Watch out, American sports fans-English soccer is setting its sights on breaking into the US market. Famous teams like Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool are spending millions of dollars in an effort to grab fans for life as soccer steadily gains in popularity in the last great untapped market.
With so many competitions – Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup, Champions League and UEFA Cup-it can all be very confusing to American fans used to one season and one champion for each sport. So let’s explain the differences between each of these prestigious soccer competitions.
The most important thing to understand about English soccer is that there aren’t just 32 teams like in the National Football League or the other American leagues. There are hundreds of professional teams in England, spread across more than 20 different levels stacked like a pyramid. At the end of the league’s season, the best teams are promoted up to the next level, while the worst teams are moved back down a level – the number of teams moving is different in each league, and there are more leagues at the bottom of the pyramid at the same level.
The Premier League is at the very top in England-that’s where teams like Manchester United and Chelsea play. The Premier League has 20 soccer teams, and each team plays all of the others twice, home and away. Teams get three points for a win and one point for a tie, and the league champion is the one with the most points at the end of the season. Manchester United won the 2008 title with 87 points, coming from 27 wins, 5 losses and 6 ties.
The top four clubs from the Premier League each earn a spot in the next year’s Champions League, which pits all the best soccer teams in Europe against each other. The Champions League is spread out from August to May, with teams playing games during days off from the Premier League. Manchester United won the 2008 Champions’ League Final over Chelsea, 6-5 on penalty kicks after a 1-1 tie.
The UEFA Cup is similar to the Champions League, with soccer teams from all over Europe, but instead of the very top teams it takes the next few. In England and the Premier League, it takes the team finishing fifth, along with two others as we’ll see below. None of the English teams made it to the final in 2008.
The FA Cup is a knockout competition open to any soccer team in England-professional or not. According to the website of the Football Association, which oversees soccer in England and runs the FA Cup, 731 teams entered the 2007-08 competition! Premier League teams and other top clubs receive byes into later rounds, but every year a couple of smaller, semi-professional teams give the big boys a scare. The winner of the FA Cup gets to play in the UEFA Cup, unless they’re already in the Champions League. This year’s winner was Portsmouth, a Premier League team, who defeated Cardiff City 1-0.
Lastly, the League Cup is a special competition only for the top four soccer leagues in English soccer – 92 teams in all. It works the same way as the FA Cup, and at the end the winning team receives England’s final berth in the UEFA Cup. The 2008 winner was Tottenham Hotspur, who beat fellow Premier League team Chelsea 2-1.
FA Cup Entries, The Football Association
