Please Explain The UEFA

For England teams, winning the Premiership is held in higher esteem than Champions League.
FA Cup would come next.
Europa League after that.
Then the League Cup (same deal as the FA Cup, but played against teams in the top four divisions of English football...FA Cup is open to everyone, amateur teams included).

 

Liverpool did the "Treble Light" one year by winning Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup.

I guess order of importance would be down to each individual club. I think for the most part, all clubs consider winning their domestic league priority number one because it's your heart and soul and it also guarantees (for the bigger leagues) a berth in the following year's CL which means a boat load of money.

In terms of single matches being a big deal in interest it goes 1. World Cup final, 2A. European championship, 2B. Champions League probably.

I personally would like to see the FA Cup final be prioritized more again. Before 24 hour/world wide saturation, going to Wembley was a bigger deal that it is now, it seems.

 

Context is the perfect word. That is where I am at. I walk into the local pizzeria and see the workers gazing at soccer match on TV but I have no idea of the magnitude of the game.

Certainly this thread answers a lot of my questions.

 

No English team has with the Europa League/UEFA Cup, but as mentioned Man United won the Premiership/FA Cup/CL treble. Porto won the Portuguese league, the Portuguese cup and the Europa League last year. It got their manager a shiny new job at Chelsea. Which, well, didn't quite go as planned.

The League Cup, which appears under the guise of whatever company is sponsoring it and is currently known as the Carling Cup, is generally held in great disdain by just about everyone, particularly top-level Premiership teams. Unfortunately, the FA Cup, which has a long and proud tradition, is beginning to fall into the same category.

What's important to remember about the league structure is that the comparison with major- and minor-league baseball isn't really accurate, because the teams aren't affiliated. And it really does go many, many levels down. Generally speaking, Level 11 is the first one where you find that games are played with one referee and a linesman from each of the participating teams.

 

For most teams, the holy grail would be the Premier League. But some teams that have won it multiple times would just as soon win the Champions League. That was Chelsea. Their owner, who's a Russian billionaire, was fixated on the Champions League. Manchester United have won plenty of Premier League titles, so while they don't want to give that up, they'd probably pick the Champions League if forced.

But Manchester City, who hadn't won a top-flight title in 44 years, would have wanted that first.

 

It's really not as complicated as you think.

Let's take Liverpool, my team. They compete in England's Premier League, and will as long as they avoid finishing in the bottom three for a season. (Teams that finish in the bottom three are relegated to the next league below, the Championship).
Liverpool also will play in the Carling Cup, also called the League Cup, which it won this season.
It also will play in the FA Cup, which is one of the oldest competitive tournaments in team sports. Essentially all teams in England play in this event, which is a single-elimination tournament.
If Liverpool were to finish in the top 4 of the Premier League, it would earn a position in the next year's UEFA Champions League. Alas, those positions for 2012/13 instead went to Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea, which knocked out England No. 4 Tottenham because it won the 2012 title and automatically gets to defend despite finishing 7th in the Premier League.
Because it won the Carling Cup, Liverpool instead earned a berth to play in the Europa League, which is easy to define on US terms -- think of it as a season-long NIT.

Does that clear it up? If not, I'll answer specific questions.

 

I think it depends on the club when it comes to EPL/Champions League. Chelsea's holy grail was the CL, since it's won three in the last seven years. Liverpool hasn't won the league since 1990 and would probably take that.

Clubs like Man U, or now City, want both badly. Next season, City would gladly trade the league for a European title.

 

Something to keep in mind that can be confusing is that the teams in the European competitions are determined by how they did the year before. For example, Montpellier won the French championship this year, but it will participate in next year's Champions League.

The parlance used in England is to win "trophies". It's why Arsenal gets teased for being trophy-less (no Champions League, EPL, F.A. Cup, etc.) for eight years, or whatever it is, despite being a big club and big (compared to other domestic teams) spender.

Liverpool, despite having a below standard league season, salvaged a bit of pride by winning the League Cup and finishing runner-up for the F.A. Cup.

Speaking of which, the most analogous thing to the English League Cup and F.A. Cup is to think of golf. The F.A. Cup is like the U.S. Open (theoretically open to all comers) and the League Cup is the like PGA Championship.

The League Cup is definitely second tier to all of the others in the English game.

Another confusing thing for new fans are the names of the English leagues. There's the Premier League, of course, which are the top 20 teams in the four-league English ladder system.

However, the second tier league is called the Championship. The third tier league is called League One. The fourth and final tiered league is called League Two. (Drop out of League Two and you drop into the nebulous realm of the Conference ... you never, ever want that.)

The reason for those contradictory names is long and boring. It's admittedly pretty stupid and confusing for outsiders.

And it should be noted that some of these competitions do exist in North America as well, but don't get the media attention. There is a U.S. Open Cup that runs concurrently with MLS and there's the CONCACAF Champions League.

There's also a FIFA World Club Championship for club champions of the continental Champions Leagues. It is met with nearly universal derision and is rightly thought of as a cash grab by FIFA.

All of the above are club championships.

The World Cup, Euro (or UEFA) 2012, CONCACAF Gold Cup, Copa America, African Cup Of Nations and Asian Cup are competitions made up of international teams.

 

Good stuff Bubbler. It makes the BCS seem simple in comparison.