Port o'shadiness
Trouble in Portugal, where three clubs have been found guilty of fixing matches back in the 2003-4 season. They include Porto, champions that season and this, who have been fined €300 000, and docked six points from this season's total. It's worth remembering that Porto also won the European League in that season, and it's not clear if UEFA will uphold the AC Berlusconi precedent and throw Porto out of next year's contest.
Upsets
40 Birmingham City - Blackburn Rovers 4:1
38 Portsmouth - Fulham 0:1
37 Napoli - AC Milan 3:1
36 Hearts - Kilmarnock 0:2
33 Cottbus - Hamburg 2:0
31 Udinese - Cagliari 0:2
30 Middlesbrough - Manchester City (EIGHT) 8:1
20 CSKA Kensington - Bolton Wanderers 1:1
15 Internazionale - Siena 2:2
So, Manchester Buccaneers beat Wigan, CSKA could only draw with Bolton, allowing the Bucs to win the Division I title. All three sides in relegation contention won, so Fulham stay up, and Reading and Birmingham join Derby in relegation.
No surprises in Spain or Germany, where things are just about settled. No shocks in France, where Lyon go into the final day leading Bordeaux, and a battle-royal for the last UEFA Cup spot. Strasbourg were relegated this week, and Toulouse and PSG are still battling to avoid that embarrassing fate.
The big shocks came in Italy. Internazionale and Juventus drew, Roma were uncertain in beating Atlanta, and AC Berlusconi suffered a reverse to Napoli, allowing Fiorentina first dibs on the European League spot. AC to be next season's Bayern, anyone?
Division I
MUN 1271 78.5 12 0.15
CHE 1241 77.5 18 0.23
LIV 1199 75.6 39 0.52
ANL 1153 79.2 2 0.03
EVE 1050 78.6 -21 -0.27
TOT 1034 76.3 -14 -0.18
POR 1019 80.6 -77 -0.96
BLK 1001 82.9 -21 -0.25
AVL 996 82.4 -12 -0.15
REA 951 82.3 59 0.72
WIG 946 83.6 40 0.48
BOL 940 79.5 75 0.94
NWC 934 81.6 2 0.02
MCY 933 81.0 -14 -0.17
MID 928 80.9 16 0.20
WHM 913 81.0 -22 -0.27
FUL 906 84.0 94 1.12
SUN 874 83.0 -40 -0.48
BIR 865 84.5 24 0.28
DER 648 89.8 -30 -0.33
Were Reading too good to go down? Their form was consistent throughout the season, but the side dropped just too many points to their relegation rivals for their own good. Spot the tremendous gulf in class between the top four and the rest, and the value of good runs in cups for Tottenham (winners of the League Cup), Everton (like Spurs, big in Europe), and - in spite of their woeful late season form - Portsmouth (the last non-league side in the FA Cup). Derby will come into next season's Division II as the bottom side.
linkpage | ResultsTables |
Pyramid, Scotland, Netherlands
England has won the UEFA Fair Play league, and the top side in the domestic fair play table (almost certainly Manchester City) will join the UEFA Cup in its first qualifying round in mid-July. The two lottery slots will be between Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Spain and France; the draw will take place at half-time in next Wednesday's UEFA Cup final - appropriately, at the Commonwealth Arena, Manchester City's home ground.
Though the decision on which sides join which leagues won't be made until next week, we know most of the promoted and relegated sides from the bottom half of the English pyramid:
V
Prom - Aldershot Town, Cambridge Utd / Exeter
Rel - Droylsden, Stafford, Farsley Celtic, Altrincham
VI (N)
Prom - Kettering, Stalybridge / Barrow
Rel - Leigh RMI, Vauxhall Motors, Hucknall Town
VI (S)
Prom - Lewes, Eastbourne
Rel - Sutton, Dorchester, Cambridge City*
VII (N)
Prom - Fleetwood, Gateshead
Rel - Leek, Stamford, Lincoln Utd
VII (S)
Prom - King's Lynn, Team Bath
Rel - Bedford, Bromsgrove, Cirencester, Cheshunt
VII (SE)
Prom - Chelmsford, Wimbledon
Rel - Leyton, Folkestone, East Thurrock, Borehamwood
VIII (N-N)
Prom - Bradford Park Avenue, Manchester United
Rel - (none)
VIII (N-S)
Prom - Cammell Laird, Nantwich
Rel - Alsager*
VIII (S-M)
Prom - Evesham, Stourbridge
Rel - Malvern, Berkhamstead**
VIII (S-SW)
Prom - Farnborough, Oxford City
Rel - Newport IOW, Slough**
VIII (SE-N)
Prom - Dartford, Canvey Island
Rel - Edgware*, Wivenhoe**
VIII (SE-S)
Prom - Dover, Tooting & Mitcham
Rel - Horsham YMCA, Molesey**
* - Relegated for non-playing reasons
** - Candidates for reprieve if Division VIII (N) divisions expand to 22 sides.
Promoted from Division IX: Trafford, Salford, Atherstone, Loughborough Dynamo, Glapwell, Crowborough, Merstham, Concord Rangers, Soham, North Leigh, Totton, Truro, Thamesmead, Beaconsfield SYCOB.
Upsets
38 ARIS Salonika - AEK Athens 4:0
33 Bayer Leverkusen - Hertha Berlin 1:2
31 B. Dortmund - Stuttgart 3:2
30 Getafe - Almeria 4:2
19 Catania - Roma 1:1
They're breathing a sigh of relief in France, where PSG and Lyon beat lower-league Amiens and Sedan by 1:0, ensuring they'll meet in the cup final, and there will be an additional UEFA Cup place released for a side finishing at the top of League 1.
No surprises in Ukraine, where Shakhtar beat Dinamo in the cup. Nor in Serbia, as Partizan overcame lower-league opposition. If Partizan conspires to lose the league to Crvena Zvezda (unlikely) then Obscura Beograd are frozen out, not even to play a Cup-Loser's Cup match against Queen of the South.
Those Dutch play-offs in full
Turning now to correspondence, and Mr. Pokery wrote about the play-offs in the Netherlands.
The obvious question is why they thought that would be a desirable state of affairs to bring about. The only suggestion that springs to mind is that the play-offs are made for TV.
The logic seems to be that (almost) every side has something to play for in these play-offs, and (yes) the league becomes much more attractive to television. After the 34-game season, and assuming the cup-winner's place goes to a top-five side, the Eredivise is scheduled to split into seven bits:
1 - Champions. Season ends.
2-5 - European League playoff. Winner goes to the European League; others to the UEFA Cup.
6-9 - UEFA playoff. Winner to the UEFA Cup.
10-13 - Intertoto playoff. Winner plays off against runner-up from UEFA playoff for the Intertoto berth.
14-15 - Nothing to do. Season ends.
18 - Relegated. Season ends.
16-17 go into a relegation playoff, with six sides from Eerste Divise, where the champion is automatically promoted. The season in the lower league is divided into six periods of six games, and the winner of each period (or highest side not yet through) qualifies for the playoff, along with the two (usually three, because the champ will have won a period) highest sides in the final table not already qualified. The sides are ranked by their overall positions. First round is a simple home-and-away between Eerste 6-9. Winners join with Eerste 2-5 and the Eredivise sides, at which point the ties become best-of-three; if the first two games don't produce a clear winner, away goals or kicks from the penalty mark decide home advantage for the third game. Two winners take Eredivise places, and the draw should pit Er 16 against Ee 3 and Er 17 against Ee 2, keeping apart the Eredivise sides, and top two Eerste sides.
This year, there's a slightly different format, because the cup winner isn't in the top five.
1 - Champions. Season ends.
2-5 - European League playoff. Winner goes to the European League; losing finalist and 3rd place to the UEFA Cup.
6-10 - UEFA playoff. Winner plays off against 4th from EL for the remaining UEFA Cup spot; loser to Intertoto. Cup winner will not participate.
11-15 - Nothing to do. Season ends.
16-17 - Relegation playoffs, as before.
18 - Relegated. Season ends.
Next year, the play-offs become a little more simple: the top two go through to the European League, the cup-winners and next two go through to the UEFA Cup, and there's a four-team play-off between the sides immediately below for that last spot. The relegation playoffs remain.
Scotland
If there is logic to them, I wonder whether it might be a more sensible model to follow for Scotland's top league of 12 than the (actually reasonably sensibly designed and unjustly maligned) current 3½ matches per opponent per season.
A few observations here:
1) The Scottish clubs like having Rangers and Celtic visit twice a year. It keeps them rich. Reducing that to once would be such a financial kick that it'll not happen easily.
2) We're having great difficulty understanding the model above, and we've just described it. Try explaining that to your stereotypical football fan who's had a few tinnies. Especially that bit about the periods: should East Fife get a chance at promotion because easy fixtures allowed them 16 points in December and naff all elsewhere?
3) To have a promotion / relegation playoff would require Division B to finish at about the same time as Division A, not a month (plus Rangers delays) earlier. (With a will, this is not insurmountable.)
All that said, if Scotland were to revert to 16 or 18 teams in Division A, a Division B of similar size, and cutting some teams loose to regional amateur leagues, we reckon an arrangement like this would make for a good way to end the season, certainly better than the current playing out for pride amongst the bottom six. Fewer games might also avoid the fixture congestion we've seen this year, but then why has this occurred? The fixture pile-up has many causes:
- Rangers' success in reaching the final of every competition they've entered, playing (by our quick reckoning) 69 matches since last July.
- An artefact of the problems at Motherwell, both with their pitch and following the untimely death of Phil O'Donnell
- The postponement of Rangers' last-32 cup tie at East Stirlingshire, the SFA's refusal to allow the last-16 replay on an international mid-week, and a replay in the last-8.
- The postponement of matches to allow Scotland players a week off before the international against Italy; and to allow Rangers a clear week before Lyon.
- The length of the Scottish season, playing a 20-team league amongst 12 sides.
As we say, the most radical move would be to extend Division A so that the regular season was 30 games (16 clubs, as in Portugal) or 34 games (18 clubs, as in the Netherlands and Germany). This would allow the regular season to have very few mid-week matches and still end in late April, possibly with play-offs to decide promotion, relegation, and the last UEFA Cup place. Rangers (and Celtic, who could easily face a similar problem in a future season) would be in favour of this reform, and we can bet that the sides currently on the cusp of promotion from Division B would love it.
The smaller clubs in the top flight would still be less happy, because they would only receive two visits from Rangers and Celtic, not the three or four they have at the moment. On the other hand, would the additional security of knowing that they'll have those visits for the forseeable future help to raise security? Is there a case for some gate sharing (for instance, 5% of the net turnstile proceeds goes to the visiting club at the end of the season)?
linkpage | EuropeanResults |
Ups and downs
Final day of action in Divisions II to IV, and we've the end-of-season tables there. Westbromwich and Stoke won the automatic play-off places, with the unfamiliar quartet of Bristol City, Hull, Crystal Palace, and Watford vying for the last place. Spare a thought for Wolves, denied on goal difference by just one goal. Scunthorpe and Colchester were relegated some weeks ago, with Leicester joining them on the final day. From Division III, Swansea are joined by Nottingham Forest, with Doncaster, Carlisle, Southend, and Leeds making the play-offs. The relegated sides are Luton, Port Vale, Gillingham, and Bournemouth. Division IV was resolved some little time ago, Franchise, Peterborough, and Hereford are automatically up, Rochdale, Stockport, Darlington, and Wycombe play-off, and Wrexham and Mansfield drop out of the league, with Aldershot '92 replacing one of them.
This week-end's upsets
40 Middlesbrough - Portsmouth 2:0
39 Siena - Juventus 1:0
39 Duisburg - Bayer Leverkusen 3:2
38 Southampton - Sheffield United 3:2
38 AC Milan - Internazionale 2:1
37 Cagliari - Fiorentina 2:1
36 Real Zaragossa - Deportivo La Coruna 1:0
35 Parma - Genoa 1:0
33 Aston Villa - Wigan Athletic 0:2
33 Arminia Bielefeld - Bochum 2:0
32 Torino - Napoli 2:1
32 Ipswich Town - Hull City 1:0
31 Lazio - Palermo 1:2
31 Hertha Berlin - Karlsruhe 3:1
15 Hibernian - Rangers 0:0
Portsmouth's loss just about ends their hopes of qualifying for the UEFA Cup through the league, but they've still got a very real chance of winning the FA Cup. A week of surprises in Italy, topped by defeats for Juventus and Internazionale; the net result is that AC Berlusconi is back in the top four and heading towards the European League. Southampton needed a win to save themselves, Sheffield United a win to preserve their play-off chances, and the Saints pulled off the biggest upset in the city for almost two and a half days. Wigan's win means they're safe from relegation, while Fulham beat Birmingham to clamber out of the drop zone. Rangers's draw means they're now seven points behind Celtic, who have benefitted from very dodgy refereeing decisions in the last two matches, and have played three more games than Rangers. For the second week running, Ligue 1 ran without a single upset.
Division II
WBA 851 74.1 39 0.53 -- prom
STK 833 77.1 3 0.04 -- prom
SFU 826 74.7 8 0.11
CPL 824 76.3 34 0.45 -- play
HUL 820 75.4 5 0.07 -- play
CDF 799 73.0 1 0.01
WLV 797 74.0 28 0.38
IPS 786 75.8 11 0.15
BRC 773 77.1 -20 -0.26 -- play
PNE 762 75.6 -23 -0.30
WAT 749 75.8 -62 -0.82 -- play
QPR 747 76.3 -12 -0.16
CHA 746 76.0 -22 -0.29
SFW 738 74.4 14 0.19
PLY 736 75.6 -32 -0.42
BAN 730 73.6 -17 -0.23
BNL 724 76.0 -11 -0.14
SOT 714 76.3 28 0.37
BPL 698 76.9 -14 -0.18
LEI 695 76.3 7 0.09 -- rel
NOR 682 76.7 -10 -0.13
COV 678 74.8 2 0.03
SCU 638 79.6 36 0.45 -- rel
CCR 605 77.3 0 0.00 -- rel
SEN (III) 714 103.6 38 0.37 -- play
LEE (III) 700 112.2 19 0.17 -- play
LUT (III) 625 102.7 -14 -0.14 -- rel
MIL (III) 610 109.2 -30 -0.27
BRI (III) 579 113.9 38 0.33
CRW (III) 522 118.5 -60 -0.51
Sheffield United's run came a little too late to secure their play-off place, and included a better run in the league than many other sides - with the exception of Westbromwich, it seems that it paid to be knocked out early and concentrate on the league. Greatest exponents of this were Leeds, beaten by Hereford in the round of 256, and overcoming their 15-point deduction (upheld by an appeal panel last week) to take the last play-off place. Were Division III decided only by matters on the field, Crewe and Luton would both have been relegated.
We'll confirm the new team codes in about three weeks, once all the promoted teams in Europe are known.
linkpage | ResultsTables |
European Competition Finals
European League
Arsenal 0:2
AC Milan 0:0 Arsenal 1:2
-----------------
Liverpool 2:1 Liverpool 1:4
Inter M 0:0 Liverpool 1:1
-------------------------- [c]
Fenerbahce 3:2 [b] CSKA Kens 1:1
Sevilla 2:3 Fenerbahce 2:1
-----------------
Olympiakos 0:0 CSKA Kens 1:3
CSKA Kens 0:3 CSKA Kens
=============================================
Schalke 1:0 [a] Manch B
Porto 0:1 Schalke 0:0
-----------------
Celtic 2:0 Barcelona 1:1
Barcelona 3:1 Barcelona 0:0
--------------------------
Roma 2:2 Manch B 0:1
Real Mad 1:1 Roma 0:0
-----------------
Lyon 1:0 ManchB 2:1
Manch B 1:1
[a] - 0:0 in extra time, Schalke 04 won 4:1 in kicks from the penalty mark.
[b] - 0:0 in extra time, Fenerbahçe won 3:2 in kicks from the penalty mark.
[c] - CSKA Kensington wins 2:1 in extra time.
Another tedious, goal-free snore-fest between the Buccaneers and Barcelona. Goal-free, that is, apart from the goal, which was a speculative shot to nothing. After this match, we knew the European League would have an all-English final, played in that well-known English seaside resort of Moscow. We also knew that England would take the number one spot in the UEFA rankings for only the second time in the country's history: the previous occasion had been in the five years ending 1985, and was curtailed only by of political interference from UEFA.
We were expecting another tedious, goal-free snore-fest between the Stadiennes and CSKA Kensington, not least because seven meetings in the previous four seasons have produced just five goals, and one of those never crossed the line. This time, though, the sides manages a goal each in normal time, CSKA went 2:0 up in extra time, only for the visiting Stadiennes to pull one back and force a nervy final few minutes.
The result, though, is that the final between CSKA and the Buccaneers will take place at that well-known English city of Moscow. Won't Kensington enjoy home advantage?
UEFA Cup
Anderlecht 2:1
Bordeaux 1:1 Anderlecht 0:2
----------
Aberdeen 2:1 Bayern M 5:1
Bayern M 2:5 Bayern M 1:1
================================
AEK Athens 1:0 Getafe 1:1 [c]
Getafe 1:3 Getafe 1:1
----------
Benfica 1:2 Benfica 0:0
Nurnburg 0:2 Bayern M 1:0
=============================-------------- [36]
Galatasary 0:1 Zenit St P 1:4
B Leverkus 0:5 B Leverkus 1:2
----------
Zurich 1:0 Hamburg 0:3
Hamburg 3:0 B Leverkus 1:1
================================
Marseille 3:0 Zenit St P 4:0
Spartak M 0:2 Marseille 3:0
----------
Zenit St P 1:1 Zenit St P 1:2
Villarreal 0:2 Zenit St P
=======================================================
Rangers 0:1
Panath'kos 0:1 Rangers 2:0
----------
Werder B 3:1 Werder B 0:1
Braga 0:0 Rangers 0:0
================================
Bolton 1:0 Sporting L 0:2
A. Madrid 0:0 Bolton 1:0
----------
Sporting L 2:3 Sporting L 1:1
Basle 0:0 Rangers 0:0
=============================-------------- [d]
Rosenborg 0:1 Fiorentina 0:0
Fiorentina 1:2 Fiorentina 2:0
----------
Brann 0:1 Everton 0:2 [a]
Everton 2:6 Fiorentina 1:2
================================
Slavia Pr 1:1 PSV 1:0
Tottenham 2:1 Tottenham 0:1
----------
PSV 2:2 PSV 1:0 [b]
Helsingbgs 0:1
[a] 0:0 in extra time; Fiorentina won 4:2 in kicks from the penalty mark.
[b] 0:0 in extra time; PSV won 6:5 in kicks from the penalty mark.
[c] 2:2 in extra time, Bayern wins on away goals.
[d] 0:0 in extra time; Rangers won 4:2 in kicks from the penalty mark.
The surprise in the first semi wasn't so much that Zenit won their game so easily - 4:0 didn't flatter them in the slightest - but that München crumbled so easily. Zenit took the lead in the third minute, after Kahn was unsighted at a free-kick, and though Bayern threatened, they rather gave up after falling 2:0 down. Next stop, Manchester; after that, the European League.
The nightcap was a poor game, Rangers content to soak up the pressure and hope to hit on the break. Neither side found their range, and the game had KFTPM written all over it. Though Rangers missed their first spot kick, that was all they missed, the Scottish League will be running its Schedule B, and West Coast need to lay on some extra trains.
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