Game 39 threat comes to Spain

[ursus arctos]

And regular season NHL games across Europe and in China.

[Southport Zeb]

China has only had preseason NHL games, although regular season games have been played in Japan.

[ursus arctos]

I knew that I should have checked

[Patrick Thistle]

Ursus, you're doing a me!

[Hot Pepsi]

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/2...est-start-ever

MLB is expanding its number.

I suspect the businesses around Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium Mk2 are pissed to be losing such lucrative crowds, but they play so many that maybe it doesn't matter much. It's not like Alabama deciding to play Auburn in Brussels or something like that.

[Hot Pepsi]

How was/is the 39th game supposed to work? How would they set the match-ups? It would get rid of the problem of "taking a game away" from one of the home clubs' fans. But then those fans have a right to ask, if the players have more games in them, shouldn't they be playing them before loyal fans.

[Kevin S]

See the Rugby League "Magic Weekend" for an example.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Weekend

They've varied between some years where they base the matches on local and historical rivalries and other years based them on the previous season's league position (1st v 2nd, 3rd v 4th etc).

[Kevin S]

"But," I hear you ask, "how can it be fair that Man Utd have to play an extra game against Man City while Arsenal have to play Burnley?"

And the thing is that of course it isn't, but Super League can get away with this because it determines its champion through playoffs and a Grand Final, so a slightly wonky schedule doesn't matter as much as it would in a European soccer league.

[Sporting]

"But," I hear you ask, "how can it be fair that Man Utd have to play an extra game against Man City while Arsenal have to play Burnley?"

And the thing is that of course it isn't, but Super League can get away with this because it determines its champion through playoffs and a Grand Final, so a slightly wonky schedule doesn't matter as much as it would in a European soccer league.

There are similar playoffs in US sports competitions, of course.

[Kevin S]

Indeed - but unless La Liga or the EPL introduced them (hmm...) then game 39 won't be a runner... (double hmm...)

[Satchmo Distel]

Players are considering going on strike

[ursus arctos]

Also worth noting that none of the North American leagues have a truly balanced schedule in which each club plays each other club the same number of times.

[Sporting]

Also worth noting that none of the North American leagues have a truly balanced schedule in which each club plays each other club the same number of times.

The Scottish Championship is similar in this respect but for a different reason.

[Wouter D]

What exactly are we clinging on to here?

The semblance of a half-sane competition format.

I'll have a full round-robin with no fucking around. Playing the one opponent more often than the other = fucking around.

[Satchmo Distel]

The home-and-away system has worked OK from 1888 until the financial doping started. The solution is to stop the doping not dump the home-and-away system.

What we lose with neutral territory is the slim chance of Real or Barcelona losing away to a tricky side that has fairly intimidating home support, e.g. imagine if Man City never had a tricky away fixture because they'd all been moved to China.

[Sam]

The general horror at the prospect of a 39th game surprises me some. Not that it's a great idea. But in the face of all that is wrong with "elite" football these days (not mutually exclusive, of course), the disproportion of the outrage over a few games played on a different patch of land puzzles me. Like Patrick, I shrug.

Overall, I don't get the rush to defend a status quo that is so excruciatingly boring. Is there anything more tedious than the major top-flight European leagues? All dominated by one or two clubs, decided by Christmas if not before they start, played in this never-ending anti-climatic home-and-away system. What exactly are we clinging on to here?

The thing with this is that if we list all the reasons that Europe's major leagues have got to this state, the format is decidedly not one of them. In fact I think there'd be a reasonable argument (to be formulated by someone who isn't awake at 4am having had a couple of whiskies) to suggest that it's one of the main factors in preventing them from getting even worse, first as Satchmo says to maintain the home advantage factor of the smaller teams (not that it did Manchester United much good on Monday, but hey) and secondly by keeping clubs grounded in their localities, as clichéd and trite as that sounds to many.

As a counterpoint, the Copa Argentina has all ties played in neutral stadiums, because when it was resurrected a few years ago the AFA allowed a travel agency to organise it. This results in fixtures such as Defensores de Belgrano v River Plate (distance from one stadium to another as the crow flies: about 800 metres or a kilometre, I'd guess) travelling to the other side of a continent-sized country, to a city where Defensores inevitably don't have any fans and River, as one of the two clubs with a genuinely nationwide following, pack the stadium out with folk who never thought they'd see their heroes live. When I become head of the AFA the first thing I'll do is insist that it changes to a random draw, or seeded if the clubs really insist, but make it non-negotiable either way that the team lower down the league system (at the time the fixture is finalised, in cases where they're both in the same division) have home advantage. It would significantly improve the competition.

I've gone a long way off track there, but if I start a thread on my problems with the Copa Argentina no one will pay any attention, so you all get the benefit of it on here instead.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

"But," I hear you ask, "how can it be fair that Man Utd have to play an extra game against Man City while Arsenal have to play Burnley?"

And the thing is that of course it isn't, but Super League can get away with this because it determines its champion through playoffs and a Grand Final, so a slightly wonky schedule doesn't matter as much as it would in a European soccer league.

This, of course, is what it might lead to. A "regular season" of say 26 games (maybe play all the others and your nearest derby rivals, then six further games ostensibly picked to make a balanced schedule based on last season's positions). Then, a big playoff series at both top and bottom to determine final places. Culminating of course in a Grand Final. It's how all other big team sports do it to one extent or another and I bet the Glazers and JW Henry would love to have an English equivalent of the Superbowl. Accept game 39 and it takes away in one instant any reason to stick to anything remotely resembling simple home and away.

[Sporting]

The thing with this is that if we list all the reasons that Europe's major leagues have got to this state, the format is decidedly not one of them. In fact I think there'd be a reasonable argument (to be formulated by someone who isn't awake at 4am having had a couple of whiskies) to suggest that it's one of the main factors in preventing them from getting even worse, first as Satchmo says to maintain the home advantage factor of the smaller teams (not that it did Manchester United much good on Monday, but hey) and secondly by keeping clubs grounded in their localities, as clichéd and trite as that sounds to many.

As a counterpoint, the Copa Argentina has all ties played in neutral stadiums, because when it was resurrected a few years ago the AFA allowed a travel agency to organise it. This results in fixtures such as Defensores de Belgrano v River Plate (distance from one stadium to another as the crow flies: about 800 metres or a kilometre, I'd guess) travelling to the other side of a continent-sized country, to a city where Defensores inevitably don't have any fans and River, as one of the two clubs with a genuinely nationwide following, pack the stadium out with folk who never thought they'd see their heroes live. When I become head of the AFA the first thing I'll do is insist that it changes to a random draw, or seeded if the clubs really insist, but make it non-negotiable either way that the team lower down the league system (at the time the fixture is finalised, in cases where they're both in the same division) have home advantage. It would significantly improve the competition.

I've gone a long way off track there, but if I start a thread on my problems with the Copa Argentina no one will pay any attention, so you all get the benefit of it on here instead.

I would love to hear more about the Copa Argentina.

[ursus arctos]

Sam is going to need more whisky . . .

The AFA make the RFEF look like amateurs.

[Hot Pepsi]

The general horror at the prospect of a 39th game surprises me some. Not that it's a great idea. But in the face of all that is wrong with "elite" football these days (not mutually exclusive, of course), the disproportion of the outrage over a few games played on a different patch of land puzzles me. Like Patrick, I shrug.

Overall, I don't get the rush to defend a status quo that is so excruciatingly boring. Is there anything more tedious than the major top-flight European leagues? All dominated by one or two clubs, decided by Christmas if not before they start, played in this never-ending anti-climatic home-and-away system. What exactly are we clinging on to here?

I agree with all this, but that doesn't mean it can't get a lot worse or that making it worse shouldn't be opposed.

In this case, it may be like the metaphor of the airplane losing rivets. Losing one rivet on the wing won't make it crash. Losing five probably won't either. But there is some number that will lead to catastrophic failure and maybe this is move represents that critical rivet. Then again, it could be argued that happened a while ago with top level football and that what we're watching (or not watching now, as the case may be) is that catastrophe we still think we're trying to avoid - at least from the perspective of most fans.

I'd be inclined to think that's not the case, and this is just another step along a fairly linear continuum of shit and that it will only make things slightly shittier for fans than they already are. I doubt it will it open the floodgates to half the games being in China or whatever. But that's just a semi-educated guess.

Sam's post made me think that maybe playing a cup game, rather than a league game, abroad would be less damaging, but of course, there's no way to know - not with complete certainty, at least - the teams in a given cup fixture long in advance.

[Sam]

The problem then becomes that they're looking at the Supercopa match this year as the thin end of the wedge rather than as far as they should go (and it's not that far really, given supercups are just glorified friendlies).

There was very briefly a proposal to take a league superclįsico to the US earlier this year. I think the idea lasted about five minutes. It's the only example I've yet seen of it being arguably a good thing that a country's FA/league offices might literally get firebombed and ransacked by angry fans if that organisation were to go through with something.

[seand]

A big part of the problem here, surely, is that there'll be feck all interest in watching Sevilla v Valencia in Beijing or Chicago, let alone Eibar v Girona. Unless it's Barca or Real how much interest/income is Game 39 really going generate?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The home-and-away system has worked OK from 1888 until the financial doping started. The solution is to stop the doping not dump the home-and-away system.

What we lose with neutral territory is the slim chance of Real or Barcelona losing away to a tricky side that has fairly intimidating home support, e.g. imagine if Man City neverspa had a tricky away fixture because they'd all been moved to China.

Financial doping started in 1888. there's a lot less of it now than at any point ever. The period where financial doping really did the damage was in the period around 2000-4, when basically 18 spanish clubs went into functional bankruptcy, and the seven sisters of Serie A became three, and the German league got badly burned by the collapse of their satellite broadcaster. In England Leeds went bankrupt, and chelsea were within hours of following them.

Effectively the big clubs that you see across most of Europe are the well connected clubs who were able to sustain the financial doping long enough to cripple every other club in the league, and part of the reason that they were big enough to survive is that they were financially doping more than the others. The real problem is the unwillingness of the Football authorities to regulate and curb the excesses of the big clubs, particularly the ones that are being used by psychopaths to clean their image, or as a regional powerbase for charlatans as a stepping stone into politics. Now it i getting out of hand. At some point you have to say stop, and that this is fucking nonsense.

[tracteurgarcon]

How about for "Game 39" each team in the Premier League plays the team in La Liga that occupies the same position at a neutral venue, winner gets three points in their own league, one point each for a draw.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Well, they've gone and done it - Girona will 'host' Barcelona in Miami in January. 1500 fans will be given free flights and accommodation and other season ticket holders will be refunded the price of that ticket. Girona reportedly being paid €4m for agreeing to it.