If I have it right, the Championship game, Manchester United vs Arsenal, is scheduled for May 21st, over a month after the two teams were decided upon.
Why the long wait - because of possible conflicts with other countries’ championship games?
And if you don’t mind…
What does F.A. stand for in F.A. Cup?
Where is a site that gives the English Premiership team colors - home and away (if applicable)? Are there similar sites for other countries?
In ROW football (i.e., other than US soccer), when the teams are shown on the TV screen, is the home team always listed first (or to the left, when presented horizontally) and the visiting listed second (or to the right, wph)? It seems to be the other way around in the USofA.
I’m getting to like the game more and more, so I won’t even mention how annoying it is that the team uniforms of the UK (and probably all the other countries) don’t include the $#%@# TEAM NAME!!! :mad:
Correction:
4. In** televised games of** ROW football (i.e., other than US soccer), , when the team names are shown on the TV screen, is the home team always listed first (or to the left, when presented horizontally) and the visiting listed second (or to the right, wph)? It seems to be the other way around in the USofA.
Tangentially related, the home team is listed second in scores, etc. in the United States because of baseball. Since the home team bats last, the visiting team is on the top of the scoreboard (and by extension, newspaper/television coverage) and the custom was continued with other sports to avoid confusion.
This is not a “Championship” game. It is the final of the Football Association Cup. A cup competition is “knockout” - there is a random draw for each round and the winner gets through to the next round. The rounds take place at specific dates in the season, hence the final taking place a few weeks after the semi-finals.
The games these cup rounds are fitted around are the league, in which each team in each division plays every other team in their division twice, once in each team home stadium. That site I provided gives the home colours (uniforms) of each team under the “pick your own team” feature. For away colours, simply look at the photos in the matches where, as you correctly guess, that team is listed second in the score.
It is a beautiful game. Become a Liverpool fan, and you will earn my friendship instantly.
Until the 1920s roughly, the practice in the U.S. was to list the winning baseball team’s linescore above the losing team, regardless of who was the home or road team.
However, the road team lineup would be on the left while the home would appear on the right. Unless it was a narrow box then the road team would be listed on top.
I think newspapers adopted the practice of having the home team listed on the bottom so the line scores could match the scoreboards inside the stadiums. It would be a lot easier for a telegraph operator to send over the line score if he was just copying it directly from the scoreboard.
To answer your first question, I believe that the dates for each round of the FA cup, including the final, are set at the start of the season. The reason the final is so late is partly that the Football Association (FA) like to promote the FA cup final as the climax of the season. It has long been a showpiece event with decades of tradition, much like the Superbowl or World Series in the USA (note though that the league and cup are completely separate competions in UK football, unlike the above examples where you play in a league to qualify for a knockout cup).
However, the FA cup has become devalued in recent years as most clubs see success in the league as more important, or, for the top teams, success in European competition. For this reason it is common for top teams to field weakened sides in the earlier rounds in order to rest their top players for other matches. So another reason for the FA cup final being later could be to avoid a clash with European cup games (though as it happens both Arsenal and Manchester United are both already out of the European Cup).
And yes, the first named team is always the home team. Don’t worry about not recognising the kits - you’ll soon get the hang of it, at least for the home team - away kits tend to be less “traditional” and not so easily recognised, as their colours often change from year to year, whereas home kits stay the same colour. I’ve been watching for years and I still struggle with away kits!
I’ve tried to make this as clear as possible, but that’s difficult! Feel free to ask about anything that confuses you.
I understand the FA Cup Knockout format, but what is hard to grasp is (if I understand things right) that these FA Cup games occur during the regular season. Do their results also apply to the final standings?
The matter of relegation - which hasn’t come up in this thread until now…
Are teams relegated (to the “minor leagues”) every year? What is the standard for such a terrible demotion? How long might a team be relegated? Have some never come back? How can the fans live with such a humiliation?
On the Fox Soccer Channel today, I was surprised to learn this isn’t just a UK thing, that Germany has it too. Is this common to all International Football teams? Brazil, Italy, France, etc.?
And finally, have you ever called anyone a Fox Soccer? Sounds rather smutty, right?
Yesterday, I think, I watched the women’s soccer Missouri Valley Championships on TV. Well the last few minutes. Just happened across it maybe two channels above Fox Soccer Channel.
It was the heavily favored Drake vs Creighton. I stuck with the show because the girls were unabashedly exuberant. As I watched - and here it is late in the second half and they’re still running - and yelling - their heads off.
And what happens, I look away for a few seconds and I miss one of the gals on one of the teams doing a throw in. But woman doesn’t just do a normal two-hand toss.
Oh no. I don’t know, but she must run towards the line at least a little bit, but then does a flip, and as she still has that forward mimentum from the flip, and she 's coming to the ground, she then throws the ball in. I guess it gives her more power.
And the announcer says something nonchalant, like, “So and so does her flip again…”
I wonder how long it will be before this becomes standard fare in the pro leagues?
[QUOTE=BobT]
Until the 1920s roughly, the practice in the U.S. was to list the winning baseball team’s linescore above the losing team, regardless of who was the home or road team.QUOTE]
Originally the home team was not required to bat last, but had a choice. I’m not sure when it became mandatory. They almost invariably did chose to bat last though.
By the way, “Association Football” (or “Football Association” in some countries) is the full, proper name of football (sometimes called soccer or footy).
Some people wonder why FIFA appears to be a rundundant title–“Fédération Internationale de Football Association” appears to be both a Federation AND an Association. Actually, the “Football Association” in FIFA is just the proper name of the sport. Translated to English then, FIFA means “International Federation of Football Association”.
And the term “soccer” comes from the word “association”.
I’m not sure what you mean by this decription but if both feet aren’t on the ground at the point of release it is a foul throw in.
As for promotion and relegation these happen in the leagues rather than the cup. I will attempt to explain, the leagues consist of a number of teams each playing each other twice, once at home and once away, so if a league has 22 teams then each team will play 42 games in the league for that season (21 x 2). Rather than having one league football accomodates multiple leagues. For example, in the U.K. the leagues are as follows:
The Premiership
The Championship
Division 1
Division 2
They used to be named far more logically as divisions 1-4 but for some reason someone thought it would be a good idea to mess it all about.
As for the subject of relegation and promotion these happen at the end of each league season. For example, the bottom three teams in the Premiership (the top division) will be demoted to the Championship (the second division) and similarly three teams from the Championship will be promoted to the Premiership (the three teams promoted comprise the top two at the end of the season and a third team decided from the teams finishing 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th with those 4 teams being randomly drawn against each other and the winners of each match playing each other in a final for promotion.
“How long might a team be relegated?” For however long it takes them to regain promotion, a team may never regain it’s spot in the top leage (Premiership) after being relegated, then again it may be promoted the very next season.
The way you have worded this suggests that the countries themselves get promoted and relegated, this isn’t the case. The countries are ranked by FIFA (though in a manner that manner disagree with) but there is no international league they compete in, rather it is a cup event help every four years that I recall hearing garners more viewers than the Olympics, making it the biggest sporting event on Earth. The promotion and relegation only occurs in the leagues that are played within a country, for example the Germans have the Bundesliga, the Italians have Serie A, B, C etc and the Dutch have Eredivisie.
As for the FA cup it is entirely seperate to the league, whereas in the league you only play teams from your own division in the FA cup you can play teams from any division in a knockout tournament (with the Premiership teams joining in round 3).
I admit to being quite drunk whilst writing this so I apologise if I didn’t make myself clear but if you have any further questions about the one true “beautiful game” I will be happy to answer
That ‘good idea’ was money The top teams felt they weren’t getting quite the proportin of TV income their elevated position deserved, so they split off into The Premiership. That allowed them to arrange their own media rights deals.
The top teams felt they weren’t getting quite the proportin of TV income their elevated position deserved, so they split off into The Premiership. That allowed them to arrange their own media rights deals.