I was watching the FA cup draw today now one of you need to explain how the hell you all set up your football tournments. I know about the Preimer League and correct me if I am wrong (probably am) but the bottom 3 finishers in the league fall down to the 2nd league (know idea what thats called) and the top 3 from there move up. Ok while I was watching them draw the teams I saw teams I recognized Arsenal,Chelsea, Manchester City and so on and a whole host of teams that quite frankly sounded like a drunk frat kid named. So how does this tournment work and do some of these teams have any real chance? Thanks

The FA cup is a knock out tournament and nothing to do with the leagues. The competition involves all teams in the 4 leagues and non-league teams. The big teams don't actually play till the 3rd round (the one you saw the draw for). Realistically the lower league teams don't have a chance but there is always one or two teams who go on a run. Last year Millwall, a league one team (the one below the Premier) made it the final but got slayed by Man Utd.

To be honest it has been in decline as the big teams are more interested in the european cup competitions so have been known to use more squad players. The winner get a place in the UEFA cup which is now the 2nd tier cup competition in europe so for the big teams aside from the cup and a little cash there isn't the motivation anymore. This has lead to lower league teams having more runs. The big thing to watch is the giant killings. There is always at least on Premier League team who get slayed by a lower league team and that is fun (so long as its not Spurs).

Hope that helps.

Rich

Yep, there are multiple tournaments (the leagues and two cup competitions domestically, with a further two bigger-profile cups played for in europe). Although it's nice to win anything (especaily for a smaller team), these smaller cups do not matter so much these days. For the big clubs (Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United) the only thing that REALLY matters is winning the premier league, which makes you the english champions. For the top 4 or 5 teams in the league, they go through to play in next year's european cup competition, "the champions league" which works just like the US type sports; there are league systems with a few teams drawn at random from all the qualifiers in europe (so Arsenal from england could be drawn with Milan from italy, Marseilles from france and dortmund from germany). The winners of the group go into a knock-out stage and the eventual winner of the one-off final is the champion of europe, which is currently the pinnacle of the national game.

Before the european contests were so hotly contested, and the rise of TV and big money in football, the FA cup was second only to the league in England and was always considered the most "romantic" contect to win due to the one-off anything can happen aspect. The best team wins the league, every year, cos it takes place over nearly 40 matches. In the cup anyone can beat anyone, and all english kids grow up dreaming of scoring the winning goal in the FA cup final. Well, they used to anyways, now probably the european cup! If anything its less precitable than the league; at the start of the year, there is only realistically maybe 3 teams who ever have much hope of winning the league (european placings and not getting relegated are important for most sides, though, as well as pride of beating local rivals or "building" to generate a potential winning team in years to come). This situation is probably similar in the US where there's maybe ever only 3 or 4 teams with a big chance of winning the NBA or Stanley Cup or whatever. There's usually a surprise every year in the football when one team finishes crazily high or one big name gets in trouble (for instance last year, Leeds, my local team, who were competing at the top of the league and in the top european competition about 3 years ago, got relegated after financial trouble and selling al their best players).

One of the good/bad things about football depending on how you look at it is that the big teams tend to stay big. Whereas salary caps and draft picks for the worst teams in the US means that things change around a bit, its usual for the best teams in football to be richer, and able to buy and pay for the best players, which makes it hard for the small sides to stay afloat. Competitions like the FA Cup can be a big financial boost for them, and gives them the chance to take the scalp of a major team. In general you find the league will be dominated by the same teams for long periods (for instance, for the last 12 years, excepting one year when Blackburn Rovers won it in a big surprise, Manchester United or Arsenal have won every English league title. It was Leeds before that).

Monk
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Sounds like your football has the same problem American football used to have the big money teams dominating which to me at any rate gets old fast. The sport that probably best compares to tha now is baseball.

Anyways now ok you have 4 seperate leagues that you draw the teams from but the EP league teams don't get drawn till the 3rd round. Also you mentioned squad players which anwsered my next question cause while watching Chelsea play today the announcers were mentioning something about them using their squad players since they are so deep talent wise to kinda give thier 2nd and 3rd teamers some playing time.