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[Meatpuppet]

I'll do my best, at least for the English side of things. Feel free to correct my inevitable mistakes.

The main prize in English football is the Barclaycard Premiership, being the top tier league in the country.

Next most important trophy is the FA cup, though it has taken a bit of a hammer9ng in recent times with regards to the prestige placed upon it by Premiership teams. The result of this is that some smartasses refer to it as the Fuck All Cup, being their assessment of its worth.

I guess the only other English trophy of any note is the Community Shield, which is a trophy awarded to the winner of a standalone game between the winners of the FA Cup and the Premiership, though I may be a bit muddled on this one. Its held before the Premiership kicks off.

At the same time as the Premiership takes place, the European competitions are in effect. The most prestigious of these is the Uefa Champions League, which is open to the "champions" of each of the Uefa nations. In actuallity, each country is accorded a set number of places for entrants based on something I can't remember at the moment, but I presume its largely to do with the perceived quality/quantity of fans of a particular league. England for example gets 4 places, which are given to the teams that finished in the top four positions in the premiership the previous year.

Below this level is the Uefa Cup, which is much the same, but with less of the big name clubs. Those who fail to get past a certain stage in the Champions League are given entry into this by way of a consolation prize.

Thats it, pretty much.

 

[MrPing1000]

Yep top 4 premiership teams gain entrance to the champions league. 3rd and 4th have to play in the 3rd qualifying round. Teams from smaller footballing nations will begin in either the 1st or 2nd qualifying round. Next comes the league stages which are 8 groups of 4. Play each team twice. Top 2 go through. Last 16 until semi finals are all 2 legged affairs. Final one match at a big european stadium.

Away goals rule applies to the knockout stages (basically if the scores are level after both legs the team with the most goals scored away from home goes through, if they are equal in away goals scored it goes to extra time then penalties.)

The league stages begin in late September and i think they end in November sometime. Knock out stages begin in March usually. (note for the draw for the knock out stages teams that won their group will play a team that came 2nd in their group)

Uefa cup is for the other top teams that weren't good enough for the champs league. Teams that failed to win their qualifing round in the champs league + those that got knocked out of the champs league group stages taht came 3rd take part. Other ways to gain entry are the top 3 fair play teams and the intertoto cup (mini cup with 3 finals winner of each gets a place)

Its basically a huge 2 legged knock out competition happening around the same time as the champs league.

 

[MrPing1000]

Most European nations have their league + a major cup. England has the Premiership + FA Cup. Spain has La Liga + Copa del Rey. Italy has Seria A + Italian cup.

The FA basically can be entered by any football team, right down to the minnows that play for their sunday league team 10+ levels down from the premiership. There are many premlimiery rounds to get rid of a lot of these. League teams start in the first round, premiership teams begin in the 3rd round.

Many nations have the league cup as well. In England, all 4 divisions play, premiership teams entering in 2nd and 3rd rounds depending on their position season before. In England at least most people don't care about this cup, the premiership teams will have a tendancy to play their reserve team because they have more important things to worry about. That is until they get to the final

 

[Shinobi]

Next most important trophy is the FA cup, though it has taken a bit of a hammer9ng in recent times with regards to the prestige placed upon it by Premiership teams. The result of this is that some smartasses refer to it as the Fuck All Cup, being their assessment of its worth.

:lol That made me laugh far harder then it should have.

 

[Kola]

Simultaneously there's also the qualification for the European Championship or the World Cup (like this weekend for example).

 

[Alucard]

I'm...still a little confused. How can teams be playing for both, the league cup and the FA cup? How does that work and are they playing for these simultaneously?

 

[MrPing1000]

I'm...still a little confused. How can teams be playing for both, the league cup and the FA cup? How does that work and are they playing for these simultaneously?

basically there are days in the season allocated for things such as internationals, cups etc. The FA cup gets played on a sat/sun, teams involved won't have league fixtures these days. League Cup games are usually played on a wednesday (this adds to why premiership teams play their reserves when they have premiership games at the weekend) champions league is tues/weds and uefa cup is thursday.

Fixtures get moved all the time for the big clubs. Whats happened to Man Utd and Arsenal in recent history is they end up having to play 4-6 premiership games in quick succession near the end of the season

 

[Alucard]

Man, that's still confusing. Haha. Ah well, I'll just try to keep track of scores and everything at premierleague.com.

 

[MrPing1000]

www.uefa.com will clue u in on the champs league and the uefa cup as well

 

[lochnesssnowman]

The UEFA Cup also has a league format this year.

After this round (first round - a two legged knockout round) the surviving 40 teams get split into 8 groups of 5 teams, with each team playing the other 4 teams once. There are two home legs and two away legs (which I guess are randomly allocated). From this league set up, the top three teams from each league (comprising 24 teams) all progress to a 32 team knockout phase (to be joined by the 8 third placed teams from the 8 Champions League groups).

I support Rangers by the by. We are in a transition season with a lot of new players having joined over the summer. I expect Celtic to win the Scottish title this year although not as candidly as last season. Through the season I expect Rangers to go from strength to strength as the team get to know each other but with Celtic as strong as they are, we will do well to win a trophy. Still, I hope we can nick something.

How Rangers signed a player of Jean Alain Boumsongs quality is beyond me. He is absolute class. Great with both feet, good positioning, good heading, good passing and great tackling. I hope we can hold on to him for at least a couple of seasons but I have my doubts.

 

[CelticFC#1]

I agree with you, Boumsong is class and is the best defender in the league. He's the kinda player we're needing for our Champions League campaign.

Well Scotland got a draw against Spain and we really should've won due to Stevie Crawford missing two certainties. We're playing Slovenia on Wednesday, who won 3-0 against Moldova, but I still see us getting beat.

Whatever the outcome, we can be happy that we got a good result or we can laugh at how bad we are.

The benefits of being a Scotland supporter.

 

[lochnesssnowman]

Aye. We played really well against Spain. I was just glad to see the passion back. The boys really got stuck in and didn't let Spain play their usual game which is the Scotland of old. We might not be any good but if we can play with a bit of fervour at least we can make it difficult for the other team. Ferguson and Fletcher are a good combination in midfield though and wouldn't look out of place in a number of bigger teams. If Ferguson gets a few more games under his belt he can start to regain his form from the Rangers treble winning season.

The best thing about being a Scotland fan is that we know we're shit and generally expect the worst anyway which means that whatever the result we can have a good time. I was in the pub for the Spain game and it was class. Slovenia are a good team, better than us probably, so I fear the worst on Wednesday but still, like I say, I'll be enjoying myself at the pub somewhere regardless. I'll be at the Norway game whenever that is, have booked tickets.

'mon the Scots!!

For fear of upsetting international relations, I will refrain from commenting on the England game. Ahem.

 

[Shinobi]

Shouldn't you guys be cutting up each other's mothers or something?

 

[MrPing1000]

so new Newcastle manager is Graeme Souness. Seems like a step in the wrong direction to me.

 

[Solid]

so new Newcastle manager is Graeme Souness. Seems like a step in the wrong direction to me.

Me too. Isn't he bitching with the players all the time? I heard Dwight Yorke had a hard time with him.

 

[MrPing1000]

Me too. Isn't he bitching with the players all the time? I heard Dwight Yorke had a hard time with him.

Yorke was a party boy anyway. After thinking about it a bit more it may actually be a good thing. They'll have a manager that won't take shit and will sort out the problems they've been having backstage. I hope Shearer is shitting his pants

 

[cja]

I'm...still a little confused. How can teams be playing for both, the league cup and the FA cup? How does that work and are they playing for these simultaneously?

1st round of the League Cup (Carling Cup) is played by English professional teams outside the Premiership and was concluding in August. 2nd round sees Premiership teams not playing in Europe enter the competition and 3rd round sees those teams in Europe entering.

The FA Cup 3rd round, when the top two professional leagues (Premiership and Championship) enter isn't until December/January by which time the League cup is already at the semi-final stage. The League Cup, imho, should be canned, but for political reasons it hasn't been and all bar Arsenal, Chelsea and Man U take it seriously since it is worth a place in the UEFA cup.

edit:bolded dumb mistake

 

[Mama Smurf]

I always miss stickied threads.

Blackburn fan here, suppose I should comment. Souness is definitely the best manager we've had since Kenny Daglish (please come back Kenny, please!). Last season was crap, but this season looked more promising. We've performed well, despite what our points total tells you. There's something about Blackburn though that needed a change. So I'm not so sad, maybe a new manager will be that thing.

I think Souness will do well at Newcastle, it's not like the big name managers managed to win anything. They haven't won anything in 30 years in fact, a remarkable statistic for such a club. No way do Blackburn have the same prestige as Newcastle, but we've won both the League Cup and the Premiership in that time. I'm not entirely sure why Newcastle would bring in a coach who has had problems with his players though, what with the crap Newcastle have been through, but there you go.

As for our new manager, I really hope it's Gordon Strachan. He did a fantastic job at Southampton, I'd love to see him replicate that at Blackburn. The normal names are being thrown around, Glen Hoddle (maybe, he was good at Southampton, poor at Tottenham and England), Gerrard Houllier (no thanks, never rated him), Mark Hughes (another good one, it's amazing how far Wales have come under him), Alan Shearer (yeah right), Joe Royle (...nah) and Walter Smith (maybe, he didn't do so great at Everton though).

I'm sure we'll see a decision in the next week or two anyway, I'll bitch to you guys about it then.

 

[Chibbi Brady]

Internationals again tonight. The Republic are away to Switzerland who beat us twice in the qualifiers for Euro 2004. Don't really know how that happened because they are an average side. I fully expect that we'll put on a better performance this time round. Having Keane fit again is a huge boost, although if Kavanagh is to make way then I have some sympathy for him. He turned in a very good performance against Cyprus and looks like the kind of player you can depend on.

Reid also had a stormer last Saturday and I expect himself and Duff to cause quite a few headaches for the Swiss. Hopefully Clinton and Robbie will do the business for us up front. They were very poor last time out but maybe that goal for Clinton and Robbie equally the record, will have done them the world of good.

The Poland - England match should be very interesting as well. Anything less than a win and Sven might go bye bye. To be fair if he sticks with James again then he's playing with fire. He's an accident waiting to happen, any Liverpool fan can tell you that. Hardly inspires confidence in the defenders around him.

 

[MrPing1000]

we are so going to get beat by wales tonight lol

 

[Chibbi Brady]

You never know, stranger things have happened. Greece just won Euro 2004 for crying out loud, so anything is possible.

You guys have improved a fair bit under Lawrie and Gerry, you even managed to score.
I think it'll actually be a close game with Wales just about shading it, everyone seems to up their game when playing another home nation. Really looking forward to the England - Northern/Wales games. Should be something special, I'd imagine the reception up in Windsor Park will be hostile to say the least.

 

[Hooker]

Most interesting match tonight is Holland - Czeck Republic... and we're going to lose as well . 1-3 is what I'm predicting

 

[MrPing1000]

Ok this is the most INSANE match i've ever watched

8 minutes in Michael Hughes and Robbie Savage both get sent off (hughes deserved it but not so sure savage did)

2 minute later Northern Ireland score WOOT!

15mins in or so defender slips David Healy scored WOOT 2-0000000000000!!!!!!!!!!


Then David Healy gets sent off for celebrating too much then making a rude gesture..... if you are Italian..... which the referee is.

Insane

 

[Mama Smurf]

That's pretty amazing Northern Ireland. Thank you for driving Mark Hughes out of the Wales job to Blackburn

Seriously, I'm impressed. Wales are a good team, I expected them to be England's main rivals in this group. I guess you can never tell with derby games (which is why this group is tougher for England than it looks on paper).

I haven't seen the England game and won't even get to watch highlights (some fucker at the BBC really screwed that one up), but I'm glad to see we're 1-0 up. i'm even more glad to see James and Smith dropped for Robinson and Defoe. Remarkable, it's like Sven grew a pair and realised you're allowed to drop players when they're shit (that's really aimed at James).

 

[Mama Smurf]

Fuck, so much changed while I typed that.

 

[brooklyngooner]

Remarkable, it's like Sven grew a pair and realised you're allowed to drop players when they're shit (that's really aimed at James).

Should also be aimed at Beckham who is pants.

 

[Mama Smurf]

Except he isn't.

Good, we won. Should be 6 points, but 4 will have to do.

 

[Hooker]

Motherfucker.... we actually beat the Czechs

 

[brooklyngooner]

Except he isn't.

Except that Wright-Phillips is better for this team and is in better form right now.

 

[Mama Smurf]

Better form maybe, better for the team, I don't think so. If I was to play Wright-Phillips, I'd move Beckham into the middle with Lampard and Gerrard to the left, dropping Bridge.

 

[brooklyngooner]

Better form maybe, better for the team, I don't think so. If I was to play Wright-Phillips, I'd move Beckham into the middle with Lampard and Gerrard to the left, dropping Bridge.

Well then you and I are leagues apart in what we think is best for the team

 

[Mama Smurf]

I can only assume you want a left footer in midfield, because otherwise no way would you keep Bridge in the four ahead of Beckham.

I see absolutely no need for a left footed midfielder, Ashley Cole is fantastic going forward and putting crosses in, we just need the central players to make sure at least one of them is covering that area too. Someone said this recently, though I forget who (some pundit) and they're right...Arsenal don't play with a left winger. They switch things round, but often they play with Pires (a right footer) on the left who plays very much a Gerrard role (without the defensive qualities), driving inside with Ashley Cole bombing up the left.

 

[Chibbi Brady]

Bloody hell, just saw the highlights of the Wales/Nothern Ireland game. I know people say this a lot but WORST REFEREE EVER. Why on earth did Savage get a red card? For being hacked down and pushed is the only possible answer I can think of. Nasty challenge from Hughes but again a yellow card and a calming down of the suituation would have worked just as well. The atmosphere was always going to be really charged, more of an FA cup type game, so a strong ref should have been put in charge.

Blantant penalty right under the refs nose as well, at 2-1 to the North this could have sealed victory. Talk about bottling it, he was 5 yards away with a perfect view. Don't even get me started on the Healy thing. Bloody refs.

The Republic/Switzerland game was pretty dire. I don't know what the hell was up with us, we played so deep it was untrue, allowed the Swiss to come onto us after a brilliant goal from Morrison. To be fair we were pants, everyone apart from Given and Duff. Actually the front 2 worked really hard but Robbie was his usual self. He always tries to do the difficult thing, never the easiest option, he always goes for the more complicated thing and invariably it's the wrong option. He needs to keep it simple because he's not a good enough player to do otherwise. His finishing needs a lot of work as well.

Looking at the bigger picture I guess 4 points is a good start. I just see it as 2 points dropped because Switzerland are an average team that were there for the taking. There defence was all over the place, bah.

 

[Kon Tiki]

Well it looks like:

is going to be put to rest soon. With tonight pending lose against Costa Rica, we will need to win 3 in a row to make it.

 

[Volt]

Yep, that's the problem. Inter used to be much stronger in the past, but still they are one of the best Italian teams and it's quite hard to score a goal against them. I do consider Valencia to be the toughest team in our group since the Spanish league is imo still the best league in Europe. Every four Spanish teams in this CL season were set as group leader and Valencia just won their national league..

Both of our teams are gonna need a serious stunt to win against Inter or Valencia, but there's always a chance IMO. Valencia is the big favourite, which of course puts the pressure on them. That's about the only positive side I can come up with for this draw.

Although we signed contracts with young and talented players our roster still lacks some players who are up to this challenge. What about Anderlecht? Do they have enough players in the background who might step in front and take responsibility?

Anderlecht has a decent sized squad, although it's shrunk when compared to last year's. We just saw Korean international Hi-Kyon Seol leave for Wolverhampton (sheesh), but all the other important players stayed on, and we have Belgian international Mbo Mpenza (older brother of Emile who plays for Hamburg) joining us this season. We're looking at a lot of games coming up too (cup, European and national competition), but the opposition won't be as heavy as what Bremen are facing. We don't have a lot of very talented younger players, because most of the really talented ones have already been signed to the starting squad. Still, the team is very motivated and relatively young, so there's some potential here.

Of course I remember Mr. "Blonde" Zetterberg. He performed quite good in the first half, but then... Now he's warned and I think he'll help your team a lot, as he must be quite experienced on the international level by now.

Well he is a great guy who helps the team mentally a lot, but he doesn't get selected for a lot of matches as both Albanian international Besnik Hasi and Belgian international Walter Baseggio are generally preferred by coach Hugo Broos. Maybe he'll get a chance to play against Bremen though

Good luck this weekend, and this Tuesday against Inter. I'm getting pretty excited for our match against Valencia !

 

[Solid]

Well it looks like:

is going to be put to rest soon. With tonight pending lose against Costa Rica, we will need to win 3 in a row to make it.

Having Canada in a big tournament would be really awesome. I hope they can make it.

 

[Shinobi]

United with another lucky ass last second tie...it never ends. Meanwhile Chelsea are held to a goaless draw by Aston Villa. And my Gunners? They beat Fulham 3-0. Stil perfect baby!!

Too bad Canada's pretty much done...hopefully there are some young guys coming up through the ranks to help them out in four years.

 

[COCKLES]

Fulham 0 - Arsenal 3

The unbeaten run streaches still further...

 

[brooklyngooner]

WE LOVE YOU FREDDY
BECAUSE YOU'VE GOT NO HAIR
WE LOVE YOU FREDDY
BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT ALL THERE
WE LOVE YOU FREDDY
BECAUSE YOU'RE ARSENAL THROUGH AND THROUGH

 

[cja]

The FA today revealed their new kit for referees:

 

[Mama Smurf]

What the fuck is this new rule giving yellow cards for celebrating with your shirt over your head? Jesus Christ, what a load of shit. Why can't a player do that? A man baring his chest is in no way frowned upon anymore (if it ever was). You see it in your house, at swimming pools, on the street when it's hot, on beaches...what a dumbass rule. Pisses me off no end.

Onto the actual football. 5 games gone and Utd are 9 points down, 14 goals down. Arsenal only dropped 12 points all last year. Not that Arsenal can't have a bad patch, but it's going to be a real struggle to catch them (for Utd, Chelsea are fine).

Fulham were unlucky not to get that goal (there was nothing wrong with that), but it wasn't a penalty. Really hard to see until you watch it extremely slowly at the right angle, but it wasn't. Of course, the problem isn't so much that he didn't give the penalty, it's that he only talked to his linesman because of the protests. Arsenal on the otherhand had a legitimate penalty turned down.

 

[ElyrionX]

Man U disappoints once again......

On a more positive note, did everybody catch Ronaldo's amazing moment somewhere around the 75th minute mark? Basically, he did some amazing feints with his legs and got past Ivan Campo and then went for the kill, hitting it from just outside the penalty box. Keeper got to it and it hit the crossbar..........

 

[Leon]

What the fuck is this new rule giving yellow cards for celebrating with your shirt over your head? Jesus Christ, what a load of shit. Why can't a player do that? A man baring his chest is in no way frowned upon anymore (if it ever was). You see it in your house, at swimming pools, on the street when it's hot, on beaches...what a dumbass rule. Pisses me off no end.

Doesn't it have to do with the sponsors on the jerseys?

 

[Meatpuppet]

I'm nearly sure that it's considered offensive in certain cultures (though damned if I know which ones), and given the administrators' desire for a universally appealing product, shirt removal got pulled.

 

[Kola]

I'm nearly sure that it's considered offensive in certain cultures (though damned if I know which ones), and given the administrators' desire for a universally appealing product, shirt removal got pulled.

Yep, I also heard something about muslim women and the like who are supposedly offended by the bare breasts. Yeah right. And even if some of them were offended: Why should we care? We've got our own "culture", deal with that.

Sometimes the UEFA commitee makes me so angry. I still don't understand the need for a Golden (Silver) Goal. Is it true that this has been abolished by now?

 

[Hooker]

^ Yup

 

[Mama Smurf]

We can't look out for EVERY culture in the world. Gestures which are good in one country are bad in others, showing the soles of your feet is offensive somewhere or other...my point is if British culture and general football culture around the world accepts it, it should be allowed.

That shirt sponser point is interesting though. I can just imagine UEFA or FIFA or whoever made the rule claiming it's ungentlemanly or some shit, while their real worry are big company sponsors breathing down their necks. That shouldn't be something they deal with, if a team's sponsor is unhappy that their brand isn't showing, go to the damn team.

Incidentally he wasn't pulling his shirt off, just up over his face, Ravanelli stylee.

 

[Solid]

Drogba should've had a penalty yesterday. The referee sucked :|

 

[Hooker]

Yup, and the "foul" made by Kezman on Sorenson was bullshit as well. Schwalbe by the goalkeeper. Outside of the box the keeper shouldn't be inmune anymore :/


In other news, Seedorf scored 2 goals in his first game after surgery, AC Milan still tied the game though. Dida got a red card for bringing a player down in the box after 11 minutes

 

[Kola]

Jimmy Jump is back. After the Euro2004 Final in Lissabon, the Fashion Week in London and the Formula 1 GP in Barcelona he now ran onto the field in Nou Camp - Barcelona vs Sevilla - and put his stupid hat on Eto'o's head.