Even with a loss in their final game of the 2012 season, Atlanta has bested New England and Houston in the standings to claim their first ever National Football League (NFL) championship! The fates of Pittsburgh, New Orleans, and Detroit were sealed before they set foot upon the turf this weekend; all three clubs will be relegated to the Xtreme Football League (XFL) in 2013. Filling the NFL vacancies next year will be XFL success stories Chicago, Cincinnati, and New York City. Final 2012 NFL and XFL standings can be found in the table below.
Don't panic...or perhaps I should say "keep calm and carry on". The above scenario was just a re-imagining of the 2012 NFL season as if it had been structured with the same league rules as are used in British soccer. No one has been booted out of the NFL; your beloved Kansas City and Jacksonville are still free to stink things up next year even after only winning a combined four of their last thirty two games. It is however the reality of English soccer that if your team doesn't perform, then they could very well get ousted from their league. Still confused? Let's break all this craziness down, by starting from the top.
The governing body of all professional and semi-professional soccer in England is called the Football Association (FA). Under the FA umbrella, there are thousands (yes, thousands) of soccer clubs organized into a pyramid of leagues. At the very top level of the pyramid is the Premier League (20 clubs). Immediately beneath the Premier League is the Football League-Championship Division (24 clubs). Levels three and four of the pyramid are respectively the Football League-League One and League Two Divisions (both having 24 clubs). Down and down it goes until you reach what are essentially pub leagues.
The sheer number of clubs in the FA is astonishing and should give you some indication of soccer's immense popularity outside of the United States. But what I find to be the most fascinating aspect of the FA is the promotion and relegation system. In the FA, there is legitimately a path for the Green Dragon Inn's pub squad (Shire Football Club) to some day end up playing the elite clubs of the Premier League. And likewise Manchester United, the current Premier League Champions, could in theory someday find themselves facing off against the diminutive but spirited men of the Prancing Pony Inn (Bree Football Club). If you can claw your way to the top of your league, then you will get promoted to a stronger league. And if you sink to the bottom of your league, then you will get relegated to a weaker league.
At Dragon and Bluebird, we're not here to talk about weak soccer leagues. As Ricky Bobby so eloquently stated in Talladega Nights, "If you ain't first, you're last", so let us return now to the top tier of the pyramid...the Premier League.
The Premier League is comprised of twenty clubs that play every other club in the league twice. That's thirty eight games per club each season; there are no playoffs. The Premier League champion is determined by points amassed throughout the season. Clubs are awarded three points for a win, one point for a draw, and no points for a loss. In the event of a tie in points, clubs are ranked first by goal differential (goals scored minus goals given up) and then by total goals scored. Below are the Premier League standings at the close of the 2012/13 season.
As I mentioned earlier, Manchester United were the 2012/13 Premier League champions. And unfortunately for Wigan Athletic, Reading, and Queens Park Rangers, it's down to the Championship League they go. Their vacancies will be filled in the 2013/14 season by Hull City, Crystal Palace, and of course...Cardiff City.
It's worth mentioning that Cardiff City and Hull City finished first and second respectively in the Championship League standings and were awarded automatic entry into the Premier League. To be awarded the third promotion ticket from Championship League to Premier League, you have to win a four-team playoff, which is how Crystal Palace secured the twentieth and final Premier League spot.
On June 19th, the Premier League released the schedule of matches (aka "fixtures") for its 2013/14 season. Cardiff City's first game is away at West Ham United FC, on August 17th. The full Cardiff City match schedule can be found on the Barclay's Premier League website (safe for work).
It will be exciting to track Cardiff City's progress this year. Will they be a lasting presence in the Premier League? Or will they find themselves scrapping it out back down in the Championship League in 2014/15? Keep reading Dragon and Bluebird to follow every moment of this historic season!
Before wrapping things up, I'd like to say thank you to the very kind people at Cardiff Blogs for including Dragon and Bluebird in their Sports blogs section. On their site you can find blogs on the news, music, and lifestyle of Cardiff. Take a visit to Cardiff Blogs (safe for work) and their many contributors when you have the chance.
That's it for now. Feel free to leave comments after each post about your thoughts on this week's entry, the blog in general, or any topics you'd like me to cover during the season. Thank you for reading and we'll meet again next week.
I love how you put their rules of dropping down to the next league into NFL terms- can you imagine if that's how we did it over here? It would definitely up the stakes for the losing record teams.
ReplyDeleteAlso it's interesting they don't have any playoffs, that the champ is determined by points only- I wonder if that makes the season more suspenseful overall.
Thanks Leah! It was a great thought experiment. I don't think it could ever actually work for the NFL, because it would shrink the league down to only nine teams. But it certainly is plausible for MLB, NBA, or NHL.
DeleteThe double round robin setup is interesting. Since you play everyone else in the league twice, there's no question how you would have performed against a team that might not have been on your schedule in a given season. And since there's no single-elimination tournament playoffs, there's no argument about maybe the two teams in the AFC both being stronger than the NFC champion.
I was talking to a friend who has been following EPL for a long time and he made an interesting point. Because the champion is determined by point total, and because of the promotion/relegation cycle, there are actually three races to follow as opposed to our major sports leagues which only have one race. First you have the race for champion of the EPL. Second you have the race to avoid relegation to the Championship League next season. Third you have the race in the Championship League to get promoted into EPL in the next season.
Go Cardiff, beat Chelmsford! Err...I mean beat Swansea!