Part 101: Appendix: The Year in Football/Futbol/Fußball/Calcio/Soccer, 2019-2020
Appendix: The Year in Football/Futbol/Fußball/Calcio/Soccer, 2019-2020June 9, 2020
It's time for our yearly spin around the globe to see what's up in the world of soccer.
We start at home, where we already know the tale. Man City, Arsenal, and Chelsea make the Champion's League, while we miss out on Europe altogether. Crystal Palace and Wigan go down, which is no surprise, but Newcastle also goes down. That's a real shock, they were a good team and finished with a goal differential that matched ours. They're going to have to shed a huge amount of salary, but they were so good that I expect their sojourn in the wilderness to be very short.
West Ham finally makes it back into the Premier League, as does Aston Villa. Both teams could easily stay up next year, it's looking like the 12th to 19th best teams in next year's Premier League are going to be very closely packed. The worst team is going to be Bristol City, who had a lucky season to even make it into the Championship playoffs. If we don't take six points from them, I'm going to garrote a coach to show the players I mean business and that they might be next.
With their relegation Port Vale has now changed leagues three times in the seven seasons we've played. At the other end of the table Sheffield Wednesday deservedly makes it back to the Championship. Tackleford seems to have improved, but that's a relative term. Somehow Ed Phillips still has his damned job after four seasons of mediocrity.
Megabastards Man City win the FA Cup, but Swansea still gets a ticket to Europe from the deal. The biggest surprise are the Bolton Wanderers making it to the semifinal, a very impressive showing for a Championship squad. ForeverBWFC will be so happy! Or at least, as happy as you can get about your team doing well in a video game.
Stoke City had such a great start to the season, sitting in 3rd place almost halfway through the season. All they have to show for it is a loss in the League Cup final to Arsenal and a midtable finish.
Up north Celtic continues their reign of terror. Even with their third place finish Rangers are a shell of their former selves. Partick Thistle remains in the top division. Up the Thistle!
No surprise at the top of the table here, but the fourth place team is really interesting. Athletic Club Bilbao are based in the Basque region of Spain. Every single one of their players are Basque, as is required by club policy. They have an impressive history, with eight titles and the distinction of being one of three teams in the history of the league to never be relegated. They're going to the Champion's League for the first time in over 20 years.
Porto ran away with the title, even with Sporting CP narrowing the final result this was over in March. Boring.
North of Iberia the Gauls had themselves a barnburner of a title fight, with Monaco and PSG trading positions atop the league right into the final weeks. No, I don't know why I've become a Roman.
Maybe I'm reacting to Roma almost unseating those Turinese bastards at Juventus, but fell on goal differential.
To the north, across the borders of the old Empire, Bayern Munich stumbles still. This is Dortmund's 3rd title in a row. Down the table Hoffenheim remains in the top division, after stumbling from three straight top half finishes.
Over on the polders PSV wins the Eredivise by 15 points, and Ajax recovers a little from their wobble last season.
The Germans take a continental title for the first time since Bayern won the Champion's League in 2013. Their haplessness in continental competitions have hurt the league's reputation, the Bundesliga is distinctly fourth behind La Liga, the Premier League, and Serie A.
Until this year I could have said the same thing about the Premier League that I just said about the Bundesliga. The five Champion's League titles amassed by Spanish clubs since 2014 are the main reason why La Liga is considered the best league in the world. Then Manchester United cut through the best teams in Europe just as easily as they did English clubs.
Across the pond Montreal continues to dominate MLS. At least the Revs are decent again. And as was noted in a previous update, the Timbers Army got to cheer Portland winning the CONCACAF Champion's League.
Tigres, or Club de Fútbol Tigres de la Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León to be precise, win their fifth title. Meanwhile, Club America continues to be awful. America are the most successful team in Mexican soccer, and play at the riotous (in both good and bad ways) Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. They've won 11 titles, but over the last five years have turned into one of the worst teams in the league.
Flipping the globe to the southern hemisphere we can see that Velez continues the process of old money revanchism against the upstart and stillborn Deportivo Moron hegemony. Racing won last year, and it looks like Deportivo Moron are settling into the midtable.
Flamengo won. Again. What a shock. At least Gremio keeps it's iron lock on the state level league with a third straight title despite their middling performance in the Brasileirao.
And Flamengo won the Copa Libertadores. I don't even follow Brazilian soccer and I've decided that I hate them for their success in a video game. I'm not sure what that says about me.
The only major international tournaments taking place this year are coming up this summer, with the Euro Championships and Olympics taking place in late July and early August. I'll note them as they happen.