BLU
Active topics
  1. Originally posted by u2spear:Nice to see two British scorers last night and nice to see an English team doing well (as always) in the Champions League. Shame for Schalke but yeah your right Man U were very good. Hope it goes to penalties or something next game!

    Although I feel La Liga has better individual players, The Premiership has the best teams, definatly.


    If you're talking about the Man Utd only, I think you'll find Giggs scored and he's not British
  2. Originally posted by gng007:WojBhoy,

    Congrats to you and your fellow Norwich fans. That is awesome that you are headed up to the Premiership division after only one year in the Championship division.

    When you have some time, here are some more questions I have:
    1. Has Norwich ever won the Premiership division? If winning the Premiership is pretty much impossible for Norwich, what do you consider to be a successful season?

    2. Which is more prestigious, winning the Premiership division or winning the European equivalent to the CONCACAF - I think you said that was called the Champions League?

    3. Do any players on Norwich play for England's World Cup team? Sadly for us MLS fans, most of the premier American players are playing in England, France, and Germany.

    4. Does the Premiership division (and other lower leagues) have things like salary caps, revenue sharing, etc? If not, it seems almost impossible for a team like Norwich to ever win the Premiership - I mean, how could Norwich afford to pay the big name players who could achieve a Premiership division championship?

    5. Do the Premiership and Championship division seasons run concurrently?

    6. During the division seasons, do the England club teams play any teams not in their respective divisions?

    7. Do club teams in Europe (England, maybe more specifically) play teams from other European countries? During their seasons? Do those wins/losses go toward winning some tournament or is it just strictly for bragging rights (I think the term is "friendlies")?

    8. Have you ever been to a World Cup game?


    Thanks again!

    Greg

    Promotion is far from a certainty yet, but we're hopeful! We're 1 point ahead of Cardiff City who are in third, so as long as we match or better their results from the last two league games of the season, we're good. If not, it's the playoffs and they are nerve-wracking. Right.

    1. No, we've never won the Premiership or the national title. It used to be called the 1st Division before it became the Premiership (again, sponsorship reasons and TV broadcasting - everything changed when Sky Sports got a monopoly on live sports across Europe lol). If we were to achieve promotion, a successful season would be to survive and stay in the division for that first season in the Premiership, i.e. 17th place. Anything more would be a fabulous season lol.

    2. In terms of prestige, the Champions League is the main goal for every major club, but since very few clubs across the continent actually stand a chance of winning it, only those few clubs realistically look to it as an opportunity for silverware. Winning a country's national league is certainly a big thing for any club, but in most countries there are only 3-4 clubs who regularly manage to successfully challenge for the title. In England, only 4 clubs have won the title since it became the Premiership in 1992/1993 - Manchester United (11 times), Arsenal (3 times), Chelsea (3 times) and Blackburn Rovers (1 time, and that was very much a flash in the pan). You go back over the decades and various clubs had extended periods of success, e.g. in the 1980s, Liverpool were the big team that everyone had to beat, and regularly won trophies both domestically and in European competition, but in recent years they've declined somewhat, but they're on their way back.

    3. Ahaha, no no no I'm afraid not - I only laugh because that's a great unlikelihood at the best of times. Virtually all the players who play for the English national team have always been picked from players in the Premiership, i.e. the country's top tier of club football, generally 'cause the better players play in the highest league - players from outside the top-flight (a colloquialism for the Premiership) have rarely ever been selected to play for England. The last Norwich player to get an England call-up was Robert Green - yes, he who had the amazing spill against the USA in South Africa. He started his career with us and got an England call-up in 2005 for an end-of-season tour of the United States in 2005, the year we got relegated from the Premiership.

    4. Does the Premiership division (and other lower leagues) have things like salary caps, revenue sharing, etc? If not, it seems almost impossible for a team like Norwich to ever win the Premiership - I mean, how could Norwich afford to pay the big name players who could achieve a Premiership division championship?

    No we don't; there's been debate in bringing in salary caps and the like for some time now, but it won't probably ever happen. It's sort of meritocratic in the sense of the clubs who can afford to pay the most in transfer fees and wages to players have earned that right through being more successful than their competitors over the years. However, nowadays, clubs can become rich almost overnight by being taken over by rich investors, e.g. clubs like Manchester City and Chelsea have become relatively unpopular in recent years because they were taken over by foreign billionaires and started signing players for huge money in the blink of an eyelid, which a lot of people in football found irksome, but it's almost accepted as the norm now. It wouldn't be impossible for a club like Norwich to win the Premiership, 'cause at the end of the day it's 11 guys taking on another 11 guys 38 times a season, but it's virtually never going to happen.

    5. They do indeed. Our football season runs from August of one year 'til May of the following year, so this season has been running since August 2010 through to May 2011, because it's a traditional 'winter sport' here, and that time-frame is generally the same for all clubs throughout Europe. The exception hitherto has been Russia, but they're currently reworking their domestic league to run in conjunction with the other leagues around Europe. You have to imagine that all the divisions are still part of the same league, they're just higher / lower tiers, so they all tie into one another in a sense.

    6. During the division seasons, do the England club teams play any teams not in their respective divisions?

    They do - in addition to the league system, we have 2 major domestic cup competitions. We have the League Cup and the FA Cup (we also have a competition called the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, but it's a minor competition because it's only competed by teams from League 1 and League 2, i.e. the 3rd and 4th tiers of the football league). The League Cup is competed for by all the teams in the main football league, i.e. the Premiership, Championship, League 1 and League 2, and is a straight knock-out competition, i.e. teams get drawn to face each other in one-off matches and progress by winning each tie. Imagine the World Cup system but without the group stage.

    The FA Cup is a similar format, but much bigger because any team in the country, professional or amateur, can compete for it. It's a fairly lengthy process as a result, i.e. there are a set of preliminary qualification rounds for teams outside of the top 4 divisions. The Cup proper start in the January of each season when the 1st round starts, and at this point clubs from League 2 are brought into the mix. In the 2nd round, clubs from League 1 come in (it's slightly more complex than that, but that's the basic jist of the thing), and in the 3rd round, all teams from the Championship and the Premiership are put into the draw. I would suggest it might be slightly easier to check out the relative Wiki. pages to get a better explanation on the structure, i.e. how teams are brought into the draw, should you so wish to get a better understanding, but that's a basic idea. For the record, the FA Cup is the oldest competition in world football, and as a result one of the most famous. Norwich have never won that either lol, but we have won the League Cup twice in our history - the highest profile trophy we've won aside from a couple of Championship and League 1 titles.

    7. Do club teams in Europe (England, maybe more specifically) play teams from other European countries? During their seasons? Do those wins/losses go toward winning some tournament or is it just strictly for bragging rights (I think the term is "friendlies")?

    We do indeed, in competitions like the Champions League and the Europa League that I mentioned earlier. Those competitions are made up by the highest placed teams from the various European national leagues. We have an extremely complicated system for working out how many teams from each country qualify for European competitions called 'coefficients' - if you ever hear or read a European football fan talk about playing 'in Europe', they're generally talking about the Champions League or the Europa League.

    Basically, the coefficient system works out how successful and 'big' each league in Europe is with regard to their historical success in European competition over a 5 year period, e.g. teams that have won either competition or teams that have progressed to later stages of the competition such as quarter- or semi-finals; subsequently, the coefficient system helps decide how many teams from each country qualify as a result.

    English teams have been some of the most consistently successful in European competitions over the last few seasons, so we have one of the best coefficent ratings, and as a result are granted the maximum number of 4 teams to qualify for the Champions League, and 3 places for the Europa League. Spain get a similar number because their teams have been equally as successful. Italy were in a similar position, but in recent years their teams have been less successful, and so Germany (by virtue of their teams have been more successful, i.e. having teams consistently progressing further in European competitions) have overtaken them in the coefficient ratings, and are being granted more berths for Champions League and Europa League qualification as a result.

    I appreciate this might be a lot to take in, and as I said, if you want a potentially clearer idea, it might be worth checking out Wikipedia, although you might get lost in amongst all the stuff there is to find out!

    8. 'Fraid not, although I'd love to! The last time England hosted the World Cup was in 1966, waaaay before my time (also the only time we've won it), and hitherto I've had no opportunity to go and follow the England team abroad at the various World Cups over the last few years.

    Originally posted by MacStripey:okay.... last night......

    in all fairness, ManU was and is many levels better than Schalke. No way of denying it. Schalke was hiding like chicken on a field full of foxes. The only player playing face to face with this top team was our keeper Manuel Neuer. He saved us from a possible 0 or even higher defeat.
    But no need to hang our heads in shame now. ManU is top class and we are not. Reaching the semi final after beating Inter is the biggest success in Schalke's history. Time to be proud about that

    conclusion of last night: ManU is a top team, hands down. They will make it to the final...... unless...... everyone thought Inter was unbeatable at home before..... until..... well, we'll see next week...

    tonight, el classico.... go Barca go

    I'm still gunning for you guys! It's never over 'til it's over. It just doesn't look that promising...

  3. He is, he's Welsh!


  4. Fuck off? Could have swore I heard he was Dutch or something In my defence he retired from international a long time ago and don't know much about players in general I've been learning a lot with those summaries Harry

    Apologies Josh
  5. @ gng007 if u want an exciting team to follow in the EPL then id suggest the mighty Tottenham Hotspurs, we will be going places in the next few years


  6. I think you'll find Giggs is British because he is from Wales, which is part of Great Britain ... ooohh
  7. Originally posted by jofice:[..]

    Fuck off? Could have swore I heard he was Dutch or something In my defence he retired from international a long time ago and don't know much about players in general I've been learning a lot with those summaries Harry

    Apologies Josh


    haha, just seen this, no wurries, everyone makes mistakes, even if it is getting Wales mixed up with The Netherlands, ahah Im only jokin
  8. He just looks too tanned to be Welsh too
  9. Originally posted by jofice:Fuck off? Could have swore I heard he was Dutch or something In my defence he retired from international a long time ago and don't know much about players in general I've been learning a lot with those summaries Harry

    Apologies Josh

    Aha, good glad to see my precious time trying to break it all down isn't completely wasted. As per John Lennon, 'time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted'.

    (I jest, my time is far from precious)

    I'm just doing what I can to get everyone from U2start to support Norwich
    Originally posted by u2spear:haha, just seen this, no wurries, everyone makes mistakes, even if it is getting Wales mixed up with The Netherlands, ahah Im only jokin

    From my experience, it's a pretty common problem. I mean, you say Bale, I say Bouma, so easy to do!
  10. What is the difference between winning the Premiership and winning the national title? Is there a difference?
  11. Was the Manch. United vs. Schalke a Premiership match? Did it matter in the overall standings of the division, or was it just a great opportunity for Schalke to play, and possibly upset, Man. U?

  12. Originally posted by gng007:Was the Manch. United vs. Schalke a Premiership match? Did it matter in the overall standings of the division, or was it just a great opportunity for Schalke to play, and possibly upset, Man. U?




    that game was apart of the UEFA champions league, which is seperate from the respective clubs national leages, so the results have no effect on their domestic league standing however the winner of this tie will progress to the Champions league final
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.