A little soccer background -- and why this is important

I know -- you're thinking, "WTF? Soccer?!?! I thought this was about college football." Well, it is. But some soccer info and background is important here, and I'm blatantly stealing this for my college football proposal. And this knowledge is a crucial piece.

As virtually every suburban kid in the '80s, I played soccer as a boy. And as many, I stopped at about age 12, disowned it, and never really paid attention again. But I'm a big sports fan, and when an event as important as the World Cup comes around -- it's only the most watched sporting event -- I kinda consider it my responsibility as a sports fan to at least pay attention. I've done this for several World Cups. But it never really stuck, and I'd ignore it for the next 4 years, like most Americans.

For whatever reason, while watching the most recent World Cup in 2006, I really grew to appreciate the game. I wanted to know more about it. So I became a fan. Did a little research, started going to some Kansas City Wizards games, and enjoyed that too. Did a little more research, started casually following European Soccer, got more into it, picked a team to root for* ('cause sports are SO much more fun when you have someone to root for/against). And it just snowballed. And now I watch a LOT of soccer. It's just perfect on weekend mornings -- instead of watching the same stupid story on SportsCenter for the 15th time, getting more on the steroid witch hunt, following every move of the drama queen Brett Favre, etc., I watch live English Premier League (EPL) soccer. I'm going to use English soccer as my reference point for this exercise, though most countries use a similar system.

*Arsenal. For those curious, I chose Arsenal. And this is my obligatory citation of Joe Posnanski for using the Posterisk. I'll try not to make too much of a habit of it.

This is long-winded. My apologies. I do that sometimes.

The more I watched and learned (I was totally green about European Soccer, as I'm sure most Americans are), the more fascinated I became. In short, there are 20 teams; each team plays every other team home-and-away (for fairness), and there's no playoff. Whoever ends up in first place wins the league -- it's that gloriously simple. And I love it -- whoever's best over the course of the equitably-scheduled season wins. No Cinderella runs to a title by a sub-.500 team. The best team wins.

But there's so much more. The top 4 teams in the league qualify for the UEFA Champions League -- basically a giant playoff to find out who is the best team in all of Europe, even though there are many, many different leagues. More on that later.

I was most fascinated by the concept of relegation and promotion. Info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relegation_and_promotion. In short, the "minor leagues," if you will, of soccer (again, using England as an example) are independent teams from the Premier League teams -- they're not affiliated like our minor league baseball teams are with their MLB parent clubs. And there's no draft (which makes European soccer much like college football -- light bulb moment #1 for Dan) -- teams recruit and buy/sign who they please. But if they do well enough, they can work their way up the ladder and replace the crappiest teams from the division above. Fantastic concept.

One of the things I HATE about several leagues (NBA -- I'm looking in your direction) is that once a team is out of it, they tank. There are no 2 ways about it. Despite the draft lottery, a bad team mails it in, mildly injured players are suddenly out for the season, and the competition sucks out loud. But what if finishing on the bottom of the league meant you got kicked out of the league? All of a sudden thing are much more interesting, and everyone gives a crap. And Isiah Thomas would have been fired from New York MUCH sooner.

In the EPL, the bottom 3 teams are relegated, and 3 teams from the division below (the Championship League) take their place. There are many, many levels, so it's theoretically possible for a group of friends from a bar to start a team, keep climbing the ladder, and eventually end up playing in the same league as Manchester United. Theoretically.

But what this means is that there's passion on both ends of the standings. As of now (May 15), in the EPL, everyone has 2 games left, and the title is all but decided. Manchester United only needs to win/tie one of their remaining games, or if Liverpool doesn't win both, it's all over. But the interest is at the bottom of the league, where 5 teams are fighting like hell not to end up in the bottom 3, and thus demoted. Great drama. And it doesn't matter who you are (Newcastle -- hello!), if you aren't good enough to finish in the top 85% of the league, adios! These teams do anything but mail it in.

I can't emphasize how much I love this concept, and was thinking how cool it'd be if it was put in place in the States. But it's not really feasible in pro sports because of expansion fees, drafts, the fact that if, say, the Memphis Grizzlies, were relegated, their crowds would go from embarrassing to non-existent.

But this concept would be perfect for college football for many, many reasons. I'll cover that later (this post is long enough already).

And the top 4 teams -- remember those? They advance to the Champions League, which is a different but parallel competition played during the next season (info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Champions_League), and is somewhat the basis of my playoff proposal.

More in the next post.