Primer: English Premier League (Nuts & Bolts Part 2)

[This is part 2 of the third part of a 4-part series]

Well, the season's just under way, so it's time me to finish up this guide (see parts 1 and 2 here and here).

I've told you about the basic structure of the Premier League; now I need to fill in some of the blank spaces.

In part 1 I told you (in an aside I made during a self-aggrandizing digression) that a team gets 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw. There are no points for losing. For the most part this determines in which places teams finish. Should two (or more) teams finish with the same amount of points, the tie is broken by looking at the teams' goal differential: # of goals scored minus # of goals allowed.

Another important piece of information that shapes the campaigns of the teams among the League's elite is the UEFA Champions League. UEFA is the Union of European Football Associations. They oversee a hybrid league/tournament that runs from August through May, just like domestic leagues in each of the major countries across Europe.

The Champions League consists of the best teams across Europe, who qualify based on the domestic position the previous season. This is where the big money is. The television revenue earned by teams that are consistently in the Champions League--and consistently advance from the starting group of 32 teams to the final 16--separates the giants from everyone else, e.g. the teams you've likely heard of: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool, AC Milan. More money and more glory means you're more likely to attract the best players (which means you'll sell the most jersey in Asia...and the rich get richer.

Playing in the Champions League shapes the domestic campaigns of the teams involved because it means playing they'll be playing lots more games, which means:
more fatigue by simply playing more
more fatigue by playing games closer together after traveling around Europe
more injuries
focus pulled away from less glamorous domestic games
more games means rotating more players through the line-up which can make "chemistry" tricky

Taken together, this means that a team still involved in chasing the Premier League title, the Champions League and the FA Cup will really have their hands full. Depending on the relative strength of some teams, their fans (and coaches and players) may consider that being knocked out or dropping out of contention may be a blessing in disguise for pursuing more likely trophies.

How does a team qualify for the Champions League? An arcane calculation determines the strength of the leagues; the top 4 teams from the top 3 leagues (Spain, Italy, England) qualify, the top 3 from leagues 4 through 6, and so on. There are a few more wrinkles here that I'm going to skip. If you do catch the bug, you'll eventually pick this stuff up on your own.

Is the Champions League the only European tournament? Of course not! That would be too simple. There is a second, lesser hybrid league/tournament, called (after a name change last year) the Europa League. In England, generally clubs 5 through 7 qualify for this tournament.

[NOTE: In the olden days--which pretty much means before the 1990s when we're talking about European football--the Champions League was called the European Cup and only consisted of the champions from each league; the Europa League was called the Cup Winners' Cup and consisted of teams that won their league's domestic cup competition.]

Let's put this all in the context of what's so entertaining about following the Premier League in comparison and contrast with the Big 3 American sports: with regard to the structure of the League (or leagues, as we've seen), the answer is, in a word, depth.

There are multiple goals at stake at multiple places throughout the league table against different kinds of competition in different formats.

Stated differently, there's a lot of shit going on. I've found that appeals to me. Perhaps it will to you as well.

Ok, that's the Nuts & Bolts.

On to the other cool stuff that makes the Premier League interesting, in part 4 of this 3-part series.
Read more...

Primer: English Premier League (Nuts & Bolts Part 1)

[This is part 2 of a 3?-part series]

Alright, with that out of the way, let me lay out everything you'll want to know (and then some).

How the League is structured

Though it might seem mundane and merely fundamental, the Premier League's structure (which is basically the same across the top leagues in Europe) provides a great deal of its appeal and marks it as foreign and exotic compared to the Big 3 American sports (sorry, hockey, you remain a niche sport--which I think you'll admit suits you better).

There are 20 teams. But it's not always the same 20, you see. At the end of each season, the three teams at the bottom of the table are dropped into the division below. The term for going down is relegation. In one sense, this is like getting sent to the minors. But in another sense, it's nothing like that, because the divisions below aren't merely farm teams. They represent cities and towns all across England and these teams all have varying degrees of ambition. Some of these teams are even former greats that have fallen on hard times.

Think about that. The Premier League could never have a perennial punching bag with an owner that didn't care, like the Clippers. It gets new punching bags every season, to be sure, but these teams are full of piss and vinegar because they've clawed their way to the top of the heap, or, rather, clawed their way to a new heap. And that heap is a potentially huge pile of money.

Think about this. Toward the end of the season, teams that have no shot at the title may still be involved in some drama and some meaningful games. Think about all the meaningless games played in American sports once playoff spots have been determined. Of course, there are still teams in the middle whose games mean little, but the higher you finish, the bigger your share of the dough.

So what's the format for how these teams play each other? The answer provides yet another contrast from American sports and, in some ways, is a better alternative. I think so, and my wife--herself a huge sports fan--also thinks so.

Each team plays ever other team twice, once at home and once away. Perfectly equitable, no doubt. Less obvious but more important, the number of games--38--seems to me to be quite the sweet spot. Part of the appeal of gridiron (American) football, both professional and collegiate, is that each game really matters because there are so few. But if you like the sport, that means there are so few games to watch and the season isn't all that long. The club soccer season is just like the school year: middle of August through end of May, taking the summer off. There's just something awesome about that, right?

At 38, each game is still meaningful but not quite so make-or-break like college football. And because each club plays every other club, there's no schedule disparity like in pro football where some teams have creampuffs in their division they get to play twice, and games outside the division for one team may be against teams far weaker than those for another team. Here, the playing field is much more even (at least schedule-wise. As we'll see, there are several factors that keep the playing field tilted).

When it comes to basketball and baseball, nobody can deny there are too many wasted games. Ask any player what he'd do if he were commissioner and invariably they'll tell you "shorten the schedule."

But there's also another reason many games are meaningless, which brings me to another fundamental difference between the League and the Big 3--one that freaks out a lot of Americans as being very foreign: there are no playoffs. That's right, no playoffs. The team that finishes on top after playing everybody home and away is the champ who takes home the big trophy and the bragging rights. Crazy, right? The team that has the best season wins, simple as that. The appeal of that may not seem clear in print, or even in your head, but the more you follow the game the more it will begin to appeal to you.

But , you say, there's something about a scrappy upstart peaking at the right time and knocking of a big dog. The answer addresses your concern but again, it will seem quite foreign to you. During the 38 game season, which constitutes the whole of the Barclays Premier League (Barclays being the bank whose sponsorship is so large it extends to getting its name into the League's name), there is another, separate competition. It is called the FA Cup. FA being the Football Association, the governing body which rules all football in England--both the national team and the club teams. This competition is old--over 100 years old. Unlike the Premier League, it is not a season but a tournament. A tournament that lasts the length of the season!

It is strictly a knock-out competition--there is no best of 7 series. There are fourteen rounds; the first six are for the smaller teams to qualify. And when I say small, I'm talking semi-pro. Guys with real jobs. Fields (or pitches, as they're known to our cousins) are often of sub-high school quality with only the barest of bare-bones bleachers for the supporters. And yes, some of these "minnows" can rise up and knock off a Goliath. Nothing, and I mean nothing in the Big 3 American sports can compare to that. As the tournament advances and the minnows fall by the wayside, there still remain large professional clubs that ply their trade far below the ranks of the rich and famous and they, too, get a chance to knock off big teams and even advance to the semi-finals and final, which take place in England's biggest stadium. The day of the FA Cup final was long considered England's "Super Bowl".

Sadly, in the recent era of big, BIG money (you may have heard that Manchester United sold a player to Real Madrid for $130 million) it has become nigh on impossible for an also-ran to make it that far. But the structure is still in place to allow it to happen, even if the culture isn't.

So, let's summarize:

The 3 worst teams at the end of the season get dropped down to a lower league.

There are 20 teams who play 38 games--2 games against each team, once at home and once away.

The champion is the team who finishes on top at the end of the season--there are no playoffs.

There is, however, a knock out competition that runs concurrently with the "regular" season.

Ok sportsfans, I think this is a good place to stop. Be assured, part 2 of Nuts & Bolts will be up later tonight.

Read more...

Primer: English Premier League (Self-Serving Intro)

[This is Part 1 in a 3?-part series]

Nobody's asked for it but I've been promising it, so here it is, sportsfans, just in time for the start of the season this weekend. Before I dive into a detailed explanation of the ins and outs, the whos and wheres and whys, I've got to address why you'd even want to care. As with most everything I discuss on this blog, you should care because I do.

Also, of course, because following the Premier League is, ultimately, more rewarding than following baseball, basketball, or (gridiron) football--professional or collegiate. You heard that right. I grew up worshiping the big three sports--and I still follow my teams in each of them--but I really don't care about the other teams, players, coaches or stories that make up the drama of a season.

I'd wager it's a combination of fatigue, a desire for something novel and new, increasingly crappy television coverage, and the superiority of soccer generally and the Premier League specifically. (NOTE: I'll be using soccer and football interchangeably. For the record, the origin of the term soccer is English and dates back to the very origin of the sport, so when Brits or Euros make fun of our use of the term as somehow provincial, they can fuck right off. I know the day will come when I'll have one too many in a pub, make this point, follow it up with "You can fuck right off" and get my ass kicked. It would be worth it.)

I'll admit right up front I'm a pretty big Anglophile. I'm well aware that had a lot to do with how quickly I took to their league. But it really has nothing to do with how quickly I took to the sport. Sure, I, like millions of American boys and girls, played organized soccer growing up--before moving on to focus on one sport, or other more mainstream sports like rockclimbing and throwing the hammer or javelin. So for many years I never gave the thought much sport.

But soccer began creeping into my consciousness in 1994 as the World Cup came to America and FIFA Soccer came to the Sega Genesis. Lots of videogame sparring plus attending games--U.S. v. Brazil on July 4 at Stanford and Costa Rica v. Romania (or was it the U.S.?) at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. Fun to watch, fun to play in a videogame, and after witnessing the Brazilian fans mobbing the intersections, banging drums and climbing up on streetlights after beating the U.S., fun to experience.

Can't say I paid too much attention to the World Cup in 1998--at that point really the only opportunity for an American to watch world-class football. I had continued to sporadically play soccer videogames, and Fox Sports had begun showing some English club games (NOTE: the World Cup involves national teams, like in the Olympics; countries also have professional leagues, wherein teams are referred to as clubs. Because it sounds more sophisticated than team, I don't know.) Anyway, I don't really know why I paid so little attention then.

But come 2002, I watched a whole lot of World Cup. And I began following the English League when the season began later that year. A year later, on my honeymoon in Thailand, I stayed up until 3am one night to catch an English League game involving Arsenal, the team I had chosen to root for (or support, as they say over there. They have supporters, not fans--but make no mistake, they're every bit as fanatical).

Not long after that I and a partner in crime who was there at the beginning in 1994 and had begun to follow soccer as well, got the crazy notion to start a recreational team. Had he and I played soccer since we were boys? No. Well, actually I had played goalkeeper in intramurals in college, but since our team largely consisted of guys who had played high-level soccer through high school, I didn't have to do much. Did the fact that we didn't play soccer, or know a bunch of soccer players stop us. Fuck no!

Somehow we managed to round up about 20 men: some who had played soccer through high school, some who were great athletes who picked it up quickly, and some who had played in college. Friends-of-friends, co-workers, distant relatives, a dude who rode by on a bike and asked if we needed more players--we were a rag-tag bunch. We started during the summer in the San Fernando Valley when temperatures hovered around 100 degrees. Early on we had a hard time fielding enough guys to have substitutes--I recall guys puking from over-exertion (but not me, I was playing goalie again. I had planned to get in shape and play out in the field, but our goalie pulled out at the last second. As I stare at my fat belly 5 years later I still rue that turn of events).

Over the course of a few seasons we clawed our way up and eventually went undefeated and won the championship in our division. A culmination of teamwork, persistence and hardwork (wrangling at least 11 guys out of 20 to show up every week was a tough goddamned grind).

While theses seasons passed, I was mainlining English soccer. Watching whatever games were on the Fox Soccer Channel. Waking up early to go to a pub to watch Arsenal when their games weren't televised. Picking up info and insight from the passionate knuclehead English ex-pats on FSC's Fox Football Friday. I was in deep.

And I'll be damned if that didn't payoff in actual physical ways. At the end of a game, with mere seconds to go, our team was down by one goal and we needed to draw to have a shot at the playoffs (NOTE: you get 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw. Traditionally in football there are no playoffs, but hey, this was a rec league in America.)

So I, as the keeper, run the length of the field to join the rest of my team in a corner kick which was likely to be the last play of the game. (NOTE: for a corner kick, play stops, a player places the ball at the corner of the field while everybody else gangs up in front of the goal awaiting the incoming kick). There I am, trying to sneak into the fray unnoticed--wearing bright yellow, all 6'1", 250lbs of me--and nobody on the other team really tries to defend me. Here comes the kick, curling in perfectly, heading directly for...me? no way? Yes. At this point, time slows for me. It's heading for my head? Yes. I'm really gonna have to head this? I haven't headed a ball since I was 11. It's getting closer. I better not fuck this up. BAM!

I strike it square, textbook perfect. Right past their keeper. Holy Shit! Pandemonium. Game over. The other team loses their shit, screaming at the ref, screaming at us. They think I punched it with my hand, such is their disbelief. Nope, no hand of god here. Of course, for the rest of the life of our team, if anybody wants to get my goat they straightfacedly claim--to new members I forced to listen to my tale--that I punched it in.

Never thought I'd top that--and for sheer drama, I didn't. But a year later, on a full-sized field in

Santa Monica, I did what I'd been claiming to do for a few seasons and I put on a regular jersey in the second half of a game in which we were blowing out our opponents. I figured I'd play in defense, run around a bit, have a little fun. Soon after I'm out there, our defense takes the ball away, passes it up to the midfield. I'm in the defense out on the left. I haul ass up the field and figure this is all the energy I've got so here goes nothing. We keep moving the ball up the field on the other side. The other team's defense disregards me--whether they were just tired or in disbelief at the freight train of crazy heading toward them I'll never know. Our midfielder with the ball sees me and sends a long, arcing pass my way across the field.

Again, this one's heading for my head, and time once again slows down. I consider heading it since that's my signature move, right? But I realize I'm a bit too far from goal to pull that off (I swear, I'm having these thoughts in splits of seconds). So I receive the ball with my chest, bouncing it up and forward. Perfectly. Enough time in the air to take my measure, see where the goalie is, and--before the ball bounces--connect perfectly and hammer it into the far side of the net. A meaningless goal, a meaningless game, but THAT is the greatest moment of my life. And I was capable of doing that solely because of how much fucking football I'd been watching (well, that and the fact I've got incredible hand-eye coordination and control of my body. But still!)

So what was my point? Soccer is awesome and so am I. Together soccer and I produced something greater than I thought possible. Who knows what you might accomplish if you read the rest of this primer and dive in head-first?

Part 2 to follow shortly.


Read more...

Shame: Have You None?

Good Lord. How dare he, this cocksucker waving his finger in Mr. Specter's face?

By all accounts, Mr. Specter is a humble public servant of several decades--one cannot deny this regardless of one's party affiliation or ideological stripe.

This cocksucker had the temerity to bellow "One day God's going to stand before you, and he's going to judge you and the rest of your damn cronies up on the Hill -- and the rest of your damn cronies up on the Hill. And then you will get your just deserts." (Thanks to eagle-eyed reader Michael Schafler for pointing out that I had allowed "deserts" to be spelled "desserts". Though I cut-and-pasted the quote, a true grammarian doesn't duck responsibility. In this context, "desert" means deserved reward or punishment.)

Who are you, sir, to suggest that Mr. Specter's life and political service won't stand up to the Almighty's judgment? Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but it's oh-so-rich to watch such god-fearing people claim to know how God will judge an individual. By the way, wouldn't Mr. Specter be standing before God, not the other way around?

Another citizen wailed "I am very, very scared. I think healthcare reform ... is a vehicle to take us down a path of socialism." Of course she got a standing O.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether health care reform should take the form(s) currently being proposed by Congress, but for fuck's sake, incoherent rage is...pathetic and obfuscatory, among other things.

Oh, poor dear, you're scared?

Because a black man you voted against is president? Because Beck, Limbaugh, Gingrich and Palin tell you you should be as they lie to your face about "death panels"? Because our President is trying to reform health care, something presidents as far back as Truman have failed to do? Because reforming health care runs counter to the interests of the organizers of these town hall disruptions?

Oh, poor dear, you don't want to live under socialism?

You bleating moron, you wouldn't know socialism if it jumped out of your Social Security check and bit you on the ass. I guess it is too much to ask that such people understand that our nation is not, and has not been for many, many, many prosperous decades, an unfettered and unchecked hothouse of ideologically pure free-market capitalism.

So many things that so many people count on, especially the old and easily scared, are government-controlled forms of assistance, like Social Security, Medicaid, workmen's comp, the continued existence of unions, the enormous amount of government spending that pays the salaries and wages of untold numbers of workers who pave roads, put up buildings, build awesome unmanned drones that fire missiles controlled by soldiers sipping Diet Coke in air-conditioned trailers thousands of miles away...and on and on.

These pea-brained sheep will never realize that while our economy may be capitalist (but don't tell that to our agri-businessmen, er, farmers), our government is so very, very socialist already.

But I won't let this anger me (the cursing and the insults is just a time-honored release valve). What I really feel is pity for fellow citizens underserved by their leaders--be they religious, civic, political or cultural. This rot runs deep and is not confined to one side of the aisle or the other.

Sigh........I mean, what can you do but laugh when someone's holding a sign that says "Obahmadinejad".

Read more...

The Tyde: Awesome Summer Music

I know summer's hitting the home stretch, but I just threw these guys on the ol' sterereo and they made me wish I was driving with me head out of the window on the coast.

For my friends in Los Angeles, they are playing at Spaceland on September 10.

If you dig psychedelic, feel-good pop with a beachy, surf-type vibe, check them out.





In an alternate universe, they'd be famous.

Of course, in that same alternate universe, I'd be able to drive my Ferrari without people thinking I had a small cock.
Read more...