Interesting thread.

I live in South Yorkshire in England and I support my local team - Barnsley FC.

We are unknown outside England and football fans outside of England tend not to be aware of anything beyond the Premieship, so I will try and give a bit of background and context for anyone interested.

We have 92 league clubs in England so 72 playing below the Premiership. We are currently in the second division which is now called The Championship. We have spent more seasons at this level than any othe club in England but have only spent one year in the Premiership (1997-8). We were formed in 1887 and reached the FA Cup final in 1910 but lost, we won the cup in 1912 but have never been in another final. We got to the semi final in 2008 knocking out Liverpool and Chelsea on the way.

We were relegated from the championship in 2014 and spent two seasons in the third tier before being promoted at Wembley in May this year, despite being bottom of the division in December 2015. We are currently 11th in the championship.

Our current average attendance is around 14,000 so we are one of the smaller clubs in the division at present but still well supported compared to most clubs in Europe.

A few links about my club:-

Our stadium -

http://www.footballgroundguide.com/leag ... nsley.html

Barnsley 3 Manchester United 2

http://youtu.be/OuMOAkHO2bg

Liverpool 1 Barnsley 2

http://youtu.be/6o5RBc4W8A0

Barnsley 1 Chelsea 0

http://youtu.be/9n5RHWxmgnM

Winning the football league trophy in April 2016

http://youtu.be/x-Qx45WQSi8

Promotion back to the Championship May 2016

http://youtu.be/qKZVpGQ3TbQ

Just to point out: when a British person talk about the "92 league clubs", it's the PL through League 2. Obviously the league system as a whole goes way further than that and many other teams play in what most people around the world would call a league format, without it being categorized as part of "the leagues" in the terminology of the British.

I don't have much of a relation to Barnsley, other than knowing they are somwhat of a classic club, like many other in England. There are several teams in the Championship I would prefer being promoted instead of them, but I would also prefer Barnsley over several others. And their name sound simmilar to the common pronounciation of the Swedish word "barnslig" which means "childish".

The only Swedish player I can think of who played for us is Peter Markstedt who played for us in 1997-8 before suffering a nasty injury. Looked promising.

We have had a few Scandinavian players:-

Sigurd Jonsson
Peter Sand (awful)
Janne Sali
Kim Christensen
Emil Halfredsson
Marcus Pedersen

I think the Premier League is on the same level as the other major European leagues (sports-wise, not in terms of money), but the Championship is well above every other major European second division. Only the very biggest 2. Bundesliga teams - mostly traditional Bundesliga teams that were relegated for a shit season and come right back up - can dream of crowds exceeding 14,000.

And if there was a European tournament of second division teams, I think English teams would dominate. Think Barnsley FC could handle VfL Bochum (our current 11th in the second division) with ease.

(We do have the internationally famous FC St. Pauli in the second division, at least. In last place.)

PAOK fan here, from Greece.

A bit fond of Liverpool (because it always reminded me of PAOK in every term)

in 2. Bundesliga, the average attendance is about 21 000. But I can accept the Championship being the second-tier league with the highest attendances. And their economy is quite good except for some clubs. It's not unusual for clubs to get in financial problems when being relegated from the PL.

In a international second-tier cup I imagine it would be sort of like the CL and EL as far as countries being successfull. Without being an expert on the leagues, my impression is that the Championship is very primitive and lacking in the technical and tactical departments compared to their counterparts in other big countries. I can very well see Championship teams having problems with teams from 2. Bundesliga, Segunda División and Serie B.

I think the Championship and Bundesliga 2 are similar in terms of stature, attendances and size of clubs and are well ahead of the second divisions in France, Italy and Spain which average around 7,000 gates. These figures would be scoffed at in England and Germany.

If there were to be a tournament for second division clubs (great idea) I think English and German clubs would dominate with probably Newcastle United or Vfb Stuttgart winning it.

Surprised to see St Pauli doing so badly. Would be a strange thing to see the Hamburg Derby in the second division next season.

Maybe St Pauli is trying to avoid that.

I don't even view St. Pauli as a sports team, tbh. Its fans seem to be what gets them recognition. According to wiki, they play lots of sports. I dunno what's it like in many others countries, but here in Portugal it's normal for a club to play hundreds of different sports. Per example, Benfica alone plays football, futsal, rugby, basketball, volleyball, handball, roller hockey, swimming, athletics, archery, judo, etc. I know that in Turkey and Greece it's common for the bigger sides to also play basketball. And I believe the Russian club CSKA has basketball as does the German club Bayer Leverkusen.

I also think Lazio from Italy, are the European sports club that plays the highest number of different sports.

In Sweden it is very common for sports associations to be represented in a myriad of sports. My team Hammarby IF was founded as a rowing club but now also does football, hockey, bandy, boxing, speedway, handball, athletics, rugby, basketball, floorball and more.

From the otp of my head, the only country where something like that doesn't happen is in England. Liverpool, Man Utd, etc. are strictly football clubs.

Btw, have you ever noticed that Benfica's crest is an eagle riding a bicycle wheel?



Cycling was a very important sport at Benfica. But we haven't had a cycling team in years now. And I don't think we could get one esily nowadays. Cycling nowadays is a lot different than it used to be.

IMHO, Benfica's crest would look a lot better without the cycling wheel. Just my opinion though.

hard to imagine without it. Benfica's crest has been consistent for a long time now. It's true cycling isn't part of our club anymore and I honestly doubt many of our fans even realise there's a wheel in there.

Btw, may I ask you how do you feel about Sporting's current crest? Lots of people seem to prefer the one you had before and complain about "pulling an Arsenal on the crest". I personally dont'see what's the big deal about Sporting changing its a bit, but what do I know.

Porto's crest must be a nightmare to draw, jesus. I suck at drawing, so as a kid I could never get Benfica's right. The eagle would always look like a duck/seagull in the end. I can only imagine how a Porto fan with poor art skills suffers.

At first I didn't like it at all, but I've grown to like it. Personally, I like simple crests, like the ones of the Bundesliga teams. And I've always disliked Porto's crest, btw.

BVB and Bayern have simple yet nice looking crests. I fele the same about the Dutch sides Feyenoord, AZ and PSV.

On the subject of foreign clubs' crests as a whole, I've always found Olympiacos' to be pretty classy.

I love talk about crests. I actually just bought a book on the heraldry of football clubs. I think it is very interesting to consider the symbolism and weigh it with the graphic design. Recently I've been thinking a bit about the clubs that have changed their crests for this season.



My English club West Ham United changed crest to symbolize a new beginning with the move from the old ground to the new. I like the thinking of going back to basics. The crossed hammers that has been with the club since the very early days. I quite liked the old one as well but overall I don't mind the change.



A club that really succeeded in its change of crest I think is Manchester City. Not only is it about going back to the roots leaving the misplaced eagle type crest behind it also looks so excellent. I think the new one is very beautiful. One of the best looking ones around.



This is Hammarbys crest. My main club, supporter since childhood. I quite like the retro variation which is the one featured on the shirt which is why I included that as well. It is rarely used officially but the team played with it on their shirts a couple of years ago. It is used for special occasions. The original crest was just a variation of the flag. The amount of stripes on the flags and the wreath (?) has been changed and added with time. The current crest has been in use since 1975 which is the first time it was standardized.

About crests, I a fan of sticking to what you've got regardless of how it looks. Even though I know most if not all clubs have made some changes over the years. The most ridiculous are changes motivated by marketing ideas or something, like that. Or like Everton a few years ago who changed it to be more adaptable to a digital age. Good that the fans protested so they changed it back.

I'm also strongly against changing the colours on the crest just because it's on the second shirt. It's not so common in Sweden, but in the big leagues it seems to be very common to see for example a neon-coloured crest on their ridiculous neon-coloured away shirt. Which is another thing I'm against: the always changing the colours of the away/third shirts to some that have nothing to do with the club. England are sort of experts on that but far from the only guilty ones.


My club is actually Sweden's by far most successfull club regarding the total amount of titles in sport, with over 400 in 23 sports.


What?

To never ever change the crest is highly unusual though. Based on the book I'm reading the only examples where the crest has remained relatively unchanged all the way through is with the clubs Deportivo la Coruna and IFK Norrköping (of the ones represented in the book obviously).

In general I like the idea of continuity the best. Much of what I like about West Hams and Man Citys changes are that they go back to the roots rather than create something all new. The worst examples are obviously clubs that make a change to be more modern or clubs that change because of the owners. The horror examples are of course Cardiff City with the colour changes because of marketability reasons in Asia (where the fans have had some success in them protesting this) or the mess that was Wimbledon getting moved to Milton Keynes.

Clubs like Benfica, Barcelona and Rela Madrid haven't changed their crests much in the last decades. They just updated their looks a bit to make them look more modern.

Dembo, you mention the neon thing, so allow me to mention how much I hate the way Benfica's crest has been getting a white border around it in the last 45 years or so. It makes no sense considering the crest isn't even of the same colour as the jersey. So there's no way both can clash.

i dont really have anything against changing crests as long as the change stands for something and looks good. Just to change to sell more shirts or nyarlathotep forbid please a sponsor is never acceptable.

Great result for Barnsley yesterday - a 4-3 victory puts us on 31 points meaning that we only need another 19 points to stay up, although we will be aiming to finish as high as we can in a tough league with some very rich clubs.

I've added the link to yesterday's goals. If you have a minute to watch, please let me know your thoughts of our first goal. We are in white btw.

http://youtu.be/qwGVYZ3Sydc

Twenty minutes left for a Bayern last minute goal or Red Bull is back at the top.

-edit- They are secretly reading my posts during the game.

looking forward to the rbl vs bayern game

That was a nice goal from the cross to the finish. But the keeper on the third goal...

Yes, no idea what he was trying to do. Whatever it was - I'm grateful.

I'm always surprised by how differently sports function, professionally. I'm most familiar with hockey, and somewhat with baseball, but (European, i.e. not MLS) soccer is completely out of my range. Would anyone care to give me a quick run down on how the leagues work? Are they usually national except maybe one (Champions??). I honestly have no idea. [Help the noob pl0x]

The most common versions are the national leagues. Straight tables. The teams usually meet once at home and once away and scoring 3 point for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss. The team with most points at the end of the season wins. So no play-offs or such in general. The leagues are also not closed leagues which means that there is a risk of losing ones place in them if you finish last and/or second to last. Quite often there is a system where one or two teams get relegated to the second league while the team just above have to qualify to stay. So the third to last team in the first division league will have to meet the second or third team from the second division league and they fight over the spot in the first league.

Then there's a myriad of other leagues that team participate in. The most prestigious being the Champions League which is made to feature the best teams from all over Europe. Contrary to the name its not all the Champions from each national league though. Some countries have more spots automatically in the league based on their national leagues ranking. So England's premier league has four spots reserved for their teams in the Champions League (taken by the four teams that finish in the place 1-4 in the national league). Sweden doesn't have any reserved spot because out league is considered to low on the league ranking. If any of our teams will get in they have to qualify.

And as I said there's loads of other leagues and tournaments as well. Some European and some national.

For those interested in a detailed view of the qualification for the European tournaments Champions League and the much less prestigious Europa League: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coef ... nt_ranking

Notice that it's both the direct-qualification spots and spots for the qualification rounds to the respective tournaments that are in the ranking. For example, the countries with four spots in the CL have three that goes directly into the tournament whereas one have to play a qualification round.


He's fired now...

I've been using this website as a reference for years: http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/

its so shitty that the biggest leagues will be given an extra spot at the expense of the lesser leagues.
This will only strengthen the position the wealthiest leagues have and make it more one sided.
ofcourse money doesnt say everything as the english clubs show in europe.

bayern also quite easily beat leipzig so i guess bayern will win the league this year again.

English clubs are some of the worst ran in Europe. With so much cash, they sure do underperform in European competitions.English dominance in UEFA competitions has been going down since 2010 or so.

Spanish clubs seem to be the most competent. They're strong in both European competitions and also take both of them seriously. The EPL is the most competitive league nowadays, but La Liga is probably the strongest league overall, with Real Madrid and Barcelona being the two strongest clubs in the world.

I honestly don't praise English football like many all over the world do. As much tradition, support and passion English clubs have, many of them have become sorta plastic in the last years with all those American, Russian, Arab and South East Asian billionaires acquiring clubs left and right. Remember when Manchester City was a club full of passionate and real supporters? Then comes 2012 and suddenly lots of Americans claim to be Citizens since birth.

It's true that RM, Barcelona and Bayern are also loaded clubs with fans all over the world(Bayern not as much) but they're "old school" clubs. In the case of RM and Barcelona, the paid registered fans elect their own chairmen, like Portuguese clubs do as well.

I'm sure lots of those Asian and American Man City and Chelsea supporters will be lifelong supporters, but I'm willing to bet a big percentage of them will stop caring about said clubs once they go through long draughts.

Oh well, globalisation works like that, I guess.

Atlético and Sevilla have also proven that they can beat pretty much every team in the world on a good day.

In absence of football I for some reason always love following the transfer window, and even though it hasn't officially started, some transfers have been done already. Looks like Dortmund is thankfully getting another solid center back to help out Sokratis (Marc Bartra has been one of the main reasons the first half of the season was such a rollercoaster ride), and Bayern's Julian Greene finally, after years, left the club to one where he will actually play. He's moving to Stuttgart, who are quite certain to be back in the Bundesliga next season.

They say it's pretty much agreed that Hoffenheim's best players (Süle and Rudy) will transfer to Bayern, but only for the next summer transfer window. Even though Hoffenheim is a fake club like Leipzig I was kind of glad for them getting back on track this season out of pure sympathy for the nosedive they did after their transfer suicide two seasons ago, Firmino was their De Bruyne (their "we'll gladly become a third-tier team fighting to stay in the league if we get OMG FORTY MILLION"-player), and on top of that they let Anthony Modeste go, the guy who gives Lewandowski and Aubameyang a run for their money every season. In a way they're the new Schalke and Stuttgart, a team that every time it gets successful it sells the players who made them successful for big money.

I've supported City since we were in the third tier in the late 90s. I appreciate the success we've had but realise that it's not guaranteed to last forever, and our owners could just as easily decide to sell up (though with their investment in infrastructure etc. at the club I doubt they will).
I also have more patience with our relative lack of progress in the CL than most - we haven't ever had a strong European competition tradition at the club (despite winning the old CWC in 1970).

I do agree there is a slight plasticky feel to us and Chelsea in some respects. Having said that, though, it hasn't totally changed the club's character. City have throughout their history been a pretty erratic side, capable of great wins but also odd and bizarre lapses in form, and despite the amount of money we have I don't think that aspect of the club has entirely gone away - look at us last season, won our first five games looking bulletproof and then couldn't put back to back wins together for much of the rest of the time.

I agree the EPL isn't the best run league, but I personally wouldn't say La Liga is flawless, since they have the lopsided TV deal which sees Barca and Real getting colossal amounts of money and outstripping the rest. Atletico had to play the season of their lives to win the title a couple of years ago. I think the Bundesliga is the best run league (come on Dortmund!) but it still has the problem that Bayern dominate the whole league to a pretty ludicrous degree.

With regards to the CL, UEFA screwed up European football with it by turning the old European Cup from a straight knockout competition into a halfway house between that and a Euro super league. The old EC was truly a champion's competition as only the title winners and the current holders were allowed in. Diluting that has really lessened the interest of it as the same bigger clubs get through to the knockout rounds year after year.

Speaking of transfers. It's interesting that a player like Oscar, who have played more than half of the league games this season for Chelsea who are at the top of the PL after 17 games, goes to a club in China at the age of 25. It will be interesting to see how the power structure in football may change over the coming ten years or so, considering how unlikely it was for a Chinese club to do such a transfer ten years ago. China as a country is getting more and more influential in the world economy, and they have football as a subject in school. And obviously tons of money are being spent on football over there. So I wonder what level of players they may be able to get in the future. Perhaps some of the very top level players will play there without it just being a cash-in late in their career. And with all the money involved in other Asian countries, maybe they will even have their counterpart of the CL established as a very high status tournament.

I gotta say I love the idea to expand the World Cup to 48 teams, just like I loved the 24 team Euro Cup. Before the Euro Cup I would have been revolted by FIFA greed just like anyone else, but what sold me on the expanded Euro Cup and by extension a future expanded World Cup was, simply, Iceland. Having some real underdogs in the tournament will not decrease the quality of the tournament as people claim, Iceland's performance in particular has shown that the quality was enriched by it.

There are already many underdogs, especially in the World Cup. I'd say a majority of teams are underdogs. There are even some super obscure ones like Honduras. The Iceland of the WC 2014 was pretty much Costa Rica.

More teams are a bad idea from the perspective of the average quality of the games. This recent Euro was the worst Euro I've seen regarding the very high amount of very simple mistakes in passing and finishing. Though it's not secret FIFA and UEFA don't care about quality but only money.

Also it would water down the status of reaching those tournaments, and water down the importance of the average qualification game, and thus the quality. For example: currently the USA who many expects to reach the WC have zero points after two games in their final qualification stage, and Panama in the same group are currently on a spot to the WC. Argentina are merely on a playoff-spot currently, and one point from missing it all together. From Africa, some of the teams currently on spots which give them a place in the WC are Burkina Faso, Egypt, and DR Congo.

Obviously alot may change before it's finished. But even whe small countries manage to win their qualification groups, both them and several of those who failed to be better than them will also qualify for the WC. It would really take the edge off the entire thing of being in the WC.

Not to mention the impulsiveness of being in favour of radical format changes because of the experience of one single team in one tournament... Don't forget all the teams, both big and small ones, that have made terrible performances in both the Euro and WC over the years.

And it only makes it more dramatic for a strong team or another to miss a Euro/WC occasionally. In 2002, it was Holland that missed it. In 2008, England didn't qualify.

UEFA and FIFA just want more people to watch their top tournaments for icnreased revenue reasons, I guess. Especially considering how big and populated the world is outside of Europe. Imagine if a team like China reached the WQ again(they did in 2002). hundreds of millions of people watching it.

People who think that the quality of the Euro 2016 was a step down have never seen a Euro Cup before. They watched it thinking "oh it must be worse because the increased number of teams", but seriously, here in the real world the rest of us have watched the last dozen Euro Cups as well, who are traditionally sprinkled with many a terrible football performance. All of the worst Euro Cup football I've seen in my life was definitely not in 2016. In fact pretty much all of them since the 2000 one were various degrees of mixed bags.

Festivus, imagine India. People just think about evil FIFA making money, but do you know how excited Indian people can get? Have the team make it to the group stage through some miracle and you could get the whole nation pumped on football.