Just wondering - if I wanted to catch one of the Premier League games, when should I go to Britain? (Manchester U and Arsenal are both Premier League, aren’t they?)
More generally, how does the League structure work? I gather that there’s a top-ranked league (that’s the Premier League?) and that the poorer-performing teams might get bumped out and teams from a lower league move up? is that right? does it happen every year, or only after a couple of years of poor performance?
They are both premier league, yes. ManU are in fact the Champions. The league season, which basically correlates to the club cups as well (both domestic and international), is mid-August until mid-May.
The league has 20 teams. They each play each other twice, once at home and once on the road. The bottom 3 teams, every year, are relegated to what’s called the Championship. 3 teams are also promoted, but its not strictly the top-3 in the Championship; there is a play-off.
There are also bonuses for finishing in the top 4 and 5th (entry in to the next year’s European club cup competitions - the Champions League and the Europa League). So you see a few interesting matches even up to the end when the champion is decided (like this year you have the relegation battle as well as 3 London clubs, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Spurs, fighting for 2 Champions League spots).
Just to give you a brief idea off the top of my head (you can get the specifics from wiki).
The league season is pretty long, but they don’t play all year; they take a break in the summer. So, if you’re visiting, the only weeks with decent weather are the ones where football isn’t played mid-may to mid-august IIRC.
(Actually, I say football isn’t played but other tournaments and friendlies may be played in that time).
Every season teams at the top of their division will earn promotion (apart from the Premier League, the top division*) and teams at the bottom of their division will be relegated. I’m not sure if it’s 3 up and 3 down for all the divisions.
There are also occasional breaks (1.5-2 weeks) for qualifying matches for either the Euro or the World Cup, depending on what’s coming up next. Since many players on top sides are also on their national teams, club soccer in Europe just stops for a bit while those are played. So far this season there were breaks in early September, mid-October, and late March for UEFA World Cup 2014 qualifying. There will be a couple of more international breaks this year in early September and mid-October to complete qualifying.
The Premier League is bizarre in that it doesn’t have a winter break. La Liga and Serie A, for example, take 2 weeks around New Year’s, and the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 stop for a whole month.
It’s a good point about international breaks. Even if you show up during nominal “EPL season” you may hit the dreaded Interlull. Best to wait until the schedules are posted and then figure it out if hitting a match is priority #1 - although I guess the lower divisions probably play through the international breaks.
Some of the bigger European teams will come to the States to play “friendlies” against MLS teams during the summer – we saw Aston Villa play the Chicago Fire last summer. I’m sure it’s mostly a PR thing for the European teams, and it seems like it was a sort of a pre-season training game for them (a fair number of Aston Villa’s stars didn’t play, and those who did tended to come out of the game early).
Yeah, Chelsea is playing Man City in St. Louis in May. I’ll be there but I’m not expecting much at all.
And AS Roma is playing Liverpool at Fenway in July. I went to Liverpool vs. Tottenham at Ravens Stadium last summer, and AC Milan vs. Chelsea at the Meadowlands a few years ago. It’s nice to see some of the star players, but it’s invariably 95 degrees with soul-sucking humidity and everybody’s going at half-speed.
The USMNT is playing Germany in DC in early June, but none of the Bayern players will be there because the DFB Pokal Finale is the day before, probably none of the Dortmund players if they make the CL final as expected, and I don’t think Podolski and Mertesacker can come, either. Which leaves, um, Lars Bender. And maybe Ozil/Khedira, though I wouldn’t bet on it. It’s getting a lot of hype but it’s going to be lame.
There are also certain weekends in the English calendar in which the FA Cup tournament takes precedence over the Premier League. If you happen to visit on one of those days, there will be few or no EPL games taking place. Instead you’ll find, say, Man U playing some lower league team.
That’s something very different about soccer - in most countries, the clubs take part in several entirely separate tournaments during the season, as well as players appearing for their national teams in things like the World Cup. A top English club will enter four competitions (Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup, Champions League or Europa League), and may also participate in other minor events such as the world club championship.