Sunday, April 29, 2007

Latest on the Reds

By popular demand, a Liverpool update... More to come as the season wraps up in continental Europe and the UK.

April 21
Liverpool 2 - Wigan 0
(Something interesting. Unlike the US, in European/English football the team listed first is the home team.)
This game against Wigan was an English Premier League game, and Liverpool is in the hunt for third place in the League this season. The season's almost over, so they won't get much higher than third this year. With the win, they didn't lose any ground. It also happened to be a game that they needed to win to qualify for next year's UEFA Champion's League tournament. Interestl, their next game was a semi-final in this year's tournament against Chelsea. You'd think that making it to the final four in the Champion's League tournament would qualify a team for next year, but apparently it doesn't.

Onto Chelsea vs. Liverpool. Chelsea are like the NY Yankees of UK football. They have in the last few years started buying loads of talent. Liverpool has history on their side here leading Chelsea in Champion's League play over the last two years. Chelsea hasn't even been able to score against Liverpool in these games. You know where this is going, don't you?

April 25
Chelsea 1-Liverpool 0

European and UK play is interesting in the way it's scored for tournaments, cups and such. In Champions League, once they get out of group play, they don't play "best of" series like we do here in the US in other sports. They actually only play two games. Obviously, the score itself has a lot to do with it, but teams also get points based on whether they are playing at home or away, and how many goals they score. For instance, an away goal is worth more than a home goal (not in the game itself, but in the amount of "points" a team gets in the tournament standings).

So, with Liverpool down a game by one goal, and then playing at home in this Tuesday's game, Liverpool need to win by at least two points. At least, I think this is the way it needs to happen. I believe that if the game ends with the standings tied, then it would go to overtime, then penalty kicks. I'm not positive about this, though. I'm trying to find the info online, but can't seem to find out exactly what Liverpool need to do on Tuesday. I can tell you that eveyone seems to think Chelsea's going to do it. It's pretty much Manchester United and Chelsea winning everything else right now, anyway.

April 28
Portsmouth 2-Liverpool 1
This was a Premier League game.

I don't understand everything about English and European football yet, but I'm learning.

English Premier League is called the "League". As I'm sure you can tell by its name, only teams in the EPL play to win this League. There's even a pretty interesting system for how teams come in and out of the EPL.

UEFA Champions League is called "Europe". These are the European club teams that qualify for the Champions League in the season prior.

The FA Cup is called "The Cup". I haven't quite figured out how this one works, yet.

There is at least one other championship that EPL teams play for. Like I said, still learning. OK, I'm done, now. This went on a lot longer than I planned, and I'm sure much longer than any of you care. But there it is. In the future, I'll just include scores and a little game summary.

No comments: