Reserve teams in league pyramids: for or against?

[ale]

Fair enough. Do B teams in the Spanish league long pre-date their recent successes?

Not picking on you but saw your reference to Kenedy in earlier post. Genuinely bewildered as to how he ended up at Chelsea. And say that as seeing him improve Newcastle for a short period. But this season he has looked so far beyond a player of Premier calibre hes become a standing joke. On the same subject Chelsea were wanting £19m for him. Based on what?

[ale]

Castilla (aka Real Madrid B) even played in European competition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_M...ason_to_season

Didnt they cruise past West Ham back in the day?

[Nocturnal Submission]

Not picking on you but saw your reference to Kenedy in earlier post. Genuinely bewildered as to how he ended up at Chelsea. And say that as seeing him improve Newcastle for a short period. But this season he has looked so far beyond a player of Premier calibre hes become a standing joke. On the same subject Chelsea were wanting £19m for him. Based on what?

When he played for us he was OK but certainly wasn't anything special. I thought that he was playing well for your boys, though.

[laverte]

If a number of teams can't get promoted then it's some kind of sideshow exhibition football pretending to be a league.

The rule in French football is that a reserve team has to remain at least two tiers below the same club's first team. Thus the reserves of LOSC Féminine have been relegated from the third tier despite finishing in the top three, because their A-team went down from Division 1 to Division 2. As a result, the ownership of LOSC (whose men's team has just qualified for the champions league and its attendant riches) decided to scrap the women's reserves altogether on grounds of cost-ineffectiveness. The decision has since been reversed, in part because of the bad publicity (one of the venues of the forthcoming world cup is a stone's throw from Lille) and in part because the FFF now requires every women's team in D1 to have an active reserve team, so that if LOSC was to be promoted next season they'd have to start over.

It's not rare for women's teams to fold, especially in the lower tiers, but the link with the men's megaclubs is supposed to provide a level of security that independent teams cannot. Just not for reserve teams, it seems.

[Southport Zeb]

Didnt they cruise past West Ham back in the day?

They beat West Ham 3-1 in the first leg but lost 5-1 after extra time in the second.

[Last Years Man]

As I understand it there are two main problems that "proper" third or fourth--tier clubs in Germany have with the reserve teams. One is that they have no fans, which means that a lot of gate money is lost, plus they clog up places in higher divisions where first teams would otherwise be. That's a demonstrable fact. The second one is that they distort the competition by bringing in ringers when they look like they're in trouble. I've got absolutely no evidence for that other than several vague recollections of second teams mysteriously pulling out of the relegation zone at the last minute after being there all season.

The transformation in the fortunes of Cologne's B team during last season was quite remarkable.

After 19 matches, they were dead last in the Regionaliga West. The had mustered 1 win, 7 draws and 11 defeats. The next 15 matches saw 11 wins, 2 draws and just 2 defeats meaning they avoided the drop by 6 points.

They were the only team to beat division champions Viktoria Cologne on their own ground and hammered runners up Rot Weiss Oberhausen 6-1 away. This was Oberhausen's only defeat in their last 13 matches.

They also found their shooting boots in the later half of the campaign. 32 goals were scored in the last 11 games compared with 22 in the first 23 games.

I am not suggesting that their has been anything untoward going on and I'm certainly no expert on the 4th tier of German football. However, I can't think of any other example of a club going through such a radical change of form mid season. If anyone could shed any light on this I would be interested to hear about it.

[Sporting]

We'd first need to look at their starting line-ups for the season.

[ursus arctos]

New manager for one.

Andre Pawlak lost his first two matches, then only dropped one more before he was promoted to caretaker of the first team for their last three matches.

[Ray de Galles]

All the more reason to boycott it ;

Liverpool and Manchester United enter EFL Trophy in 2019-20 season

[Diable Rouge]

All the more reason to boycott it ;

Liverpool and Manchester United enter EFL Trophy in 2019-20 season

Given Man United's reserves finished mid-table in the second tier of the shadow pyramid, they won't frighten any Football League sides.

[Ray de Galles]

That is spectacular point-missing.

[Toby Gymshorts]

All the more reason to boycott it ;

Liverpool and Manchester United enter EFL Trophy in 2019-20 season

Yep. Egregious bullshit, to be shovelled accordingly.

[Arturo]

Norwich have entered too after pulling out last season. The local media are desperately trying to spin it by telling us we'll now have an East Anglian derby v Ipswich next season. I mean for fuck's sake.

It's the second time this week the club have pissed me off after the away membership scheme debacle (which I will come to on another thread later).

[Lang Spoon]

Between this and the Qatar World Club Cup Liverpool are playing super cunty next season.

[Diable Rouge]

That is spectacular point-missing.

No - I entirely agree with you on the principle, just making the general note.