Epilogue: Bluebird and Dragon

It's been one year since my last post.  Cardiff City's 2014/15 season has come and gone.  The Bluebirds fell down into the Championship well and landed with a thud...

2014/15 Championship Table (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

I thought about writing one or more posts summarizing the events of the past year, but in reality there was only one story that mattered for the fans of Cardiff City.  

Cardiff City FC crest, 2012-2015

Cardiff City FC crest, 2015...

The Bluebirds are once again blue.  

You could attribute the reversal to a change of heart or aesthetics.  Or perhaps you could credit the change to Vincent Tan's mother (yes, seriously).  The reality is that the finest deodorant is winning...and once you stop using it, people start to realize that things stink.  Cardiff City fans voted with their wallets en masse and elected not to renew their season tickets.  And in the end, you can protest all you want but it's the money that talks.

With the change of kit and crest comes a new sense of optimism about the club.  The flow of money won't be the same in the 2015/16 season as in the past, but all the same I believe the club when they say..."The target is promotion and if that wasn’t what we wanted to achieve, none of us would be here. We have to get the squad right, the team right. The whole structure of this club has to be spot on and we are spending a lot of time making sure it’s right. Promotion can be the result of what we do in preparation. We are building in every area of the club to ensure we are ready to challenge." (Cardiff City CEO Ken Choo, 3 July 2015 interview)

In my very first post, I stated that "I chose the name [of this blog] not just because it ties to the Cardiff City logo, but also because it highlights the struggle for identity that will be the undercurrent of their 2013/14 season."  You can see from the new logo that the struggle is over and whatever happens during the 2015/16 season, it will (hopefully) be the actions on the field that dominate the discussion.

It's only fitting that I now put the blog to rest for good.  "Dragon and Bluebird" made sense at the time, but if anything "Bluebird and Dragon" seems more appropriate now.

If you've still got a few minutes left in your lunch break, come check out the newly-formed US Bluebirds site.  The mission of the US Bluebirds Supporters Club is to connect Cardiff City’s American fanbase to each other, to other supporters around the world, and to the club itself, by providing a high-quality platform and unique content, in order to grow the Bluebirds community.  You can also follow us on Twitter (@USBluebirds).

Thanks for reading, and good luck to the Bluebirds this season and all those to come.

I'll Be There

It's hard to believe that I started this blog over a year ago (June 17th, 2013).  This will be my 43rd and final post.  Let me begin by saying THANK YOU for reading and giving me encouragement along the way.

I've lost count at this point, but I believe as of the time I'm writing this post I have watched at least:  30 full Premier League matches, 15 World Cup matches, and 1 Major League Soccer match.  Perhaps to my non-American readers these statistics are underwhelming, however it's worth noting that when I came up with the idea to write Dragon and Bluebird, I had never watched a single match in its entirety.  

But to merely watch a full soccer match was not the purpose of this blog.  The purpose was to determine if an average American sports fan could actually enjoy "the beautiful game".  Those of you who have been reading my posts all year will know that by mid-season I already answered the question with a resounding "yes!"  Although, I don't think any portion of the Bluebirds season could be described as "beautiful".

Before anyone questions my sanity or patriotism, let me say for the record that American football is still my favorite sport to watch.  But like most Americans, I follow more than one sport and soccer has grown to be my second favorite.  

I don't intend to use this blog to convince anyone to love the sport.  But perhaps by reading about my year with Cardiff City and now sharing what I've found enjoyable I might convince you to give it an honest chance and then you can form your own opinion.

If I had to sum up what I like about soccer in three words they would be:  tension, Saturdays, and community.

Tension - Soccer is a low-scoring sport.  This was actually one of the reasons I (and most Americans) never bothered to watch it.  I am so accustomed to watching American football where your team will rack up anywhere from 15.4 to 36.4 points per game on average (2013 NFL stats).  In contrast, the average soccer match will see a club scoring between 0.74 to 2.68 goals per match (2013 Premer League stats).  But the interesting side effect of a low-scoring sport is that a single scoring play is far more likely to determine the outcome of the entire event.  And in the larger narrative, there is always the threat of relegation looming.  So every goal really does have meaning in the Premier League.  This made the sport more exciting to me, in it's own way, than American football.  

Saturdays - I live on the American east coast, so Premier League matches are typically aired at 10am on Saturdays in my time zone.  I was pleasantly suprised by how much I enjoyed my Premier League routine.  I would eat breakfast and watch pre-match coverage.  Coffee and blogging during the match. And then done by noon with a whole day ahead of me.  If I wanted to, I probably could have gone into Boston to watch matches at one of the soccer pubs.  But at 33 I'm far too old for morning boozefests.

Community - The one aspect of soccer that had the greatest impact on changing my feelings was the community surrounding the club.  I am not Welsh, I do not live in Wales, and I never attended a single match.  Yet when I chose Cardiff City as my Premier League club, I was welcomed by their supporters immediately.  I immersed myself in Twitter, blogs, podcasts, fantasy sites, and YouTube shows.  After a while, I started to feel less like I was a fan of team and more like I was a part of the club community.  In some sense, I was reminded of the feeling I have at Villanova Basketball games (my undergraduate college).  It's a far more engrossing sensation than I have when watching the Philadelphia Eagles (my NFL team) for instance.

In the interest of journalistic integrity, I can't rightly tell you what I've come to like about soccer without acknowledging a few things that I still think are bad about the sport.  If I had to sum up the bad aspects of soccer in three words they would be:  stoppage, flopping, and draws.

Stoppage - This is maddening.  The underlying theme of soccer is flow.  The clock never stops, the ball is almost always in motion.  Offense becomes defense, defense becomes offense.  That's all well and good but a side effect of this philosophy is that events that would stop the clock in any other sport do not stop the clock in soccer.  Instead, the head referee adds a completely subjective amount of time to the end of each half to account for time wasted, injuries, etc.  The amount of stoppage time is a complete shock to everyone and honestly I started to develop some paranoia about whether or not the matches were being tinkered with.  

Flopping - There are a LOT of shenanigans that take place on the field during a soccer match.  Pushing, shoving, tripping, and worst of all flopping.  I cannot tell you how many times I saw a player get gently brushed by the shoulder of another player and then collapse in pain as if he had received a gunshot wound to the stomach.  This is almost always followed by 30 seconds of over-dramatized writhing and then a quick one-eyed peek to see if the ref is buying your performance.  It's disgusting, and distracts from players who are legitimately injured.  There's allegedly a post-match review by FIFA to try to catch the worst offenders, but I rarely saw justice served.

Draws - You knew this was coming.  There is no reason on Earth for a competition to end in a draw.  Fans contribute time and money to see a winner and a loser.  Nobody wants to sit for 90+ minutes only to end in two teams saying "ah well we both did our best and let's call it a day".  Ridiculous.  I want a result dammit!  And no, after a year of watching soccer I am especially still not ok with 0-0 draws.  

But the positives far outweigh the negatives.  I found that this sport was worth taking for a spin, and I wasn't alone.  Premier League viewership DOUBLED in America between the 2012/13 and 2013/14 seasons.  This was almost exclusively due to NBC taking a leap of faith and heavily investing themselves in promoting the sport.  To give you some context, here are the average regular season TV viewership stats in the US last season:

• NFL:  17.6M
• MLB:  2.4M
• NBA:  2.0M
• NHL:  0.5M
• PL:  0.44M

You can spin these numbers however you like, but don't be shocked if this time next year Premier League surpasses NHL in TV viewership.  

By the way, the single most-viewed match in America of the 2013/14 Premier League season was...you guessed it:  Cardiff City's victory over Swansea City on February 8th (1.24M viewers).

So I like the Premier League, and almost as many Americans like Premier League as like the NHL.  But do American's like soccer now?  Let's look at some World Cup US TV viewership stats:

US-Ghana (Monday, June 16th, 6pm EST)

• 16.4M viewers = 11.1M (ESPN) + 4.8M (Univision) + 0.5M (WatchESPN app)
• Third most-viewed World Cup match on ESPN of all time

US-Portugal (Sunday, June 22nd, 6pm EST)

• 26M viewers = 18.2M (ESPN) + 6.5M (Univision) + 1.3M (WatchESPN app)
• Most-viewed soccer match on any US network of all time

US-Germany (Thursday, June 26th, 12pm EST)

• 15.9M viewers = 10.8M (ESPN) + 3.4M (Univision) + 1.7M (WatchESPN app)
• Fourth most-viewed World Cup match on ESPN of all time

US-Belgium (Tuesday, July 1st, 4pm EST)

• 25.1M viewers = 16.5M (ESPN) + 5.1M (Univision) + 3.5M (WatchESPN app)
• Second most-viewed World Cup match on ESPN of all time

Fine, fine.  So Americans like to watch Americans in the World Cup, but do we like the World Cup in general?  Yes.  Over the first 60 matches of the World Cup, US average TV viewership on ESPN increased 42% over the 2010 World Cup (does not include WatchESPN app stats).

And on Univision, over the first 60 matches of the World Cup, US average TV viewership increased 38% over the 2010 World Cup.  

Again for context, here are the average 2013/14 post-season TV viewership stats in America:

• NFL playoffs:  111.5M
• US-Portugal match:  26M
• US-Belgium match:  25.1M
• US-Ghana match:  16.4M
• US-Germany match:  15.9M
• NBA playoffs:  15.5M
• MLB playoffs:  14.9M
• NHL playoffs:  5.0M

So Americans like the Premier League and their national team, but what about their domestic league?  Ehhhhh,  not so much.  MLS regular season attendance figures are on par with those of NBA and NHL, but MLS regular season viewership is pretty bad...  

• 0.22M ESPN/ESPN2
• 0.13M NBCSports

Why is viewership of MLS so low, when Premier League and World Cup viewership is so high?  The answer is pretty obvious.  MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL are inarguably the highest-quality leagues in the world in their respective sports.  MLS however is a popular, but unfortunately inferior product.

Ranking domestic soccer leagues is a contentious topic, but Sounder at Heart blogger Dave Clark (@bedirthan) attempted to do just that.  According to Clark's rating system, this is how MLS stacks up against the leagues of the world:

So Americans will happily watch soccer, but it's a tall order to ask them to love the 12th best league in the world.  If you want to read more about Clark's rating system, you can find his full article here...

http://www.sounderatheart.com/2014/6/5/5782894/mls-gains-ground-in-league-rankings

My prediction is that the explosive increase in World Cup viewership will lead to another season of significant increase in US Premier League viewership.  MLS I suspect will only receive a marginal bump.  

If you're still reading at this point, you're either already a Bluebirds fan or perhaps curious to find a club of your own to support in the upcoming Premier League season.  It's a daunting task, but you have until mid-August to decide.  Here are the 2014/15 Premier League clubs:

• Arsenal
• Aston Villa
• Burnley
• Chelsea
• Crystal Palace
• Everton
• Hull City
• Leicester City
• Liverpool
• Manchester City
• Manchester United
• Newcastle United
• Queens Park Rangers
• Southampton
• Stoke City
• Sunderland
• Swansea City
• Tottenham Hotspur
• West Bromwich Albion
• West Ham United

If Cardiff City were still in the Premier League, I'd whole-heartedly recommend you join me in supporting them.  Alas, they've been relegated.  So who should you pick for your club?  Let's see if I can help.

You had/have family or have friends in England or Wales

Look up where each club is based and see if you have some prior allegiance to that city.

You really want to visit London some day

The London clubs are:  Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Queens Park Rangers, Tottenham Hotspur, and West Ham United.

You only care about offense

Pick Liverpool or Manchester City.

You don't want anyone to accuse you of being a bandwagon jumper

Avoid Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, and probably Arsenal.

You want a club that actually could win the championship

Pick one of the clubs in the potential bandwagon jumper category.

You want a club that has never been relegated

Pick Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, Stoke City (this is 7th season), Swansea City (this is 4th season), or Tottenham Hotspur.

You want a newly-promoted club

The three freshmen in the League are Burnley (this is 2nd season in EPL), Leicester City (9th season in EPL), QPR (7th season in EPL).

You must have a jersey that's actually wearable

Go with either Manchester City or Tottenham Hotspur.  I actually spent some time looking into this question.  Here is my opinion on all the jerseys for 2014/15 season:

• Best:  Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur
• Boring but wearable:  Chelsea, Liverpool, Newcastle United, Arsenal, Everton, Leicester City, and Southampton 
• Not wearable:  Stoke City, Crystal Palace, Aston Villa, Burnley, Hull City, Manchester United, Queens Park Rangers, Swansea City, Sunderland, West Bromwich Albion, West Ham United

You want a club with at least one American player

The obvious choice here would be to pick Everton (Tim Howard).  But there are a few other clubs to choose from as well...

• Aston Villa (Guzan)
• Stoke City (Cameron, Edu, Shea), 
• Sunderland (Altidore)
• Tottenham Hotspur (Friedel)

You're still stuck and just want a recommendation

When I was picking a club, I went with one of the new promotees.  Even though Cardiff City got relegated, I don't regret that decision.  So if I were you, I would go with Leicester City.  No one will call you a bandwagon jumper, they have the best odds of survival of the three freshmen clubs, they have a good nickname (Foxes), a wearable jersey, and a good badge...

Regardless of which club you pick, try to get some friends to watch Premier League with you.  Find your club's podcast and participate in club social media.  Give a shot at Fantasy Premier League.  But most importantly, keep an open mind.  Watching soccer is an adjustment for most American sports fans and it might take a few matches for you to warm up to the game.

I hope you've enjoyed this blog.  In some small way, I feel like I've contributed to the momentum the sport is gaining in this country.  If nothing else, I've connected some US Bluebirds fans to each other and to the larger Cardiff City community.  

Many people have asked if I'll continue to support Cardiff City now that this blog is done.  Yes, I will.  I've joined the Cardiff City Supporters Trust and I'll watch the matches as often as is practical.  When the Bluebirds make it back into the Premier League, there will be an American fan base to cheer for them...and I'll be there too.

Thanks for reading.  Go Bluebirds!

The Change of Seasons

It has been about three weeks since Cardiff City lost to Newcastle United and, for me at least, the shock of getting relegated has finally worn off.  I think this is a good time to look back and recap the season.  As one would deal with a mysterious container in the back of the fridge, let's open the lid, take a deep wiff, grimace in disgust, dispose of the mess, and move forward.  

Throughout this post I'll be referencing a WalesOnline survey whose results were released on May 19th.  You can find the full article here (http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/cardiff-city-fans-survey-reveal-7135241).

Let's get started!

How did Cardiff City perform this season?  As you already know, not so well.  Their final results came out to 7 wins, 9 draws, 22 losses.  The table below summarizes the Bluebirds' home and away scores against their 19 opponents...

In case you're wondering, the "Double" column refers to whether or not Cardiff City beat their opponent in both of their meetings.  A feat they only managed to accomplish against fellow demotee Fulham.

When I look over these 38 matches, there is one clear candidate for my favorite match of the season:  the August 25th, 2013 win at home against Manchester City.  That match was the Bluebirds' second of the season, immediately following a loss to medicore West Ham United.  No one expected Cardiff CIty to accomplish anything that day and yet they proved everyone wrong.  Nine months later this win is even more satisfying, since Manchester City went on to become the Premier League champions.

77% of those surveyed agree with my pick.  The next closest candidate for match of the season was the first Premier League edition of the South Wales Derby on November 3rd, 2013.

And while the survey did not ask this question explicitly, I think most fans would agree with me that the worst match of the season was the February 8th, 2014 loss away at Swansea City.  After defeating the Jacks in their first meeting, Cardiff City were poised to execute a historic first double over their rivals on the biggest possible stage.  For their part, Swansea City were in complete dissaray with fights breaking out among the team and inexperienced player-manager Gary Monk making his debut.

As you already know, the match ended in a Swansea City rout of Cardiff City.  Blech.

There are many ways I could examine what went wrong this season, but since I'm still far from a soccer expert let's stick to the basics:  defensive performance, offensive performance, and managerial  performance.

Here are some Cardiff City defensive stats for you to chew on:  

- 216 attempts on goal (19th in league, Fulham was 20th at 232 attempts)

- 74 goals allowed (19th in league, Fulham was 20th at 85 goals allowed)

- 7 clean sheets (tied for 16th in league with Hull City and Swansea City)

I think it's fair to say that attempts on goal is a stat owned solely by the defenders.  Goals allowed and clean sheets are arguably jointly owned by the defensive players and the goalkeeper.  However this stat is Marshall's and Marshall's alone:

- 143 saves (1st in league)

The 2013/14 Premier League Golden Glove (i.e. highest honor for goalkeepers) was jointly awarded to Petr Cech (Chelsea) and Wojciech Szczesny (Arsenal).  The clubs of those goalkeepers each had 16 clean sheets and that seems to be the primary criteria for the award.  Personally, I think saves is a more pure indicator of goalkeeper quality.  I wonder how Cech and Szczesny would have done if their defenses leaked an additional 113 and 70 respective attempts on goal. #sourgrapes

Marshall did his job and then some all season.  94% of fans surveyed named him as Cardiff City player of the season.  As best I can tell, the blame for this season's poor defensive performance lies with the quality and cohesiveness of the Bluebirds' defenders and with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's management (more on this in a few minutes).  

There's really only one Cardiff City offensive stat you need to know:

- 32 goals scored (19th in league, Norwich City was 20th at 28 goals scored)

To break down this stat, here are the number and scorer for all of Cardiff City's goals scored:

7 - Jordon Mutch

6 - Frazier Campbell

5 - Steven Caulker

3 - Peter Whittingham

2 - Craig Bellamy

2 - Juan Cala

1 - Mats Moller Daehli

1 - Aron Gunnarsson

1 - Kenwyne Jones

1 - Kim Bo-Kyung

1 - Craig Noone

1 - Peter Odemwingie

1 - Sascha Riether (own goal by Fulham)

To give some perspective, Cardiff City's leading goal scorer (Mutch with 7 goals) is in a 13-way tie for 30th highest goal scorer in the Premier League.  That's terrible.  

On the other end of the spectrum was Liverpool's Luis Suarez with 31 goals.  The same number of goals scored as the combined total of ALL Cardiff City goalscorers.

As best I can tell, the blame for this season's poor offensive performance lies with the quality and cohesiveness of the Bluebirds' strikers.

Most of what I've written so far is pretty obvious.  Cardiff City were a great Championship (i.e. Tier 2) club coming into this season, and they made some promising transfers.  But they did not have anywhere near the quality or depth of their competitors.  This fact alone would not have automatically doomed the Bluebirds to relegation from the start.  Good managers can turn a team of mediocre players into a unit that's better than the sum of its parts.

Which brings us to our Cardiff City managerial stats.  The table below captures Cardiff City's standings at the end of each of it's three managers terms this season.  Mackay, Kerslake (caretaker manager), and Solskjaer in order.  The table columns are:  Position at end of tenure (POS), Prior Week 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).

Let's parse the table above.  

Wins, draws, and losses:

- Mackay 4-5-9

- Kerslake 0-1-1

- Solskjaer 3-3-12

Goals fielded/allowed:

- Mackay 13/28 (differential of -15, 0.46 goals fielded for every 1 goal allowed)

- Kerslake 2/4 (differential of -2, 0.5 goals fielded for every 1 goal allowed)

- Solskjaer 17/42 (differential of -25, 0.41 goals fielded for every 1 goal allowed)

Average league position during tenure:

- Mackay 14.11th place

- Kerslake 16.5th place

- Solskjaer 19.06th place

I hope the pattern is clear at this point.  Malky Mackay was the best Cardiff City manger of the season.  You really have to ignore all of Kerslake's stats since he was only in charge for two matches, but Malky was still better than him in all areas except goal differential and ratio.

Yes, Mackay's style of play was boring as hell.  Yes, his relationship with Tan had soured so much that it was literally no longer possible to proceed.  But we can only speculate where the Bluebirds would be next season if Mackay and Tan had been able to work out their differences.  

Extrapolating from Mackay's 18 match performances we get:

- 8 wins, 11 draws, 19 losses

- 27 goals fielded, 59 goals allowed, goal differential of -32

- 35 ranking points

This is an ambiguous result, because we do not know who the one additional win and two additional draws would have been against.  But regardless, the Bluebirds would have finished in 18th place at least.  Possibly 17th.

I really don't think Mackay or Solskjaer were the ideal manager's for Cardiff City's debut Premier League season.  But Solskjaer's inexperience and history as a player did not set him up for success.  His claim to fame was as a striker that came on in the last minutes of a match to score miraculous goals.  He tried to turn the Bluebirds into a more offensive unit, but their composition just didn't support that play style.  

Look closely at the stats I've provided.  Solskjaer's winter signings netted a grand total of 4 goals.  If Mackay had the opportunity, could he not have gotten the same productivity from his own signings?  If you put aside the 4 goals from the signings and the own goal from the Fulham match, Solskjaer actually had a WORSE offensive record than Mackay.  And his lack of expertise in defense lead to 50% increase in goals allowed!

In my opinion you can lay the blame of relegation mostly on Solskjaer and to a lesser extent on the overall quality of transfers.  Feel free to argue that it was the head office's fault for selecting Solskjaer in the first place.  Or that it was the toxic relationship between Mackay and Tan that lead to this mess.  

The survey results state that 62% of fans think Vincent Tan is directly to blame for the relegation.  I think that's a mix of some of my above points pluse anti-rebrand sentiment.

So that is Cardiff City's season in review.  Take a deep breath and exhale all the bad vibes.  Feel better?  Good, me too.  

Summer is still a month away, but it arrives for me once I start spending weekends in Maine.  It's cold and overcast right now, but views like this one of the Atlantic and Nubble Light always make me think the seasons have changed.

And so to have the seasons changed for the Bluebirds.  Let's take a peek at what the Championship League has in store for Cardiff City.

Here is the list of all the clubs in the league:

- Norwich City (Relegated from Premier League)

- Fulham (Relegated from Premier League)

- Cardiff City (Relegated from Premier League)

- Derby County

- Wigan Athletic

- Brighton and Hove Albion

- Reading

- Blackburn Rovers

- Ipswich Town

- Bournemouth

- Nottingham Forest

- Middlesbrough

- Watford

- Bolton Wanderers

- Leeds United

- Sheffield Wednesday

- Huddersfield Town

- Charlton Athletic

- Millwall

- Blackpool

- Birmingham City

- Wolverhampton Wanderers (Promoted from League One)

- Brentford (Promoted from League One)

- Rotherham United (Promoted from League One)

And who will the Bluebirds field in this new league?  Well there have already been three signings:

- Guido Burgstaller (midfielder)

- Javi Guerra (striker)

- Federico Macheda (striker, note this deal is imminent at time of writing)

But with the drop there are bound to be some promising players that leave Cardiff City.  None of these are official (except for Bellamy) at time of writing:

- Steven Caulker (interest from Tottenham Hotspur and Southampton)

- David Marshall (interest from Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, and Arsenal)

- Gary Medel (interest from Valencia)

- Fraizer Campbell (interest from Leicester City, West Bromwich Albion, Sunderland, and Hull City)

- Craig Bellamy (retiring from soccer)

So what are Cardiff City's chances of bouncing back into the Premier League next season?  I found a good Telegraph article on this exact topic. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/championship/10826050/How-often-do-relegated-Premier-League-clubs-bounce-straight-back-from-the-Championship.html)

Over the past 28 seasons of second tier English soccer, 23.5% of newly-relegated clubs get promoted back to the Premier League the following season.  Not great odds, but honestly higher than I was expecting.

According to the WalesOnline fan survey, here's how the fans see next season playing out:

- Champions 4%

- Promoted 19%

- Top Six 29%

- Top Half 33%

- Bottom Half 10.5%

- Relegated 4.5%

We shall see.

Ok, last topic in this marathon post!  How can you catch Bluebirds matches next season?  I won't speak for the rest of the world, but for American Cardiff City fans these are the best options I've found so far:

- If you want to catch a specific Cardiff City match and don't mind paying, try Sky Sports Day Pass (http://www1.skysports.com/nowtv/).  24 hour access to all live events on Sky Sports for about $14.

- If you want to see one or two featured Championship matches each week, subscribe to beIN Sports channel.

- If you want to see Cup matches, subscribe to Fox Sports 1.

- If you want to listen to all Cardiff City matches over internet radio, subscribe to the Cardiff City Player (http://www.player.cardiffcityfc.co.uk)

- If you don't want to pay a dime and want to see every match, you can search for internet live streams of the matches.  This is of dubious legality and I've never tried it personally.

That's it for this week.  Thank you as always for reading.  You can follow me on Twitter (@dragon_bluebird) and feel free to leave comments on this post or any previous one via the blog's comments section.

See you next week for the FINAL POST of Dragon and Bluebird!

Cardiff City vs. Newcastle United/Chelsea: 99 Blue Balloons Go By

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.

Newcastle United's Steven Taylor (Image Credit:  Serena Taylor)

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...

Cardiff City's Jordon Much alongside managerial candidate Jody Davies

"I find this awkward as I'm attempting to get your job, Ole."

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.  

(Image Credit:  Rebecca Naden/Reuters)

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.