With J Hutcherson
One of the lesser known items to come out of Michael Bradley's season with Heerenveen is the Dutch playoff system for the European slots not taken by the league champion. Heerenveen is setting up to play Ajax home and away in a mini-tournament for a Champions League place. 2nd (Ajax) vs. 5th (Heerenveen) with a final round against the 3rd vs. 4th winners. All the losing clubs get a UEFA Cup slot.
They do the same thing for 6th-9th place with an Intertoto Cup slot on the line, with the other three getting nothing.
Add in the 16th and 17th place clubs playing yet another mini-tournament against lower division clubs with relegation (for them) on the line, and eight of the 18 Eredivisie clubs' seasons end with the last game of the regular schedule. Two of those clubs are the league champion and the last place automatically relegated team.
The relegation tournament, called the Nacompetitie, actually has ten teams counting the 16th and 17th place Eredivisie finishers. The Eerste Divisie participants are whoever had the best record over stretches of the season, divided into rounds of six games. So a strong start to the season could literally have you in promotion contention regardless of what you did for the rest of the year.
As models go, the relegation tournament might look more like a gauntlet for the two top tier clubs to keep their place, but there's a lot to be said for playoffs for European slots.
Existing standards in the bigger leagues aside, it's an inventive way to get playoffs into a league format that is otherwise traditional. It also only directly awards the league champion, rather than making second place a pseudo championship with a similar reward. In the Eredivisie, that second place slot is a literal championship.
There's a case to be made that the Dutch system is actually more traditional. The greater reward is for the only league position that should really matter for the Champions League, the actual champion. Everybody else has to earn it post-season.
What I'm Watching
Champions League semifinal second leg: Manchester United - Barcelona at 2:30pm on ESPN2.
Copa Libertadores on Fox Sports en Espanol: Lanus - Atlas at 7pm and LDU Quito - Estudiantes at 9:30pm. All Times Eastern
The Wonderful World of Soccer Media: Europe
Ferguson shrugs off talk of slump -- from BBC Sport: "We are faced with a big game with a place in the final at stake and we have a marvellous chance."
Eriksson starts preparing for exit from City -- from The Guardian's Daniel Taylor: He has no plans to resign, not least because it would mean missing out on a payoff for the final 25 months of his £2.5m-a-year deal, but he has been increasingly disillusioned since Thaksin made it clear he was contemplating bringing in another manager.
Only Thaksin knows why Eriksson faces sack -- from The Times' James Ducker: Which begs the question – how on earth has it come to this?
Wembley Stadium loses £40m in first year -- from The Telegraph's William Gray: In terms of revenue, Wembley made a loss of around £22 million, but with interest payments on the £346 million outstanding loan the overall figure is around £40 million.
The Wonderful World of Soccer Media: USA
Champs get rings before notching first win -- from The Houston Chronicle's Bernardo Fallas: The Dynamo are counting on a two-game homestand that begins Saturday to jump-start their season.
Wizards’ Espinoza wants to give back to Honduras -- from The Kansas City Star's Bob Luder: "He’s just a very good person and very good soccer player."
A senator steps in to get a soccer stadium on track -- from The Vancouver Sun's Iain Macintyre: Five years after Campbell, then Vancouver's mayor, first encouraged Kerfoot to build a downtown stadium, a shovel has yet to be sunk into the ground, although there should be a few people hit over the head with one.
Cuban defectors get MLS tryouts -- from The Press-Enterprise's Luis Bueno: "If it's not here, it will be with another team. If it's not with that team, then there will be another team," Bermudez said.
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