When last we spoke, Cardiff City were sitting in 20th place of the Premier League table. Hope of survival was fleeting, but not yet gone. Wins at both Newcastle United and Chelsea could still have been enough to secure a spot for the Bluebirds in the 2014/15 Premier League season.
Anything less than a win against Newcastle United would see Cardiff City relegated to the lower tier of English soccer. Which brings us to the events of May 3rd...
Newcastle United 3 - Cardiff City 0
- Ameobi (NEW) 18'
- Remy (NEW) 87'
- Taylor (NEW) 90
I really thought that the Bluebirds had a chance to win this match. For the Magpies, it was a meaningless competition; they were already safe from relegation. Plus, Newcastle United had lost 7 of their last 8 matches. So why not a win for the good guys?
No such luck.
 |
| Newcastle United's Shola Ameobi (Image Credit: Unlisted) |
After Ameobi's goal, I knew the season was over. Yes the Bluebirds hung in for another 69 minutes, but a legitimate attacking threat never materialized. Loic Remy's goal, and the one below from Steven Taylor were merely two more kicks to the gut of an already dead horse.
 |
| Cardiff City's Fabio da Silva needs a hug (Image Credit: Getty Images) |
I had some friends over at my house to watch Cardiff City, first time for both of them. After Remy's goal I must have said something to the effect of "well that's it for the Bluebirds in the Premier League." From her look of confusion I could tell that my friend Jamie didn't know that the bottom three teams get relegated. I've been watching soccer for almost a year now and I had forgotten that the overwhelming majority of Americans have no idea how the Premier League operates.
If one of my US major league teams was tossed down into the minor leagues I would be devastated. And yet, relegation is a part of life for Premier League fans. I've found that, on social media at least, most Cardiff City fans came to accept the demotion fairly quickly and were already discussing player options for next season. It's going to take me far longer to come to grips with the situation.
On May 7th, the Cardiff City Supporters Club hosted their annual awards dinner. David Marshall deservedly received the Cardiff City Football Club Player of the Year and Clubman of the Year awards.
My personal favorite, Jordon Mutch, received the Goal of the Season award for his game-winning goal against Fulham. Friend of the blog Jody Davies was there to hand in his application for Cardiff City manager, but set aside some time to let the players take photos with him...
I showed my wife these pictures and she said, "Why the hell are any of them getting awards for finishing in 20th place?" Touche, wife. Touche.
Which I suppose brings us to the non-event on Sunday that officially closed out the 2013/14 Premier League season for the Bluebirds...
Cardiff City 1 - Chelsea 2
- Bellamy (CAR) 15'
- Schurrle (CHE) 72'
- Torres (CHE) 75'
As much as I'm loathe to waste electrons on the subject, I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you about the Anti-Tan shenanigans that took place throughout the match.
Bluebirds fans, I can't easily tell what percentage, took this match as their final opportunity to voice their displeasure about Tan and the rebranding more specifically. At the kickoff, fans released a torrent of blue balloons onto the field.
I highly doubt that the show of support for club tradition had any impact on Vincent Tan. But if nothing else, I'm pretty sure the distraction cost Chelsea at least one goal early in the match.
I think the only thing worth mentioning about the match itself was Craig Bellamy's goal.
 |
| Cardiff City's Craig Bellamy scores the Bluebirds' final goal of the season (Image Credit: Action Images) |
I really like Craig Bellamy and regret that I did not have the opportunity to see him play in prior seasons. He is inarguably one of the Bluebirds' best players. But he's at the end of his career and cumulative wear and tear issues meant that he couldn't feature as often as we all would have liked this season. Maybe if he had been healthier, Cardiff City would be returning to the Premier League next season.
Maybe a lot of things would have led to Cardiff City returning to the Premier League next season.
The fans and commentators grew bored with the match as it progressed. This despite the fact that the Bluebirds were playing some of their best soccer to date and winning for 71 minutes. The camera cut frequently to images like this one.
The final three whistles came, ending the match, the season, and Cardiff City's time in the Premier League.
With these losses, the Bluebirds end the season in 20th place with 7 wins, 9 draws, and 22 losses. The table below captures the full Premier League standings as of 05/17/14. The table columns are: Current Position (POS), Last Position (LP), Club Name (CLUB), Matches Played (P), Wins (W), Draws (D), Losses (L), Goals Fielded (GF), Goals Allowed (GA), Goal Differential (GD), and Rankings Points (PTS).
Cardiff City will be joining Norwich City, Fulham, and 21 other clubs in the Football League Championship Division next season. We do not yet know the full set of clubs who will replace them, I plan to introduce them in a later post.
The end of the Premier League season also means the end of the Fantasy Premier League season. How did my Cardiff'rent Strokes fair? They finished 1,095,550th out of 3,218,907 teams, essentially the edge of the top third.
I would have liked to finish in the top one million teams, but for my first outting I don't think it was too shabby of a performance.
That's it for this week, readers. I plan to do two more posts before closing out this blog.
Next Week:
- Review of Cardiff City's 2013/14 season
- Discuss which Bluebirds might be leaving and who might replace them
- Introduce Cardiff City's fellow members of the 2014/15 Championship class
- Discuss how to follow the Bluebirds next season
And in Two Weeks:
- Share my experience with blogging and social media promotion
- Discuss state of premier league soccer popularity in America
- Introduce the newly-promoted Premier League clubs and how to pick a club for yourself
- Share final thoughts on how I feel about Cardiff City and soccer in general
Thank you as always for reading. You can follow me (@dragon_bluebird) on Twitter. And you can follow both Jody (@jodylaforge) and his band (@DodgemXofficial) on Twitter as well.
Feel free to leave some comments on my posts via Blogger or Twitter. Would love to hear your thoughts on the season and I'd be happy to take suggestions for the final posts of this blog.
Feel free to leave some comments on my posts via Blogger or Twitter. Would love to hear your thoughts on the season and I'd be happy to take suggestions for the final posts of this blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment