I’m huge fan, but only became so when I got Fox Soccer Channel a few years back. As such, things which are probably common knowledge to our UK friends are beyond me. Any enlightenment on any or all of the below would be appreciated.
Nottingham Forest- IIRC they are the only club football team in the world to have won a major international trophy, then fall below the top two divisions. What happened? I would add Preston North End to this, but their major success seems to have been long long ago?
Has the Carling Cup always been second fiddle to the FA Cup, and why is it that way? And why even bother with the Carling Cup when the big clubs don’t even play their first team until the semifinals or so.
Do League 2 teams suffer relegation? If so, where do the promotions come from?
Non-league teams- can they ever become league teams? If so, how?
Salaries of lower league players- enough to support them year round, or do they usually have regular jobs?
Why so few Brasilians in the EPL? I would think the cold, but it’s cold all over Europe, no?
Where did the (very cool) tradition of players coming out with the wee 'uns begin? Are the children random, contest winners, players kids, etc?
Man City are another team to have gone down two divisions in recent years, the difference being that they found a way back. Drop down that far, and the financial implications are enourmous, making a fight back far from guaranteed.
Full-time within the league. Beyond that semi-pro players are common.
History, no idea. Often they’re competition winners. Occassionally it’s a reward for a kid who’s done something special (raised money for charity, beaten cancer, or anything else).
Oh, forgot the Carling Cup - it’s got nothing like the history of the FA Cup, little financial incentive for success and only a puny Uefa Cup place for the winner. Also, there isn’t the support-the-underdog situation in the FA Cup where non-league teams can end up playing in the third round (see Burton Albion winning a replay at Old Trafford last season).
One other I forgot to add- who are the top EPL announcers? Out of the hundreds of games I have seen, I have never at any point heard an announcer say anything completely stupid or obvious or otherwise draw attention to themselves and away from the game, like some US sports announcers do (I’m looking at you John Madden). As they are all witty and insightful to me, I was wondering, which of them are know as being the best?
You mean Fox Soccer Channel have there own commentators (as we call them here)?
The big names here are John Motson (BBC), Clive Tyldesley (ITV) and Martin Tyler (Sky). Those are the guys who are guaranteed to get the big games, although Motty’s crown may be starting to slip are the flak he received during the World Cup.
Re climate, many Brazilians play in Spain, Portugal and Italy, where it’s usually nice and warm. I imagine that the cooler climate of northern Europe, plus the greater language barrier, does put some of them off.
No, Fox Soccer has one of their announcers set the stage, show halftime highlights and recap, but they wisely turn the actual call of the game to UK announcers. ESPN in the US really screwed up, IMO by having US announcers call most World Cup games- usually an ex player and an another generic US commentator. Maybe they stupidly thought casual US fans would be put off by English accents or something- idiots.
Well, it’s warmer in south Europe, but the language barrier is a bigger factor. Most Brazilians speak some Spanish, and of course they all speak Portuguese, so it’s a lot easier for them to mesh with a Spanish or Portuguese team than, say, an English or German one. Also, English club teams simply didn’t look for foreign talent very much until quite recently; in 1996, Four Four Two (one of the more lucid English football monthlies) ran a cover story suggesting that '96 was “the year Johnny Foreigner taught us how to play”.
A combination of factors- more foreign manager hires, more interest in foreign leagues (which I trace to the early '90s, when Channel Four started airing Italian League matches in Britain), and playing host to Euro '96- led to a substantial increase in foreign participation in the Premiership.
Also, I’ve read and heard in many places that the greater emphasis on workrate and physical play in the English leagues, as opposed to the Spanish and South American emphasis on ball skills, made Brazilian players less suited to the Premiership. Finesse players are supposedly at a disadvantage in England because a) everyone tackles harder, and b) the referees are less likely to call a foul on those hard tackles.
Make of that what you will; some of the most sublimely gifted players in world football history- Bobby Charlton, Kevin Keegan, Paul Gascoigne (although, yes, he was always a bit of a bruiser too), Ryan Giggs, and George Best- played all or nearly all of their careers in the Premier League.