was a contributing factor to their success. Liverpool only used 15 players when they ran away with the First Division in 1978/79, conceding just 16 goals in 42 games. They were so well drilled that season it was incredible to watch.
Ok, to be fair I have to admit I was wrong. I said the big 6 would end up in the top 6 or at worst top 7 by the end of the EPL season. Arsenal dropped to 8th.
Well, I guess I wasn't wrong. Looking back I made the prediction about just Man U, not all the big 6.
Yeah that top of the table sure looks like we said it would. Crazy innit? And Leicester took advantage of the same scenario that saw them win the League out of nowhere. They put a SOLID 11 together with a couple of shrewd pickups, had a couple quality subs .... and played significantly less matches than the big clubs (48 including cups) ManU played 58 Liverpool/City played 57 Chelsea/Arsenal played 53 Tottenham played 52 For comparison it appears Wolves played 61 We'll see how Leicester fares with European football back in the mix next season (took them 3 seasons to bounce back after they had to be a big boy club).
A group of around 12 National League clubs are proposing a salary cap.They want annual limits of:🔸£900,000 for the National League🔸£600,000 for the National North/SouthThe working group hope the limit will be introduced via a vote at the League AGM in August. pic.twitter.com/EuMDID99ve— Ollie Bayliss (@Ollie_Bayliss) July 27, 2020
Aston Villa's players seemed pretty darned happy to have missed the best draft choices. Good to see them stay up. Predictably Brentford lost the first leg of their Championship playoff semifinal - and got a red card - but I am still hoping they make it to the Premier League for the first time. Harrogate v Notts County for promotion to the Football League. Unlike Paul, I'm hoping Harrogate makes it for the first time, but presumably Notts County are the favourites.
I don't get the draft choice fixation. I mean, it's a different concept. Bad teams get an extra helping hand to try to increase competition across the league. I don't get what so offensive about this. And I don't get why every league in the world should be exactly the same. Imagine going to a forum dedicated to English soccer and endlessly sneering because they don't have playoffs to determine a league champion. Pretty idiotic.
Basically the top of all the major Euro leagues looked like they normally do except in Turkey. Congrats Istanbul Basaksehir!
With the caveat that I don't think it's relevant to MLS... The problem is mainly that it passively encourages tanking and it's not clear how much it addresses the problem it supposedly solves: how many high first round picks have the Browns, Bills, Lions had? The Pelicans, Suns, and Kings are still just bad teams. The point of the argument is that the Lions couldn't remain dreadful if they wanted to stay in the NFL and Detroit fans would still have some reason to care about the season in late November besides watching their team play on Thanksgiving.
I don't buy the tanking idea. Players are always playing for their jobs. I don't see them harming their personal earning prospects so the team has a slightly better chance at a young player who will be competing for the same jobs. Perhaps NFL fans would care more about late season games with relegation implications. And perhaps they simply wouldn't come back if their team was relegated. Minor league football hasn't really worked here despite the country loving the sport. But regardless, the NFL is the most watched league in the country. Seems like people don't have any trouble caring based on the current system. I concede pro/rel as a ratings gimmick would make more sense for MLS, however.
It’s strangely comforting to see you continue to be in denial as to the realities of US major leagues.
It's not a case of the players not trying, it's a case of fielding the wrong players. The MLS Superdraft is basically a clearing house for players not under contract. BTW, under the new CBA players become free agents at 24 (based on certain conditions), not 28.
The Superdraft is almost all college players leaving college (the league occasionally inserts a couple of young foreign players, but they've done that less and less recently). Not just players out of contract.
Right, but your phrasing made it sound (to me) as if it included non-college players who are out of contract too. It doesn't.
Still not buying it. Coaches are the first fired when things go badly. Relying on long term job assurance is a gamble at the best of times, let alone if one is obviously "fielding the wrong players." And from a GM/owner standpoint, sorry, but success fills the stands, not draft picks in themselves. Drafting correctly and implementing those players is challenge in its own right. There's no guarantee of reward. And lastly, I see "the wrong players" all the time in soccer (cup competitions if the league is the focus, league matches if a cup competition is the focus). Looks like the sport in general needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
I'm not aware of tanking for draft picks being a thing in MLS, MLB, or the NHL. Probably because, largely, draftees in those leagues aren't immediately impactful on a scale that can turn a team around in one season. Tanking is occasionally joked about in the NFL, but I haven't seen any team obviously try to do it. And even then its only joked about when a player expected to turn into an All-Star, almost always QB, is expected to be available in the next draft (Suck for Luck being an example from a while back). Because a top tier QB can set your team up well for many years. Despite that there's very little evidence that tanking for draft picks is a thing with any regularity in the NFL. That leaves the NBA and, well, yeah, it happens there. The NBA even created the draft lottery system to help prevent against it. Its not a surprise, because in a game whee you only have 5 players on the court, getting a top player can immediately be a huge upgrade for your team.
"Tanking" is a strategy in "rebuilding", so the coach isn't going to be fired for carrying out the front office's plan. See the 76ers or 2018/19 Lakers when they realized that LeBron and 4 dead bodies aren't actually enough to win a championship. I agree that there's no real active tanking in the NFL, I think mainly because there are too many players to account for at any given time. Teams definitely definitely go into "rebuilding" mode, though, and sometimes they decide mid-season that this will be a rebuilding year (similar to the Lakers example).
Then what's the big deal? Losing the battle to win the war. As I said, I see that across the soccer landscape, including "open" systems.