Tonight I opted to take it easy and watch the UEFA Champions League games from my couch.  I figured that the tournament name probably means little to people, so I’m going to take a stab at explaining the phenomenon that’s football in Europe in this blog.  I figure many of you will tune out while others will be interested in reading it.  But before I lose the non-sports fans, a couple quick things.

First, I’m looking for any and all feedback on the blog, it’s content, the setup, flickr, advice, etc.  Feel free to post it in message form, or email me at either loftus.phil@gmail.com or phil.loftus@hewitt.com.  According to the stats that wordpress provides, 40-50 unique visits are made to this site a day.  It doesn’t tell me much beyond that, I just know how many unique IP addresses are viewing the page.  I’m looking for constructive criticism, advice on the setup of the page (from those who know computers and/or have more elaborate blogs).  And don’t hesitate if it’s negative, I’d like to improve this because sometimes I read it and feel it’s not that exciting.  I’m always updating flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/23659209@N04/).  So check it out whenever you get a chance.  If anyone knows how to link the pictures to this site, let me know.

Also, anyone considering visiting, please keep me posted on dates.  I’d like to keep my calendar up to date.  I’ll try to keep people posted on flight deals I come across (like right now, Continental is running 15% off all flights to Heathrow).  If you’re someone remotely considering visiting, I highly recommend it.  You have a free place to stay as I have a good amount of room and a pullout sofa.  Plus I’m located pretty close to the center of the city and near a great tube stop and a busy street for buses.

Now for my breakdown of football:

Football is undoubtedly a phenomenon here.  I have yet to attend a game, but I’ve known for years that the level of fandome here and throughout Europe is unprecedented.  I have theories on why it hasn’t picked up in the states.  The top two reasons are the lack of history and the sensationalism we look for.  Basketball has the slam dunk, Baseball has the home run, American Football has the bone crushing hit, but Football doesn’t really offer the sensational event, outside of a goal, which can sometimes come by the simplest of means.  Also, the US has little history in the ways of soccer.  Add to that two other reasons, first, few of us grew up playing in soccer leagues.  Baseball, football and basketball are far more popular among American youth.  Also, whenever a superstar is developed in the US, they can make much more money by heading to Europe (see Landon Donovan, Brian McBride, Freddy Adu, and many others).  Those who know American soccer, feel free to offer your reasons as well.

All that being said, trying to understand football in Europe can leave you dizzy since there are many leagues, tournaments, levels, etc.  Here’s how I see it, and anyone who reads this that sees incorrect statements, please chime in.

FIFA World Cup:  Probably the most well known football tournament.  Teams compete at the national level and the event is held every 4 years.  The world cup final is the most widely viewed sporting event in the world, with over 700 million viewers. (for comparison, about 150 to 200 million watch the Super Bowl, staggering if you think about it, not staggering if you don’t think about it).  Qualification takes place over the three years between world cups.  32 teams end up qualifying for the actual tournament, and they’re divided into 8 pools of 4 teams, which play a round robin tournament to decide who makes it to the knockout stage.  This involves 16 teams playing a single elimination tournament to decide the champion.  One nation (or combo of a couple nations) hosts the World Cup.  US hosted in 1994.

Some interesting facts about the World Cup.  The US has never made the finals, their best finish was in 1930 when they finished 3rd.  They haven’t made the semis since.  Brazil has won the cup 5 times, Italy 4 times and Germany 3 times.  The host nation has won 6 of the 18 cups and the host nation is 6-2 when playing in the final on their home soil (Brazil and Sweden each lost a final on their soil).  Only twice has a country from outside of Europe or South America even made the semis (USA in 1930, Korea in 2002 when cup was played there).

Club level: Each nation has numerous levels of leagues.  It’s comparable to baseball and the Major League level, then the various layers of minor leagues.  However, there’s one huge difference, and that’s the concept that baseball has organizations whereas in football every team is their own setup and don’t have links to other clubs.  This makes it possible to execute an incredible concept, relegation.  American sports have struggled with teams losing on purpose to get good draft picks.  In most Eurpoean leagues, if you have one of the worst seasons, you get relegated to the next league down and it costs you a lot of money.  Of course, the opposite is true, have a top season and you get promoted, meaning lots of money for your club.  It’s a great concept and makes for a very exciting end of the year, as there are two races, the one at the top and the one at the bottom.

In England, the top league is the Premier League, that’s where you’ll find Manchester United and Arsenal (a London squad) duking it out each year.  Other clubs that compete well are Liverpool, Chelsea (a London squand), Tottenham (London), Manchester City, and Aston Villa (home stadium is “Villa Park”).  The one complaint is that it comes down to a couple teams and nobody else can keep up.  (I’ve made a couple Yankee fans upset by comparing Man U to them, but it is what it is, and England has the same problem as the US in that some teams are significantly richer than the rest of the pack and simply buy the stars.  When they make mistakes, they eat the salary and discard them).

Under the Premier League is the Championship League.  This is where you’ll find the team that I adopted, the Queens Park Rangers.  Why, you ask?  Here’s why (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loftus_Road).  For those not into clicking links, their home pitch is called Loftus Road.  They’re also based in London.  They were towards the bottom of the CL earlier this year, but got bought by a pack of people including the 5th richest person in the world, Lakshmi Mittal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakshmi_Mittal).  So the future may be bring (and I’ll eat all my words about teams buying success).

The season lasts from August to May and games are usually on Tues/Wed and on the weekend.  The big story is that they want to take the final game of the year to locations outside England, likely after seeing the success of the NFL in London, and MLB and NBA in Asia.  Most other European nations have multiple leagues as England does.  After the PL and CL, there are a ton of other leagues, League One, League Two, and many others.

UEFA Champions League:

This is what I’m curently watching, specifically a phenomenal game between Celtic (the best team out of Scotland and home of former Chicago Fire star DaMarcus Beasley) and FC Barcelona (the best Spanish team and the home of superstars Thierry Henry and Ronaldihno).  Arguably these two are in the top 5 in the world.  It’s 2-1 Celtic at half.  The UEFA CL is played annually and is also called the Euro Cup (not to be confused with the Euro Championship which is at the national level) and is considered the most prestigious trophy in all of football.  The tournament is played by clubs within each of the European countries.  Like the FIFA World Cup, there is a qualification period.  The teams allowed in the qualification are the top club teams out of each country.  The point at which a team enters the competition is based on their ranking and their associations rankings (high ranked teams/leagues don’t have to start competing until the later rounds).

Eventually, like the World Cup, the field of 16 is set.  However, instead of single games, the rounds are “two-legged” meaning you play a game at each team’s stadiums, then add the scores.  The finals are a single game at a predetermined location.  (The MLS in the US does a similar tournament).

Facts about the UEFA Champions League: Real Madrid (Spain) has won it the most, 9 times.  AC Milan (Italy) has 7 titles and Liverpool (England) has 5 titles.  Bayern Munich (Germany) and AFC Ajax (France) each have 4 titles.  By country, Italy and Spain have 11 each, England 10.  Germany and the Netherlands have 6 a piece.

FA Cup:  Within England, this is often called “magical” by the Brits.  The cup is an all-England tournament and basically any organized team can get in it (a couple Welsh and Scottish teams sneak into the tournament).  731 teams participated in this year’s FA Cup, 731.  Many teams are people who have real jobs and play football in the evenings, on weekends, or get paid to play part time.  Every team doesn’t start at the first round.  It’s mainly the little clubs playing.  The Champions League clubs are slotted around the 3rd round and the Premier League teams don’t break in until the 4th round.  By that point, the tourney is in the double digits, rather than hundreds of teams.

What makes the tournament magical is a couple of things.  First, any team can go on a run.  It’s rare, but it’s exciting when it happens.  Second, the draw is completely random, as is the home team, once the matches are set.  So a Man U (similar to Yankees) can have to travel to play a Havant & Waterlooville, which is the equivalent to a travelling baseball team out of Lombard, and the game would be played at Madison Meadows.  It’s a single elimintation tournament and just one game is played, so the home team draw is huge.  If the game is a tie, there is a replay at the home of the original away team.

As noted in my last blog, I went out to watch the FA cup match between Arsenal and Man United.  Manchester United crushed them 4-0 and I was in an Arsenal pub.  Not quite the atmosphere I was lookng for, but fun nonetheless.

The FA championship game is played at Wembley, the most famous stadium in England.  The semis are also played at “neutral” stadiums, usually the homes of a Premier League team.

Some facts about the FA: Manchester United has hoisted the cup 11 times, Arsenal 10 times, Tottenham 8 times, Liverpool and Aston Villa 7 times.

That’s about all I have.  I did get much of my info from weeks of research before my departure, and filled in some holes using Wikipedia.  Hopefully the sports fans found this somewhat insightful.

FC Barcelona came back to win the game over Celtic behind second half goals by Thierry Henry and Lionel Messi.  Big win for them in Glasgow.  Now they have to draw or better back in Spain, and they move on.

Phil