It's hard for a lower division side to win it all in the cup. In Germany, its not particularily surprising if a second division team beats a first division club, happens all the time. Beating multiple ones in a row, some of them among the best teams in Europe, is tricky. Teams that have reached the final since the introduction of the Bundesliga (copied from rsssf): 1964/65 Borussia Dortmund (1) 2-0 Alemannia Aachen (2) 1967/68 1.FC Köln (1) 4-1 VfL Bochum (2) [aet] 1969/70 Offenbacher FC Kickers (2,pr) 2-1 1.FC Köln (1) 1982/83 1.FC Köln (1) 1-0 Fortuna Köln (2) 1986/87 Hamburger SV (1) 3-1 Stuttgarter Kickers (2) 1991/92 Hannover 96 (2) 0-0 Borussia M'gladbach (1) [aet, 4-3 pen] 1992/93 Bayer Leverkusen (1) 1-0 Hertha BSC Amateure (3) 1993/94 Werder Bremen (1) 3-1 Rot-Weiß Essen (2, rel.) 1994/95 Borussia Mönchengladbach (1) 3-0 VfL Wolfsburg (2) 1995/96 1.FC Kaiserslautern (1, rel.) 1-0 Karlsruher SC (1) 1996/97 VfB Stuttgart (1) 2-0 Energie Cottbus (3, pr.) 2000/01 FC Schalke 04 (1) 2-0 1.FC Union Berlin (3, pr.) 2003/04 Werder Bremen (1, ch.) 3-2 Alemannia Aachen (2) 2010/11 FC Schalke 04 (1) 5-0 MSV Duisburg (2) Semi-final appearances are even more common, since 2010 we had: Augsburg 2010, Duisburg 2011, Cottbus 2011, Fürth 2012, Kaiserslautern 2014, Bielefeld 2015
don't get it well first the original discussion you quoted was specifically comparing Orlando to Bournemouth. But i'll still address your question. Imagine we magically had pro/rel today and a new expansion club joins the 2nd division and get promoted in 2021. So they are a new club that's never been in MLS. But instead of creating their support from scratch they already have five years of history. Of course there will be new fans who didn't pay attention until MLS but there will also be a core of support who have already following them. Narratives are part of sports, RichardL pointed out that with his Red Sox point. They aren't making tear jerking documentaries about the Florida Marlins two world series, I know of 3 about the Red Sox and the re edit of a Hollywood movie. Now I think being there day one for MLS is great and does create a narrative. But that narrative only matters if the league/team lasts and becomes relevant. If MLS had gone kaplop in 2000 then being there for the inaugural season of the Galaxy would be about as relevant as me being there for the inaugural season of the San Diego Barracuda's roller hockey team.
But we've had exactly that already. Orlando had five years of history before MLS. Seattle existed for 14 years before moving to MLS, Montreal had 20 years in various leagues before MLS, Vancouver stated in 1986, Portland had nine years prior to MLS, and Minnesota will have seven years before joining MLS. I'm sorry, but five years of history won't be special nor will it make that team more storied than any in MLS. There's nothing stopping a new team from starting lower today and building itself into an MLS organization and being another team like the mythical team your imagined. In fact, San Antonio and Cincinnati are working on just that. Pro/rel wouldn't give us something we are missing.
Exactly, and you have just listed some of the most successful expansion situations. I don't think the two are unrelated.
Not qualifying it's a statement of fact. The smaller the league the more common a 3rd to first move is. Or can be looked at the other way which is the longer they go without the more legit and meaningful they become. Like MLS as a whole. Every year the league survives the more important it is. Others have already answered this question will let their's stand What about the 29% who disappeared after the LA Galaxy's first season. 20% still haven't returned 20 years later even though they are the most successful franchise of in the history of MLS. Yes you did post the numbers and they showed that a majority had losing records and did not qualify for the playoffs. My definition of most means more than 50%, and good means they won more than they lost. Saying "do you remember Swansea" is not explaining. Will just say what I have said you have to look at the table. It is always flexible. Since this line of posts began things have stretched out. So it's reasonable to argue everyone below Liverpool in 9th is out of the Europa league race. But it's not an arbitrary position. If results went differently we could say the team in 13th has a shot at it. It's fluid. More teams in the playoffs gives more teams the chance to win the championship with vastly inferior regular season records to the top team. Do you understand? If you have no playoffs the regular season is ALL that matters. The best team in the regular season is the champion full stop. If everyone makes the playoffs than the regular season only barely matters at all. You see the spectrum?
Take a look at what he said again ... it was about the cup being more competitive due to this, yet in the most high profile soccer places in the world that's not what bears out. First you discounted some of them, then you talked about the number of teams in the league at the time. Each time you've been given black and white examples you've come back with a qualification in order to get the results where you want them. Considering you're the one that is speaking to the authenticity of teams (or lack of) you need to answer it. No avoiding it. They can't match their inaugural season att if they wanted to. You know that. However they do hit as close as they possibly can (1K less) in the playoffs usually, and have hit 26K and regularly hit 23K ... 28K in the first year and still pulling 23K 20yrs later isn't shabby at all. However, you didn't answer the question ... you tried to deflect. Bolton immediately lost 25% of their attendance simply due to being relegated. They've since lost even more due to being shit (which is expected when your club is shit) ... so are they any more authentic? At least LA has recovered some if it's drop ... Like when the Fire won the MLS Cup in their first year of existence? Or when the Fusion made the playoffs the same year as an expansion side? RSL - yeah they sucked CHVUSA - yeah they sucked How Houston won the MLS Cup in their first season? * I'll asterisk it for you ... TFC - yeah they sucked SJ was meh How about when Seattle finished made the playoffs finishing 2pts off the SS and won the USOC in year 1? PHI - yea they sucked VAN - yeah they sucked Portland finished solid mid table Montreal finished solid mid table Soooo that'd be 6 of 12 (or half) of the teams being "pretty good" .... From this you went on to make several qualifying statements about the expansion team list and results ... originally you just said that they were usually pretty bad. You've moved that statement ... No, saying "the 8/9 point cut off that was used" is explaining .. which has now been said 3 times. Why is that hard? Would expanding the WC field make qualifying for it less important? No ... It isn't a question of what expanding the playoffs literally means ... do you understand? Yes, more teams would be in ... who here hasn't grasped that? If you have to do part 1 in order to do part 2, part 1 is inherently important. Whether 1, 10, 100, or 1000 people have the chance at part 2 is irrelevant to the fact that part 1 has to be done first. Part 1 is still important, period.
Yes I have. Coming from 7th to first while still an accomplishment is different than coming 17th to first. Well each situation has to be looked it indivivually but broadly I agree with them that the Phoenix clubs are the same thing. They have the same fans, same ground the only thing that changes is the corporation which for the fans is the least important part. To use one of your specific examples yes I do believe that AFC Wimbledon are the traditional heirs to Wimbledon FC and that MK dons are essentially an expansion team. And this is the belief held by most fans including and most importantly the Wimbledon ones themselves. Why not? And 75% stuck with them a higher percentage than stuck with the Galaxy after their first season. By that metric I would say Bolton fans are more legit. Right? Only if your definition of pretty good includes teams with losing records who missed the playoffs. Why did you pick 8/9 as the divide? That's what I keep asking. At the moment I would put it at 9. If we assume that finishing 6th will get you in the EL (which is pretty safe to assume ATM), then Saints in 9th are only 6 points out. You could even argue Chelsea in 10th who are only 7 out. Again I am not putting a hard number on this because it flows. Well let's see they just expanded the Euros and low and behold people are saying exactly that. Here is one article that I found in about 20 seconds expressing that fear. http://www.theguardian.com/football...michel-platini-england-switzerland-qualifying And yes if they looked to expand the world cup one of the fears would be making qualifiers less important. But not as importantly. Specifically for the best teams during the regular season.
Then it's kind of hard to have this discussion then isn't it? I mean, if the qualifications change each time an answer is given ... what's the point? It is different, HOWEVER, it meets your qualification of bottom 3 to first. Because their current stadium's capacity is 1000 below that inaugural season where they played at the Coliseum. And by the metric that Bolton is still losing fans, and LA has recouped some of that initial loss ... LA fans are more legit. A mid-table team is a pretty good team. They aren't great, but they certainly don't suck. For instance, Crystal Palace was pretty good last season finishing 10th in the league, yet they lost 3 more matches than they won. The year before Stoke was pretty good as well finishing 9th, with one more loss than win. I didn't pick that point diff as the divide ... YOU DID in our original conversation that I referenced (the Swansea bit). That's exactly why I used it. Not once in that article did they say anything about qualifiers being less important. All they did was moan about an easier route for the big guns, and a bloated field with perennial mid sides rounding out the field due to the grouping. There wasn't a single mention of the games that qualify you being less important. The only thing I remember from the announcement back in December was about the economics of it ....
It was actually the Rose Bowl, which holds 90,000 - 100,000 depending on the event but the point still stands. My understanding was that the place was an awful venue for the most part because it was rarely close to half-full. Conversely, last night's opener in Carson was (at least was near as damn-it) a capacity crowd and there was a great atmosphere.
As far as I'm concerned, literally the only good thing about playing at the Rose Bowl was that it was close enough for me to bike to games there.
And once more with the England comparison: their lower league support is not typical. Germany are in the same ballpark of D2 attendance but most leagues aren't. Bolton might lose 25% but their equivalent in Turkey would lose even more.
MLS has deemed it appropriate to take the box scores for the 1996 season off the web, but I believe the Galaxy's numbers also benefited from the inaugural game and a Mexican national team double header that both resulted in huge numbers that were not maintained in the other games. EDIT: My googlefu was strong enough to find that the 2 best attended games in MLS history were both Galaxy games in their inaugural season (69k in inaugural game, 63k for double header), subtracting those games from the Galaxy's total attendance of 462,656 leaves the Galaxy with an inaugural season average of 24k. While a person obviously can't do that with numbers, it does indicate that the statement that the Galaxy haven't gotten back 20% of the fans from their inaugural season is, at best, inaccurate.
That first year, LA averaged 28,916 with a 92,216 for the aforementioned USA/Mex doubleheader, 69,255 for the inaugural and 62,703 for Independence Day. They also drew 40,347 for San Jose in late April 1996. The 6/16/1996 match was surpassed in 2006 when Chivas USA and the Revs counted a 92,650 crowd at the LA Coliseum after (actual) Chivas played Barcelona. The Galaxy's inaugural is now sixth all-time. Without the three huge crowds referenced above, the Galaxy averaged 18,344 for the other 13 home matches in 1996.
MetroStars/Galaxy on 4/13/1996 is still #1 on my standalone list. Second is Portland at Seattle on 10/7/2012 (66,452). Galaxy at Red Bulls under Beckhamania on 8/18/2007 is third (66,237).
According to Quantum theory there isnot something that's not happening, it is just in a parallel universe. That's the beauty of it, even the lunatics in this thread are right, only in the wrong universe
Good question And then explained why they I don't feel like they are particularly helpful to the point. Still don't. You came up with some very helpful ones which I thanked you for. You can keep beating this tired donkey but he is ignoring you and taking a nap. But their average is within the listed capacity of their current home so they could get to their average. And if you want to agree to drop it then look at the differences from year 1- year 2 when they were in the same venue. Figured this would end up with splitting hairs. Considering that you over half the teams in MLS make the playoffs I would argue that a team that misses the playoffs can't be called "pretty good". If you want to argue that they aren't "terrible" I'll grant you that but it's as far as I'll good. And I am saying that divide moves. Then you aren't very good at inferring.
This is incorrect. Hawking has already pointed out that there are no realities in which Mike Magee is not awesome.
Ticket prices have gone WAY THE HELL UP, too. It's been long enough that you have to adjust for inflation from 1996 prices, but the cheapest Galaxy tickets are now twice as expensive as they used to be, in real terms. (Let alone the more expensive tickets.)
They're helpful to the point that they illustrate how many times something has happened, IE - your original question. Their avg that first year? of 28K? no, they couldn't reach that as their current stadium only has a capacity of 27K. As of today, Bolton is down 34% since their relegation ... Is 9th or 10th in the EPL pretty good? Well, either 8/9pts back is out of a race or in it ... it's not both. Before you said it was a big enough gap to call out of it ... now, it's a moving line. Wonderful. Nothing about being less tense (words from the article) makes things less important. I mean I could easily say you are just a bit over zealous in reading what you want out of it. Let's try a different way of putting it: We both have to kick a soccer ball into goal in order to make the team. You get to kick it from the PK spot, I have to kick it from the opposite PK spot across the field. Yes, you have an easier shot to make than I do ... but what's at stake, what's riding on the ball going in or not, and the importance to both of us in making the shot is exactly the same.
In fairness, you can normally cover the season ticket cost by selling off the international friendly bonus tickets. Fans of Barca, Madrid, Man Utd and Andy Madadian will pay top dollar for those things.
On Sunday, the Washington Post published an interview by Steven Goff with Bruce Arena. Here's a significant exchange: What do you think of promotion and relegation here? "Impossible." Why? "Because of all the resources that have been dedicated to build this league by ownership. You are going to tell someone: 'Goodbye?' You’re going to tell Phil Anschutz, who has spent millions and millions building this league, that next year he may be playing in the NASL because his team had a bad year?" Maybe someday, if all the leagues evolve … "You’re in a dream world." There’s a theory that promotion and relegation would both push MLS investors into committing greater resources into their teams in order to avoid relegation and inspire owners of lower-tier clubs to spend more in order to reach the top level … "Competitively, there are a lot of merits to promotion-relegation. Again, we’re in America. We’re in a different world." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...od-minutes-with-l-a-galaxy-coach-bruce-arena/