I must admit, I have been looking forward to this past week's match since the day I picked Cardiff City as my Premier League club. If you have a single competitive fiber in your body, then you really don't need to care one ounce about soccer to appreciate a match between rivals. And for those of you who don't know me, my body composition is 85% competitive fiber.
The other 15% is a Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast meatloaf called "scrapple".
If you're a Premier League newcomer and haven't been following Dragon and Bluebird, you can read my earlier post on the Cardiff City-Swansea City rivalry. The one minute version is that Cardiff and Swansea are the two most populous cities in Wales. Their respective clubs, the Bluebirds and the Jacks, are the only non-English members of the Premier League. Whenever these two clubs meet, it's referred to as the "South Wales Derby".
Oh...and the fans of these two clubs HATE each other.
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| This is why we can't have nice things. (Image Credit: PA) |
I knew that in the past, fan violence had been a severe issue when these two clubs met. What I didn't know were the measures that Welsh police have put in place to prevent future eruptions from occurring. Here is an excerpt from an NBCSports ProSoccerTalk article describing the police tactic known as "the bubble":
"On the day of a game between Swansea and Cardiff, fans of the visiting team are not allowed to use public transport to get into the segregated section in which they're sitting or have tickets. For instance this Sunday, Swansea's fans will have to board specially policed buses in Swansea. No matter if you're a Swansea fan living in Cardiff, you will have to drive 40 miles to Swansea to get on the bus. When you're on that bus, the doors are locked, your ticket is handed to you and the 2,000 or so Swansea fans are given police escort along the M4 several hours before kick off, with police helicopters, vans and motorcycles guiding them along the short stretch of road to Cardiff. Then they're ushered inside the stadium, locked in, and the same process will occur to get out of Cardiff an hour or so after the final whistle and Cardiff's fans have been ushered away."
This is NOT your high school's annual Thanksgiving football rivalry.
Swansea City may have reached the Premier League first, but now Cardiff City have arrived and are their equals once again. The South Wales Derby would be broadcast to a global audience for the first time in its history...no better opportunity for one of these two clubs to stake a claim as the "one team in Wales".
In the Premier League, as in every major league in America...it's the eye of the tiger. It's the thrill of the fight. And by now you must all be wondering, did the Bluebirds rise to the challenge of their rival?
You're goddamn right they did.
Cardiff City 1 - Swansea City 0
- Caulker (CAR) 62'
For the first fifteen minutes of the match, Swansea City seemed composed and Cardiff City seemed anxious...timid even. The Jacks weren't particularly aggressive, but they were clearly on the attack and easily stuffed the Bluebirds repeatedly in the midfield.
Then starting in the second fifteen minutes, Cardiff City seemed to calm down and looked more professional than I had ever seen them this season. Every pass seemed controlled and every offensive action by Swansea City was blunted.
At the end of the first half, the score was still 0-0. I was starting to feel frustrated that despite a superb performance so far, the Bluebirds might now start playing not to lose. Then Cardiff City captain Steven Caulker proved my fears unfounded.
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| Steven Caulker, Bluebird rising (Image Credit: BBC) |
Cardiff City went up 1-0 over Swansea City and I saw fans screaming, hugging, and I swear even weeping. And while the remaining thirty minutes were tense, the Jacks were unable to mount a credible challenge.
This was a low-scoring match, but one piece of the drama was particularly awesome. Towards the very end of the match, Swansea City's goalkeeper Michel Vorm made a last ditch attempt to stop an imminent Fraizer Campbell goal by kicking the Cardiff City forward right in the chest. Vorm got a red card and was ejected.
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| You know darn well what you did! (Image Credit: RTE Sport) |
At this point, a club would normally substitute in their backup goalkeeper. Unfortunately for the Jacks, they had already used all three of their allotted substitutions for the match. So down to just ten men, and not allowed to bring on their reserve goalkeeper, Swansea City were forced to hand over the gloves and jersey to defender Angel Rangel.
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| It's raining, we're losing to Cardiff, and now you want to make ME the goalkeeper?! (Image Credit: PA) |
If this replacement had occurred any earlier in the match, Cardiff City would have been up 12-0. But with only minutes left, and admittedly some skill on Rangel's part, the match ended at 1-0. Cardiff City were the first champions of the Premier League edition of the South Wales Derby.
The Bluebirds walk away with bragging rights and three critical points that put the Bluebirds in 12th place with 3 wins, 3 draws, and 4 losses. The table below captures the full Premier League standings as of 11/05/13. The table columns are: Club Name, Matches Played (Pld), and Match Points (Pts).
We're 10 games into the 38-game season, so this seems like a good point to talk about what these standings mean in the larger context.
In my earlier post on classmates, I mentioned that the average number of points needed to avoid relegation (over the past 21 seasons) is 37. Clubs have survived with as few as 31 points and in some seasons have needed as many as 43 points.
After their first 10 matches, Cardiff City have earned 12 points. Projecting to the end of the season, at this same level of success, this would put the Bluebirds at 45.6 points. Enough historically-speaking to avoid relegation.
I have the formula worked out for the "magic number" (i.e. exact number of points needed to avoid relegation), but it's way to early in the season to worry about it. I'll do this same projection again after 19 and 29 games. Then starting after game 30 (or sooner if something goes horribly wrong) I'll breakdown exact scenarios needed to stay up.
It was a mediocre week for the Cardiff'rent Strokes. Here's the summary of my FPL status:
- Rank (Last Week): 1,297,995
- Rank (This Week): 1,382,968
- Total Players: 3,044,193
That's it for this week. Cardiff City's next match is away at Aston Villa on November 9th. Thank you as always for reading Dragon and Bluebird! You can find me on Twitter as well, @dragon_bluebird.
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