Soccer: Relegation is Fantastic

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Voros

The Premiership side with by far the most American players is in the process of possibly completing a monumental dodge of relegation. After a 2-0 win against Birmingham, Fulham finds themselves out of the bottom three relegation spots for the first time since the very beginning of the season. They still have one more game and could still go down, but this relegation nonsense sure makes for a lot more exciting games for the worst teams in the league than we see in September in MLB.

I mean the Marlins should be threatened with relegation purely out of principle if nothing else, but even ignoring that, this crap is thrilling. I don’t think Man Utd and Chelsea battling for the Championship is this exciting. I was talking to my dad about it the other day, and I theorized that maybe getting to keep what you thought you were going to lose is more exciting than winning something you’ve already won before (recently). Nothing seems to get right down to the heart of the matter better than threatening your team with becoming a minor league team if you don’t play better.

There are problems with promotion and relegation, of course, and the chances of it being implemented are roughly the same as Buzz Bissinger sending Will Leitch a Christmas Card this year, but I like it anyway. Besides, the Toledo Mudhens deserve at least one year in the Majors after all of these years.

4 responses to “Soccer: Relegation is Fantastic”

  1. Aaron B. Avatar
    Aaron B.

    Despite the problems, I too am intrigued by the promotion/relegation approach. Maybe if the USFL or CBA were still around, those would have a fighting chance at working within their prospective sports.

    Also, I think contraction would be a better threat against the Marlins, because then maybe Jeffrey Loria will be committed to putting the best product on the field that he could.

    Reply
  2. glen Avatar
    glen

    C’mon Fulham!! C’mon Fulham!!!

    Reply
  3. Connor Avatar
    Connor

    Fulham’s a pretty regular conversation piece around my parts, both because of the relegation issue and the sheer number of Americans on the team. I’m of the mind that Fulham getting sent down would be pretty damaging to the ability for other Yanks to get a shot at playing at the highest levels in Europe, which is something I think is vital to growing the game here. Sorry if that sentence doesn’t make sense, but it’s early in the day and I don’t start thinking until 4:30 p.m. or so.

    Reply
  4. Todd Avatar
    Todd

    I think relegation is one of the best aspects of Europran Football (soccer) because it clearly makes for exciting games all down the line. Being a Man UTD fan I don’t worry about that being a possibility but you are able to watch Hull City gam or a Fulliam game and know that those players have not given up because they know they are on the bubble and don’t want to fall off theur game.

    I only wish the USA had more minor league teams for every professional level sport. Particularly US Football, MLS Soccer, Baseball and NBA. Their are so many teams in each of these sports that are just not competitive. The Detroit Lions pretty much all of MLS, the FL Marlins, the Charlotte Bobcats. If these guy knew they were headed back to the minors at the end of the season and another minor team was going to be given their shot. Would’t they try that much harder to keep that from happening? Wouldn’t the competition level improv all across the board?

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