EPL Archives - The Confluence at Jollybengali.net

The Folly of Playoffs

Baseball, Basketball, College Basketball, College Football, Football, Futbol/Soccer, Hockey, Pro-Basketball, Pro-Football, The Bigger Picture Comments Off

Jan 242014

I’m not a huge fan of playoffs (unless my team does well in them). They’re a vastly imperfect method of determining a champion. They usually only determine the team that is playing the best, that is the hottest at that end point of the season. A balanced, season-long race should be the only way that a Champion is determined.

This is the way it’s done in world Soccer (ie, Association Football). Each team plays every other team twice throughout the season. Winner gets 3 points. Loser gets 0 points. Tie gets 1 point for each team. Add up each team’s points and you have a winner. Home-and-home. No such thing as Strength of Schedule. A true league champion.

There are separate Cup Championships (elimination tournaments or playoffs, if you will) that run concurrently through the season. When an FC Barcelona fan talks about the club’s 22 titles, that number doesn’t include Cup Championships.

This is my definition of a true champion. I realize it will always be impossible to determine a true champion in the NFL, College Football and College Basketball. (As well as the other college sports). There are too many teams within each league to play a round robin schedule or even one-to-one.

But the NBA, NHL and MLB could have true champions. Eliminate conferences and divisions, which are remnants of the days when travel costs weighed more heavily on teams. Have each team play the same number of games against their brethren. Everyone’s travel costs will be the same if you play each other the same number of times. 3 points for an win (or shootout win in the NHL), 0 points for a loss.

The NHL, NBA and MLB each have 30 teams. Hockey and Basketball would play a home-and-home (2 games/opponent), which gets them to 58 games. MLB would play double home-and-home (4 games/opponent), which gets them to 116 games. That’s a not-insignificant decrease in inventory so add in simultaneous elimination tournaments (Cup Championships) and you should be able to replenish the inventory sufficiently.

I know, I know. I’m tilting at windmills. Americans can’t stomach regular season champions. We crave the supposed-certainty of a playoff. We would rather be provided with certainty, with absolute rules rather than any teeny-weeny sign of ambiguity. Bollocks to that.

Comparing Soccer Salaries

Futbol/Soccer Comments Off

Dec 062013

A quick comparison that might only interest me.

	USD	GBP
MLS Average Annual Salary	$143,000	£87,512
MLS Average Weekly Salary	$2,750	£1,683

EPL Average Annual Salary	$2,549,144	£1,560,000
EPL Average Weekly Salary	$49,022	£30,000

Easily translated, it takes the average EPL player 3 weeks to earn more than the average MLS players earns in a year.

Race & Soccer – Racial Composition of Liverpool FC’s players

Futbol/Soccer, The Bigger Picture Comments Off

Nov 252013

Early last Saturday morning, I made my way down to Piper’s Pub on the Southside to watch Liverpool vs Everton, the famed Merseyside Derby.

Out of the 13 players who played for Liverpool (11 + 2 substitutes), 3 were black – Glen Johnson, Daniel Sturridge and Victor Moses. That’s 23%.

Glen Johnson, LFC Defender

All told, Liverpool’s matchday lineup included 18 players, 6 of whom are black. That’s 33%.

Breaking it down even further, 6 of Liverpool’s full matchday lineup are British including the Welshman Joe Allen. 3 of those 6 are British black players. That’s 50%.

Going to the full squad, Liverpool carry 25 players. 8 are black. That’s 32%. There are 9 British players. 4 are black. That’s 44%. Here are the full squad breakdowns:

Race	Count	Percentage
White	9	36%
Black	8	32%
Latin	8	32%

British	9	36%
British White	5	56%
British Black	4	44%

I’ve read that roughly 25% of the players in the British Premier League are black. Certainly not all of them, nor probably even a majority, are British blacks.

Blacks make up about 3% of the UK’s 55 million residents. If you factor in people of mixed race, that number goes up to 5%.

Make of these percentages what you will. I leave them to stand on their own.

Damned if you do or don’t…

Futbol/Soccer No Responses »

Jan 072013

Gabriele Marcotti tries to make the point on Soccernet that Liverpool FC’s Luis Suarez should have admitted his handball against Mansfield Town to the referees, if only to improve his reputation:

Suarez has a poor reputation in England, as evidenced by the fact that his propensity to go down easily means that, at times, he gets fouled and officials don’t give him the benefit of the doubt. This was a missed opportunity to polish his image a little bit, without any great cost or inconvenience to him. And, referees being what they are, you can’t help but feel that the next time there’s a controversial handball incident involving him, they’ll come down harder than they would otherwise.

Bollocks. Suarez has come so far in his role as villain that were he to have tried to give the goal back, the futbol intelligentsia would have cast it as a shallow and blatant attempt to curry favor with the English public and the referees in order for him to continue pillaging towns and killing babies with impunity, as he so obviously does. Not as a sincere attempt at sportsmanship in favor of gamesmanship. Continue reading »