Club Football: for those who want to take it up

A football club is a privately owned sports team which primarily indulges in the game of football (or Soccer) and participates in various footballing competitions organised in the country. Professional Clubs are the owners of their own stadium(called a club’s home stadium), and are responsible for paying the fees of its players and staff. They are also expected to negotiate their own sponsorship deals and set their ticket prices.

NOTE: THE MODEL OF ENGLISH FOOTBALL WILL BE USED TO FURTHER ELABORATE ON THIS TOPIC

CUP COMPETITIONS: In English Football there exist many competitions. There are a few Cup competitions like the FA Cup(which is the oldest Football competition in the world) and the Carling Cup(also known as the Football league Cup). Both these cup competitions use the knockout round format to come down to a list of four semi finalists which in turn gives two finalists, with the finals for both the competitions contested for at the Wembley Stadium in London. Apart from these Cup Competitions there exists a league tournament as well, which takes place in various tires.

LEAGUE SYSTEM: The top 20 clubs of England participate in the Barclays Premier League. The Second tier teams take part in the nPower Championship, followed by the next set of teams in League One, then the League Two, then the Conference National(each of the aforementioned leagues consists of 24 teams each) follwed by two parallel leagues called the Conference North and the Conference South. These are followed by a few more parallel leagues like the Northern Premier League, the Southern Premier League and the Isthmian League.

MATCHES: Each team plays two matches with the remainder of the teams in the league. The schedule of all these matches is determined by the FA(the premier Footballing Body of England). One match with a particular opposition is played at the home ground of the club, and the second match is played at the home ground of the opposing club. 3 points are awarded for a win, and 1 to each of the teams for a draw, and 0 for a loss.

THE LEAGUE TABLE: After the completion of each set of matches, a table is computed which determines in descending order, the teams which have fared better. The teams with the most no. of points are at the top end of the table while those with lesser no. of points are at the bottom end. In case two teams have equal number of points, then a parameter called Goal Difference is used. Goal Difference (or GD) of a team is calculated by taking the total number of goals scored by a team and then subtracting the number of goals conceded by them. It is possible that this parameter is negative for a team. In case of equal goal difference, the team which has scored the more number of goals is placed higher in the table.

THE CHAMPIONS: The champions of a league are decided after the completion of all set of matches. The team on top of the league table at this point of time, are crowned the champions of the League.

RELEGATION/PROMOTION: A fixed set of teams from each of the leagues gets demoted to the league below it, and a fixed set of clubs from each of the leagues apart from the Premier League get promoted to the league above it at the end of the football season. They resume their new positions at the start of the next football season. All other clubs remain in their respective leagues. The bottom three clubs of the Premier League are demoted to the Championship, while the top two finishers in the Championship are promoted automatically to the Premier League, while the third vacant spot is contested for in a playoff tournament by the teams which finish 3rd-6th in the Championship. The winners of this tournament are promoted to the Premier League.

EUROPEAN FOOTBALL: There exist two European Footballing tournaments, the UEFA Champions league, and the UEFA Europa League. These tournaments run parallel to the English League and is contested between clubs of all member nations of Europe’s Premier football body, UEFA. These competitions carry an immense pride value in addition to the much greater match recepits, money generated from the television rights, and prize money associated with them in comparison to the National Leagues. Qualification to the UEFA Champions League for English Clubs is possible by finishing 1st-4th in the Premier League. The team finishing 4th would have to play an extra play off round to enter the group stages of the Champions League. It consists of 32 teams at the start of the group stages, and progresses in a fashion similar to the World Cup. The only exception is that two round of matches are played in the group stage and the knockout stages as well, one at the home ground of a club and the other at the opposing club’s home stadium. For Qualification to the Europa Leauge, teams have to finish either 5th or 6th in the Premier League. In addition to this two more spots are granted to the winners of the FA Cup and the winners of the Carling Cup. If the team winning the FA Cup has already qualified for one of the two tournaments, then the place is granted to the runners up of the tournament.

TRANSFERS: Club may compete in the transfer market for players of other clubs which is open during two periods of the footballing season. The summer transfer market is open before the start of the new season in July and runs into August. The winter transfer market opens mid season, in January. Clubs contact other players and agents for the players that they are interested in and pay a certain transfer fee to the club where he is still in contract. The fee is agreed upon between the two clubs, which may or may not be disclosed to the public. The player is then offered a new contract by his new club. This contract contains a pre agreed set of terms.

CLUBS:

The top four clubs of England are as follows

• ARSENAL FC: Arsenal Football Club or the Gunners, based in the Emirates Stadium in London are the most successful club out of the national Capital. They are known in contemporary football as the icons of stylish football, with their neat passing and easy on the eye breezy football as its ornaments. Under the guidance of its manager, Arsene Wenger, who is currently the premier league’s second most experienced manager at his club have developed a side full of youth and energy. The Club, currently under a rebuilding phase have maintained respectable league positions over the last few years, with clubs in similar positions finding them in relegation battles, and some even a few leagues below them. The most successful moment of the club came when they finished 49 games unbeaten in a row, including a whole season unbeaten.
• CHELSEA FC: Chelsea, based in the West-London region of the same name are the most recent entrants to the league of big-boys in English Football. This was made possible by its take over by Russian Billionaire, Roman Abrahmovich, who showed to the footballing world that money can buy success. They have hence won 4 league titles, and have done well in Europe as well. Such policies adopted by the club, have led to the press jokingly naming it as the BANK OF ENGLAND. Chelsea FC are currently the Champions of England. They are known for an aggressive approach on the pitch, which may not necessarily be pleasant to the neutrals, but it does get the results for them.
• LIVERPOOL FC: Liverpool Football Club, based in the historic Anfield Stadium in Liverpool are perhaps the most successful club in England. But success has eluded them in recent years, with their last league title coming in the 1988 season. They are the only club out of the 4 mentioned who have not won the Premier League thus far. And they are right now in danger of loosing out their status as the member of the big four in England, after a seventh place finish in the table and ensuring that they will not be taking part in the Champions League, resulting into financial problems for the already cash stripped club. They are also perhaps the most boring team out of the big 4.
• MANCHESTER UNITED FC: MUFC, or the Red Devils are based at the Old Trafford Stadium in Manchester. Having won 18 league titles, they are by far the most successful team in the history of the Premier League. Sir Alex Ferguson is currently their manager, who has held that post since 1986(which makes him currently the most experienced manager at a club) are known for their attacking football. They are currently battling debt due to the loans taken in order to complete the purchase of the club by their new American owners.

ANY QUESTIONS MAY BE POSTED IN THE FORM OF COMMENTS, AND I AM SURE THAT THEY WILL BE ANSWERED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

10 things we will remember this world cup for

10. This time for Africa: Finally as promised by Mr. Sepp Blatter, the World Cup went to Africa, to its southernmost nation, Republic of South Africa, who organised one of the most spectacular sporting festivals on the earth. The spirit of Africa was at showcase right from the opening ceremony through to the Closing ceremony. The vivid colours of Africa could be seen in the stadium, the Africans supporting their national teams had their own carnival going on. Dancing, singing, performing rituals and blowing their own custom designed claxons was one new experience for us Premier League watchers.

9.  Poor to Average Commentary: The International Audience of the English commentary broadcast out of England was in for some irritating moments especially those that were following matches commentated upon by John Helm(including the Grand Finale). Errors ranging from Factual errors, that even Indian football fans could correct to mathematical errors you wouldn’t expect out of a dyslexic elementary school student. Fans could always be heard saying ” Dude Germany and now, Spain are not the only two nations to hold the Euro and the World Cup at the same time, remember France doing it in 2000?’ or “it is the 106th minute of the game, how can only 4 minutes be left”. Leave the errors, there were so many nerve cracking moments in the match, that we saw while wondering, where the hell the commentator was, or why he chose to remain mute on them. It appeared as if Helm was talking about the match watching from a television screen, while gladly wasting the superb seat he was given to witness the world cup action. You were sorely missed, Mr. Martin Tyler. Those lucky Americans!

8.  Germany: No one in their senses outside of Germany was predicting them to reach the semi-finals, and after the news of the injury to Michael Ballack came out, their chances of making it to the second round were being questioned. But Germany silenced their critics, in style, by becoming only the first side to emulate Brazil’s performance of scoring 4 goals in 3 different games. Germany reminded everyone so much of Arsenal FC, a team full of youngsters, a team currently being rebuilt after the exodus of quite a few superstars, but when put in action, their teams have shown so much of flare, something that their teams from the past are not renowned for. And they found quite a few future superstars in the faces of Ozil, Muller, Trachowski and Khedira.

7. El Diego: Not Maradonna, but Forlan, the Golden Ball winner of the 2010 World Cup, deservedly so. Tied for first place in the Golden Boot competition(eventually losing out to Muller), the weight of Uruguayan expectations was on Diego Forlan’s humble shoulders, but they proved their might. Others may argue that they had an easy run in the knockout stages, but I’d say that reaching the semi-finals of a world cup is a very big achievement be it any team(with Ghana being no push overs). His finishing was something even the other Diego would be proud of, but what made him stand apart was his taming of the ball in dead ball situations. Hats off, for handling the pressure so well, Diego.

6. C. Ronaldo + Kaka + Rooney  + Messi + van  Persie = 1 Goal: Ask any person who follows European Club football to name a few top class strikers, and these would be the names that you would get. With three FIFA world player of the year titles between them, and a few golden boots from the leagues that they play in, all the hype turned into foul smelling fizz, which reeked of complacency and over expectations. Kaka and van Persie can be excused for being team men and contributing elsewhere on the field but the others simply had a dismal world cup, by their standards. Fatigue after scoring 30 odd goals for your club? Probably.

5. Fall of the Goliaths: There is a very popular group on Facebook titled, France and Italy met in the finals 0f the 2006 World Cup. In 2010 they met at the Airport. Some sinister minded England fan must’ve come up with that, but only to see his side bow out in the second round itself, along with Portugal. And what followed were the casualties of Brazil and Argentina. And probably apart from Spain, all of them were the top sides in any bookie’s list of probable world cup winners. Maybe animals know better!

4. Vuvuzelas: You got irritated at them first, you couldn’t hear the trashy commentary. You tried altering the volume to find a perfect level, some even tried downloading softwares from the internet to counter them. But all failed, you simply had to live with them. They have been labeled in two worded terms, with each of them including the name of an insect. These brightly coloured plastic trumpets were simply everywhere. I hear that they are mass producing them in China now, and are planning to make an entry into the the Premier league. Would someone from the Wimbledon’s list of authorities step in and ummm… ban them!

3. Paul: Not Gascoigne, or Scholes, and not even Masefield, but the Octopus. Bewildered? Watch the news silly, and you’ll know what I am talking about. An octopus from Germany that has been putting astrologers and bookies to shame, has been successfully predicting results of World Cup Games, and has amassed a world wide following!!! Strange!!! And last I heard, a Parrot from Singapore was giving him competition, but Paul won, by correctly predicting the result of the finals. Oh Paul!!!

2. Oranje: The jersey looks straight out of a Fanta commercial, but the team is not, they’ve got some skills. Attack wise and even defensively, they posses some of the best players in the world. The likes of van Bommel, Robben, van Persie, Sneijder, van Bronchorst in your starting line up and someone like Huntelaar to sit on your bench, then you have got a team. Probably a little cagey on occasions, but when they got going, they surely had the opposition in problems. But sadly, their fairy tale came to an end, in the finals. Their style of play wasn’t exactly reminiscent of the Total Football of the seventies exhibited by Cryuff and co.(although there were sparks of that in the semis against Uruguay) but the end result was the same, Loss in the finals. Having never won the holy grail of football, the Dutch would have to do with pot, and wait some more for the cup(no pun intended)

1. la Furia Roja: And finally, VIVA ESPANA was what the crowd was chanting, and was what banners read all over the Soccer City Stadium, and on status lines of followers of Spain on Facebook, simply because they were the the best team in the world cup, and they have a trophy to show for it, finally and have become the first team in history to win the trophy after loosing their first game. Having been labelled as the chokers of past world cups, Spain this time had probably the best shot at winning the World Cup. Having lifted the Euro Cup two years ago, this team boasted of some of the best players in the world. Villa, Torres and Pedro up front, assisted by Xavi, Iniesta, Alonso and Busquets in the midfield and Ramos, Puyol, Pique and Capdevilla making up the defence, you are sure to be in the list of pre-tournament favourites. Add to that the safe hands of arguable the best keeper in the world, Iker Casillas, and the guardian of the team as Vicente del Bosque there is more than flavour to your team. And Spain surely did live up to their expectations, and silence their critics world over. Their future is bright as well, with the likes of Fabregas and Jesus Navas who spent most of the World Cup, sitting on the bench. The only thing that wasn’t right about them was that they stood at the wrong place on the podium to receive the trophy from Sepp Blatter.

Other things we’d remember this world cup for: The Jabulani Ball, French in fights(despite not scoring a goal in 2002, and bowing out of the world cup in the first round itself, somehow this one turned out to be their worst world cup ever), the possible rise of USA, FC Barcelona, the Soccer City Stadium etc. etc.