Football (not American)

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OK, I understand that soccer is one of the world's most popular sports. In fact, it likely IS the most popular sport, although basketball is gaining a lot of international popularity as well. My question is what is the "big" event that most people follow. I know the World Cup is huge, but AFAIK, that only takes place once every four years. Same thing with the Summer Olympics. What are the big annual events that take place? Are they mostly championships that take place between teams within a specific country? Or are there other annual international events that gain the most notariety?

 

Well, as you said so is the World Cup *the* football event. It is the biggest sporting event in the world period, actually bigger than the Olympics pretty much. In between the World Cups there are Continental Championsships timed so they are inbetween World Cups, the biggest are the European Championships and Copa America which is the South American championships. This is for national teams, as for club football every country has its own league and most football fans have one or more favourite teams in various leagues. There are also international club football competetions like the Champions League and the UEFA cup in Europe and somekind of ecquivalent in South America. These are played every year and are pretty much like another league on-top of the national ones. For the best football I would recommend Champions League, you get the best players and the best teams and it tends to be a tad more open than the World Cup which is ridden with extreme amounts of prestige and nervousness. Not to mention that all national tournaments are played in between club seasons so the best players tend to be rather worn from a long season in their club which to some extent opens up for smaller countries with fresh players.

I personally follow the Allvenskan (Swedish league) where I somewhat support my local team Helsingborgs IF which suchs majorly now, I go and see a few games a year. I also to some extent follow the Italian, Spanish and English league and watch games on TV when possible. Championsleague is aired once or twice a week and I try to see that as well if it seems like an interesting game which it almost always does.

Oh, and I was about to forget the world cup and continental championships qualifiers which are played in between the finals, the games in the qualifiers are played every other month or so, often with two games in a week to not chop up the club season too much. Sweden plays Iceland tonight which I wont be able to see as I am going to work.

I hope you get some idea of what kind of football is available.

 

For me, personally, it goes something like...

World Cup... European Championships... English Coca Cola League One (stupid name)... English Premiership... any other stuff.

 

For me, the order of interest would be:

1) World Cup
2) Euro
3) English Premiership
4) Australian National Soccer League (which has one New Zealand team playing in it)
5) European Champions League
6) New Zealand National League
7) English FA Cup
8) New Zealand Chatham Cup

 

The Champions League is pretty huge, and probably the most coveted trophy amongst the elite European clubs. I definitely enjoy watching it more than the World or Euro Cup.

 

Biggest annual event in football : Liverpool vs Manchester United (and it happens twice in a year).

i know people will counter me with Milan vs inter, river bank vs boca junior, arsenal vs whatever... you guys just got to know, the center of the earth is Liverpool and center of moon in Man u, that's the law of universe.

Points to add,

League : win = 3pts, lose = 0 pt, tie = 1 pt
cup : win or go home OR play home and away with the same club and the winner is decided by a list of tie breakers.

Not all team can play Championship league or UEFA cup. To qualify for Championship league, obivously, your favorite club must win the highest league in its country, or come to second, or thrid, or fourth. There was this system that count how many top clubs from a league can enter Championship Leauge based, mostly, on the performance of the clubs from same league in international club football league, ie champ league and uefa. Championship league pays a huge sum for team winning a match! An important income for clubs who needlessly signed lots of world class star.

1st, 2nd club play in Championship league, 3rd and 4th placed club may enter UEFA cup. Every country has a seasonal league game and cup game, cup winner gets to play UEFA as well. If the cup winner will be playing cham league, then the spot opens up to 5th placed club in league, in our case.

i hope these will confuse you.

[ October 13, 2004, 23:56: Message edited by: teekc ]

 

I always enjoy the old firm games: Celtic vs Rangers. Dalveen's a Rangers fan and I'm a Celtic fan, so I get to gloat a lot

 

Champions League is for sure the most exciting, well I think so anyway. I don't like internationals.

 

I usually don't like international leagues too. I'm actually not much of a "league" person myself. I prefer watching just certain teams.

Certain teams: Arsenal, ManU. hehe.

We all know Arsenal's taking it home this year boys Their investment in Reyes was FAR better than Real Madrid's in Owen

 

On the international side European Soccer is probably the highest standard - with the exception of 2 international teams - Brazil (#1) and Argentina. As a general rule these are probably the only 2 countries in the rest of the world that would get into the top 10 list - if your really interested check the FIFA rankings list.

On a Four year cycle from this year you have the European Championships (held in Portugal, Greece won this !WTF!) After this everyone concentrates on the World Cup qualifiers from now until 2006 when the World Cup is held (Germany this time). after this there will be another 2 years of qualifications for the next European Championship in 2008.

Obviously the qualifiers only happen about once every 2 months. So in the mean time most follow their domestic championship (a league competition) - and the champions league (a league/cup competition between the top clubs in europe).
The Italian (serie A), English (Premiership) and Spanish Leagues (La Liga) are the most competitive (Richest). Try watching Real Madrid - with arguably the most talented (expensive) line up of all time. You could possible compare them to the Harlem Globetrotters of yestayear or some other team like that. They have won the European Cup title a lot more than any other club. And have spent more money than anybody else over the last 10 years (depending how long abramovich stays)
Personally I support a mid table english premiership side. Who's high point include a uefa cup quarter final and a couple of league 2nds

 

I don't particularly like the Champs league. Or The Premiership tbh. It's all about money and full of overpaid primadonnas. I still watch it like, 'cos it's football. I prefer the watch Chesterfield on a Saturday with the lads after a quick session in the pub though.

 

IMO:
Football= Rugby Union
Football=Rugby League
Football=AFL (Aust. Football League)
Football=Grid Iron
Football=Soccer for people who watched "Bend It like Beckham" too many times.

 

Is River Plate vs Boca Junior, in Argentina, in Spain is Real Madrid vs Barcelona.
As most people said, firs is the World Cup, then Copa America (every 2 years), but to compensate the years between, there are championships with Sub 23 and Sub 17 so every year is a world championship; as Europe has UEFA champions league, America has: Copa Libertadores, where the champion gets to play vs UEFA champion in Japan at the end of the year or January, then we have Copa Sudamericana, where champion gets to play vs Libertadores champion; in Libertadores play teams from every sudamerican country and since 2002 there are 2 mexican teams too; every country has their league, in Argentina is Apertura and Clausura, 2 short championships, one team plays as local in one champ, and the other as visitor; at the end every first and second of every league plays the Libertadores; to be able to play the sudamerica tournament, every league is allowed to have 4 teams. So much futbol sicks me...

 

For me it's
Rugby World Cup
Rugby Sevens
NRL (National Rugby League - Australian league with one NZ team)
Super 12 (soon to be Super 13... or was it 14?)
Soccer is somewhere near the bottom now since Leeds has fallen so very, very far (was the team I supported).

 

The Championsleague is the most important event that takes place every year, although the name is a bit misleading. It's originally intention was to let the champions of all European nations compete in a profitable league. And there you also have the angle...profitable. The teams who came in second, third, or even fourth in tradionally strong footballnations such as Italy and Spain went on a little crusade because they thought they had more rights to compete in that profitable little teaparty than, let's say, the champion of a meaningless footballnation like Norway, or Slovenia, or Scotland. That's why nowadays the champions of "lesser" nations like that have to play qualifying rounds, while there's a good chance the number 4 of England will play against the number 3 of France in the first round. The chapionsleague has lost it's purpose because of all the commercial interrests, and should be called moneyleague instead.

Nonetheless it's the most important annual event. The winner gets a ticket to Tokio to take on the winner of the South American version of the CL, for the worldchampionship of clubteams. The Europeans and South Americans automatically assume that the best of those two continents is the best in the whole world, because basically, the rest sucks. Kinda like the idea of when you win the NBA championship, you are automatically the best in the world.

The Uefacup is also an interresting annual event, with most of the time much better football than in the CL. Of course there's also a European nations cup every four years. After every worldcup, a Eurocup will take place two years later.

And then there's the national leagues. Of course i follow everything of our Dutch league, but i also keep track of the British Premiership, The German Bundesliga, the Italian Seria A, and the Spanish Primera Division.

Football can keep you occupied quite a bit.

 

I wonder if Aldeth has got himself a better image of what kind of footie there is to follow.

Oh, and just so you people know it: Andorra took its first win ever!!! First ever ever ever, against Macedonia. The Macedons cannot be happy.

 

That's exactly what they deserve for their disgusting racist behaviour against Holland. You should have heard the crowd whenever one of our black players had the ball. What's wrong with Macedonians anyway ? Never seen a black man before ? Are they still living in caves overthere ?

 

UEFA Champions League...that's where its at mate.

But mostly, football fans, (like me...which IS the majority) follow a couple of league seasons...for example, I love the Spanish League and the Italian League AND the UEFA league.

My mate loves the English Premier League though...which I think frankly sucks. The level of game there is really abysmal compared to the Spanish and Italian leagues...Beckham quit the English league to come to the Spanish...goes to show...

Anyway, in conclusion AND to answer your question Aldeth, Spanish and Italian Leagues and the UEFA cup.

 

@joacqin and others

Yes, this does give me a better understanding of what types of football I could follow, provided that by follow you mean looking such scores up on the internet. Soccer is NEVER televised in the U.S., other than the World Cup and the Olympics, and even they don't get particularly good ratings.

I believe with satellite TV it is possible to get a PPV package for a season worth of soccer for around $250 per year, but I'm not THAT interested in broadening my sports horizons. I wish they would at least show some American soccer on TV, even if they suck when compared to our European and South American counterparts. We have the MLS, and I'm under the impression there is a large number of European and South American players on the teams. I guess the people who aren't quite good enough to play on a South American or European team come and play in the U.S. where the level of competition is lower.

 

Whats rugby got to do with football?