Offside: you’re not allowed to pass the ball to a teammate that is behind the last line of defence.

The FA cup is also known as "The giant killer". Big teams who don't take the little teams seriously get their asses handed to them because the little team plays their hearts out on the night. Its happened countless time.

Let me say this there is no better feeling in any sport in the world than 4 or 5 teams fighting it out on the last game of the season to stay in their league it is simply fantastic even as a fan of a team who is safe or even won the league they still love to watch them teams literally fight for survival

I like that you picked up the promotion / relegation system straight away, a lot of Americans can take some time to understand it. You're absolutely right, fans of a team like Bournemouth who went from the 4th tier right up to the premier league are absolutely loving life right now. Conversely teams like Sunderland or Portsmouth who were Premier League teams, dropped right down to that 4th tier and basically imploded. You can imagine their fans are not as pleased.

Relegation is truly a gem. I watched relegation even from 2nd and 3rd division in Germany this year and people just go crazy. The emotions when everything is on the line is just through the roof. When teams battle out finals they fight for glory but when they battle for relegation they fight for their lives.

As a Small child my home town of about 15,000 people drew a Premier League Team in the FA CUP. It was a massive event with top stars playing in it, we got Match of The Day TV coverage which was massive at the time. Generated so much money for the club, we lost 3-2 but it was super exciting and memorable, inspired many to follow the team, brought the town to life. Real excitement young and old

As an Everton fan the threat of relegation this past season almost cost me my sanity but I wouldn't have it any other way!

Really interesting you picked up on the relegation piece. A couple of years ago there was a move by some American owners to start a competing competition to the Champions League they called the Super League. It attempted to abolish the merit based system in favour of a US sports-style format and the way rival fans across Europe rallied together to stop it from happening was remarkable- it's well worth looking into and there are loads of KZfaq videos about it.

I've always found it strange that American Sports reward failure which seems a very un-American thing to have. However if you have spent millions of dollars to buy an American sports franchise you can understand that owner not being willing to risk losing their investment if their team falls from the major leagues.

Jose Mourinho is considered one of the best managers of all time and is well known for his effective defensive playing style (which has won him many trophies) and his personality in interviews. He famously dubbed himself "The Special One" upon arriving in England having just won the Champions League with Portuguese team Porto, who were extreme underdogs. This comment won't do him enough justice, so I'll link a short montage of his best moments for your convenience. He is currently coaching Roma in Italy if you are looking for a team to support. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o5-JdrSL0b6pcWw.html

Release clauses are not really that common, except in Spain's La Liga, where it is mandatory. However there is not really a limit for how high you can set the fee, so while a player may have a market value of $10 million, the release clause may be $100 million or more. The exception is that many players will also have a relegation release clause, which allows players from relegated teams to be purchased quite cheaply.

You should look up Jean-Marc Bosman, he was a bang average unknown player in Belgium but he went to court against the league because players could never change teams unless their team agreed, even if the player's contract had run its course.

F.A cup also has huge financial gains for tiny clubs who can win a couple of games and get to play a huge Championship/Prem team because of the tv revenue. could literally transform a club in debt to a financially stable club for years to come just because they played a big club on tv for 1 game

Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mcelhenney bought Wrexham FC a Welsh team in the National League (5th tier) where they had been relegated to for 15 years. Within just a few years Wrexham this year won the National League and have been promoted back up into League 2! So it is possible to get back.

In mi city, Tijuana, we got to live one of those fantasy dreams where everything lines up perfectly. We got into the first division for the first time in our history in 2011 and in the first year, won the league. No one could believe it, it was madness!

Relegation is a good way to create added drama and to keep most of teams invested until the last round. I mean, if you don't have playoffs, you have to find ways to keep the interest for every one who is not fighting for the title anymore (basically everyone in the later stages of the tournament)

The release clause thing isn't quite as big a factor as the video makes it out to be. They aren't super common in contracts in a lot of places (for example not many players have a release clause in England). In some countries, like Spain (La Liga), it is a mandatory rule for all contracts to have a release clause but for their good players clubs often just make the clause unreasonably high so that it's very unlikely another club with be willing or even financially capable of paying it. So for example when Messi was last at Barcelona, his release clause fee was $825 million! You could buy an entire club in the English Premier League (bar the Top 6 or so) for that amount.

19:50 _The Treples, Quadruples, Quintuples, Sextuples_ There are some examples where clubs won 3 or more trophies. As you can see, there are some more trophies to win 2009 - FC Barcelona - 6 Trophies (La Liga, the Copa del Rey, Supercopa de España, UEFA Supercup, UEFA Champions League and Club World Cup) 2013 - FC Bayern München - 5 Trophies (Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal, UEFA Supercup, UEFA Champions League and Club World Cup) 2021 - FC Bayern München - 6 Trophies (Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal, DFB Supercup, UEFA Supercup, UEFA Champions League and Club World Cup) 2023 - Manchester City - 3 Trophies (Premier League, FA-Cup, Champions League) 20:48 _Release Clause_ Yes, there are exit clauses in football. But it mostly depends on which country you play in or which club you play for. In Spain, for example, it is common for such a clause to be included in the contract. For example, at FC Bayern, the club has categorically ruled this out. On the other hand, Bayern have now signed the best Italian defender in a mega deal by activating the release clause and paying Napoli €47m. Napoli were very keen to keep him, but the player was keen on the move himself. Some clubs also write utopian transfer fees in the contracts, such as FC Barcelona recently. FC Barcelona has set the transfer fee at 1 billion euros for Pedri's contract extension. 23:41 _TikiTaka_ This term dates back to the time when the Spanish national team drew attention to this style of play in 2006. The team refined the short passing game in combination with high possession of the ball in such a way that it was almost impossible for the opponent to get the ball. So the players literally danced merrily around their opponents while passing each other the ball. And the term was born.

A team called luton town just got promoted to the premier league for the first time this season, its such an amazing moment.

Love how open minded you are, and open to new ideas. Totally respect/love the content!!

One of my fav genres of yt videos is American learning about sports outside of the USA.

there's 2 types of trebles 1 being much more important than the other. Manchester United and Manchester city have both won the more important treble that being the Champions League the Premier League and the FA cup in the same season. Liverpool F.C in 2001 ( I'm a Liverpool fan btw) won the " Lesser" treble when Liverpool won the FA Cup the League cup and the UEFA cup (Europa League's previous name) No club in England has ever won the Quadruple, Liverpool got the closest in recent years (2021) Losing the Champions League final and Finishing just behind Man City in the League but won both Domestic cups ( FA cup and League Cup )

tiki taka is a strategy where you keep the ball contacts for the individual player real short. You play a series of quick and short passes and denies the opposite team to attack individual players. the combination move the ball really fast towards the enemy goal but you need also very quick acting players to give the player with ball continuous options for the next pass.

Offside: Think about it like you're not allowed to pass the ball to a teammate that doesn't have at least 2 other players in front of him at the time the pass was played (Usually the goalkeeper and a defender), however, this rule does not apply if you passed the ball when your teammate is on your side of the field. It also doesn't apply during goal kicks (as the opposition would just stand at the halfway line and prevent you from punting that b*tch to high heavens) or during throw-ins.

I remember when I was a kid, I used to go to the local Ligue 2 team of Tours (In France) and in the French FA cup we managed to get to the eights finals and we nearly beat a top Ligue 1 team, Saint Etienne we crazy goals, I remember a crazy long shot volley aswell as a attempted bicycle kick that hit the crossbar at the last minutes... Crazy scene for a small city like this and memories for life

The fact that players can move from one team to another easier ( if the release clause is paid) is thanks to one player -> Bosman. Not the biggest name, but he went to court and challenged the labour practices in Soccer. He won and rules changed,.... but he never played for a big team again ( they did kinda took revenge on him). So he basically sacrificed himself for everyone else to get a better deal in the future. 🤘❤️

For the record we have an "FA Cup" here in the US. It's called the US Open Cup, and its been running since 1904. Occasionally a minor league team will make a run and knock off a few MLS teams. It's pretty fun.

In England there are about 18-20 levels in the league system, depending which county you are in. So if you were to create a new team in one of the lowest leagues, it would take the team 18-20 years of back to back promotions. Plus at some of the higher leagues there are requirements for entry to the league such as stadium size and financial commitments. So if a team earns a promotion, does not necessarily mean they will actually go a league up. While it is not really hard of in the top leagues, it does happen once or twice at lower leagues.

I love your comprehension of what you're listening to, you pick up the meaning and significance of things so quickly and it's awesome to watch as a football fan! My local team, Brighton and Hove Albion, recently qualified for a European tournament for the first time in our history (the club was founded in 1901); just 25 years ago we were in the fourth division of English football, and battling to stay in the top four leagues thanks to toxic owners selling our assets (a relegation would essentially destroy the club), and we fought back to be where we are today. Anything can happen, keep an eye on us this year as we are going to be playing against clubs we've NEVER played against, isn't that crazy. If you're interested in the team there are many amazing documentaries about our journey, but a short one on KZfaq is "Brighton & Hove Albion: a journey from nowhere to the Premier League" 😅

Hey Mike. Welcome back. No English team has won all 4 trophies although my team Liverpool came close in the 21-22 season winning the league cup, fa cup...lost the league to Man city on the last match of the season and got the the champions league final but lost 1-0 to Real Madrid.

Germany had actually two examples of small clubs that rose from the bottom to top bundesliga within a handful if years. In both cases it was someone taking sponsoring to another level: Hoffenheim was a small regional club, and then a local tech rich guy who used to play there as amateur gave them loads of money to both deepen their playing infrastructure and training, and then buy giid players' contracts. They went from almost nothing to Bundesliga from when he started it in the 90s to 2008, and are still up there. The other example is actually a completely new founded club, RB Leipzig from 2009. They were specifically made as a private sponsor thing by Red Bull, although tor legal reasons the RB doesn't actually stand for Red Bull, supposedly. They are also up there now.

"drunk Texan?" sippin' light lager.

It is great to have you back, you have been missed.

If you want a good documentary, try Welcome To Wrexham. You get to learn not only about the pyramid tier system with promotion and relegation but what our club means to its local community. The club has been made more famous due to being taken over by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney and the subsequent documentary. We often get visitors from the US and Canada which is weird but in a good way.

Release clauses are not mandatory either, they are agreed upon during contract negations when a player joins a new club. His or her agent will specify a release clause, usually if the player is aiming to use the club as a stepping stone club to a bigger deal. That said, every player has their price, and the current transfer market in the premier league is the craziest we have ever seen :) - Loved the video, thanks for the content!

This video was recommended and I’m glad it was. This is awesome. Subscribed!!!

First time viewer. Really nice to see you understanding. Top guy. Super articulate, timing's perfect etc ✌️

Welcome back Mike, nice to see you!! 😁

Hey sir! Great video! I just moved from EU to USA (Houston) and I am glaad some Houstonian making this kind of content. Subscribed!

Jose Mourinho He is a Portuguese football manager who has won major trophies while mostly working with smaller teams beating much stronger opponents. He has a reputation for his style parking the bus which is basically sitting back letting the other team have the ball, defending and striking the other teams in transition with quick bursts of energy while opposing team players are in spread apart and leaving huge gaps defensively.

im forever blowing bubbles is a song west ham football supporters sing

Glasgow Celtic won the quadruple of league, scottish fa Cup, league cup and the then equivalent of the champions league in 1967.

FC Barcelona won the sixtuplet in 2009-2010 season which was insane and they were dubbed the best team of the 2000s. There are videos on youtube about that amazing season.

Thoroughly enjoyed this video, great job good sir!

Hello Mike. My home city team, Bradford City worked their way up the divisions to the Premier League as I grew up. Unfortunately they are back in the fourth tier, having been relegated a few times. It works both ways. As a fan of Rugby League, I am with the NFL fans on the subject of falling over as if hit by a cannon ball, at the slightest touch. I actually enjoy watching women's football, because they seem less inclined to feign injury. However, this does not include the goalkeepers, as they seem to be able to create a situation like a time-out by laying down clutching their knee. Check it out in women's Word Cup, "playing now on a TV near you", live from down under. You would also see any VARiations of offside.

Long time, no see! Glad you're unravelling the intricacies of proper football 😂

This was a great watch, love the attitude you bring into learning this stuff. Also the condemnation of soccer of course adds points.

Being from Houston as well and a passionate soccer fan this is gold keep the good work man

The FA Cup is a great tournament to watch. From the 3rd round of the tournament if an amateur team has done well the could get drawn against a top team in the Premier League, and some of these small clubs have caused an upset over the years.

Good to see you back hope you enjoyed your break from youtube. Football soccer I think it's only in recent years folk have become so sensitive and what you call it, but when I was a kid I used to wonder why they called American football, football because you very rarely see a foot near a ball

When it comes to flopping in soccer, think of it this way... Flopping is like mixing a little bit of pro wrestling melodrama into a game that can often be a little boring and tedious. If a player takes an obvious dive or rolls around while hugging his face in fake agony, instead of getting mad at him, cheer the spectacle. Have a drink. And if the player gets caught and carded for flopping, have another drink. Cheers to the ref for not getting bamboozled. But if the flopper gets away with it, then give him a round of applause for his acting skills and for fooling the ref. Have two drinks. Floppers become villains that everybody loves to hate. But some become heros or anti-heros, masters of the dark arts. They become feared and even respected. Football is like life. Sometimes you need a little gamesmanship to press your advantage. But it's a risk. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes its ugly. Either way, it's worth a drink. So cheers 🥂 . There is only one true religion ⚽.

Relegation battles in the last few games of the season with the teams at the bottom are some of the most exciting games you’ll watch, players/teams that have been shite all season all of a sudden turn into superstars because everything is on the line. You’ll quite often get upsets where a team at the top who’s trying to win the league will play a team at the bottom who are fighting for their lives and a game you would look at on paper as being a walkover turns into a major upset affecting the top and bottom of the league

I grew up near St. Louis, where soccer has been played since the 19th century. In fact, St. Louis had a professional soccer league as early as 1905, and has had a municipal soccer league dating back to the 1890's. Myself, I've been a soccer fan since I was 7-8 years old (I'm 63 now). I saw Pele play, lol. I've been a Manchester United fan for 30 years. Here in the U.S., we use to call the game "soccer football", but that died out by the end of World War 2 when we dropped "football " from the name. By the way, "soccer" is a 19th century English slang abbreviation for "association" in "association football" (the actual full name of the sport).

more football videos please! loved this!

Great video man, I think you would really love to look at these two teams called Luton and Wrexham! I’m a Liverpool fan but I’ll definitely be supporting them this year as well

Jose Mourihno (Joe-zay) aka "the special one" is well worth looking into, hes done some amazing things, won tournaments with teams that on paper had no business winning.

I love North American sports, especially Football and Baseball but I think the one thing I would change is the whole league structure to make it more like this as you say there's always something to play for and it makes pretty much every game mean something. Also I'd make Football PAT rules more like Rugby, so for the PAT you have to kick the ball from inline from where the touchdown was scored - so if you just made it on the right-hand edge of the end zone the kicker will basically be kicking from the sideline

Enjoyed your takes! Will be back again

First time here, you seem to be one of the nicest youtubers I’ve ever seen, subscribed.

He’s back !

Good video and review, I just missed him talking about the World Cup, it’s a global event bigger than the Olympiad. He also didn’t mention South American football, which is not at Europe club level, but has strong national teams and shares with Europe all the World Cup wins. Also, all major European clubs have imported South American players.

My home team drew a game against Fulham back in their heyday and we held them 2-2 until they scored twice in the last four minutes but it was a great excitement to everyone at the time, we even ended up on national television, not the first time for Kettering Town FC and hopefully it won't be our last!

Mike??! You're back! It seems a while since you were on KZfaq last; good to have you back!

Well, Hello Mike, it's good to see you again.♥

the lack of relegation in American sports + being in the biggest economy in the world is the reason why even the worst NFL/MLB teams etc are worth as much as world renowned clubs like Real Madrid

The contract system was changed a lot in football via the Bosman judgement in 1995. In the past the system was basically the same as in US sports. If a player signed with a club, he was basically owned by them. Even when his contract expired, the club could still say that they want X amount of money to let him go, to basically trap them into agreeing to a new contract when they set that amount so high, nobody else would pay that. The Bosman judgement put an end to that making players free agents after their contract ended. This completely changed the game and massively increased salary of the top players. Now a club can only ask for money from another club as long as the player is still under contract. This means that if a club actually wants to let go a player, they won't wait until his contract expires, but they'll actually market him to other clubs, to still get some money for him. This also helps player's chances to keep playing even if their current club doesn't like them anymore, because they will try to get him a new club. The other major difference to the US system is that there is no draft. Clubs are responsible to find their own talent from any place in the world. For example the Red Bull football clubs (Red Bull Salzburg, RB Leipzig) have started academies around the world, importing very young talents (16y+) to the leagues in Austria and Germany and making huge amount of money off that. When Red Bull bought the FC Salzburg back in the day, everyone laughed about them joining football (just like they laughed about RB joining Formular 1), because everyone thought they'd just lose all their money and not be competitive. RB Salzburg is already the record champion in Austria by a landslide AND the last year alone they made 50 million in profits selling players - which is almost their average number at this point. They are making more profit with players each year than the whole of Austria's highest league clubs (in the Bundesliga) have combined budgets. Another trick they've implemented and is now somewhat standard in european football is sell-on-clauses as well as success-clauses in contracts of players they are selling. For example, they got a talent at 16y old, put them in their Red Bull Salzburg team in the Austrian Bundesliga where that talent played 2 years and became a name in european tournaments (like the Champions league). They sell him for 20 million to some german club, but in the contract it will also say that if that club sells him for profit later, they'll get another X millions AND it will say that if that club wins their league with the player playing at least X % of games they will also get a success premium for selling them this valuable player. Both are genius financial moves.

It is really exciting watching that journey up to the Premier League look up Luton town. Their journey has been so wow

Would you ever react to English football/soccer chants, or USA v’s European football or Basketball fan chants?

How could u do a video and not explain World Cup? The most popular football world wide. Still a great video. I learned a lot. Vai Brasil!

San Antonio texas in the housee!!! Good video bro! Keep ‘em coming!

Good to see you back.

On the release clauses. Thats not everyone. Thats negotiated with the player when they sign. Most players dont actually have a release clause. Its a bigger thing in europe but yh id say like 80-90% of players dont have release clauses

Hi Mike, Soccer is also used here in the UK, In 1863 the Football Association was formed to ratify the rules in England. The game was known as association football. We also have rugby football, on which your football was based. These two games were given slang names rugger for rugby and assoccer for for football. Assoccer was abreviated to soccer so England introduced this word to the world.

dude you're hilarious, definitely subbing

I've found it easier to explain what is on-side, if you don't meet that definition you are off-side. On-side is if an attacking player has more than 2 opposition players closer to the opposition's goal line at the point the ball is played towards them. You are always on-side in your own half. You are on-side if you are behind the ball. You are onside if you are in possession of the ball. You are always onside if your team wins a "throw-on" (but as soon as the first player touches the ball, all other on-side rules reapply).

What sort of bellend keeps on calling football 'soccer'? :-)😁 Great to see you back, Mike. Anyway, trivia time. The first ever recorded international football match dates from 1568. It was between England and a combined French/Scottish team. And the referee was Mary, Queen of Scots. It took place at Carlisle Castle, where Mary was being held prisoner by the English. Her captor, Lord Scope, challenged his English guards against Mary's retinue of French and Scots attendants. Mary herself started the game by throwing the ball from a window and refereed. The other reason this is significant is that it is the only football match in the history of the world where there were English, Scottish and French players and not a single person was booked or sent off for fouling an opponent.

Liverpool were 1.5 games away from a quadruple in 2021/22. City came back in 2nd half of final game of season... and so won the league by one point. In the CL, the final was moved to France, and the French police tear gassed the fans. That kinda put a downer on the mood and they went on to lose. No one has won a quadruple in England to best of my knowledge

Glad your back 😂🎉

i love this video, ur reaction and the happy u look

Welcome back! 😊🎉 so glad you watched this, I’ve seen a load of other American reaction channels watch this video and then go down the football rabbit hole 😂 (I’d also definitely recommend it). Your question about the Quadruple, Celtic in 1967 are the only team ever to do it. Manchester City won a treble this season and Liverpool ago almost won a Quadruple last season. Trebles and especially Quadruples are insanely difficult to achieve and are very rare. Also about Goalies/Keepers/Goalkeepers (all mean the same thing) my dad was a professional keeper who played from (1987-2006) in the Premier League and also played for England and went to two World Cups (1998 and 2002) He’s called Nigel Martyn and you may want to check him out? There’s a pretty good short compilation of some of his saves on KZfaq kzfaq.info/get/bejne/np1indqXx9_Mo3U.html Hope you all have a great day! 😊

Release clauses are pretty uncommon in English football and the actual clause can be super complicated with lots of caveats. They're normally in contracts when an very good player goes to a slightly less good club and makes sure there's a value they will release them to a top club at for a fair price. This means good, young players can go to sides that are ready to play them in most matches with an expectation to move on later.

I know that total football has been around for a long time (basically one team possessing the ball the entire game and dominating possession and opportunities) was coined back in the 70s with the Dutch National team. Yes the skill levels of Barcelona during Pep's days as manager was all about that style of play but to do that at international level is extremely difficult. International teams get times to play during each season to qualify for tournaments and only short time frames for training camps and matches. The best example of a team completely dominating possession to score a goal in international football that I have seen was back in 2006 at the WC in Germany Argentina v Serbia and Montenegro Esteban Cambiasso was the beneficiary of the play to score the goal but to truly understand what holding onto the ball looks like, it is this goal Martin Tyler has been calling the game for 50 years in England and around the world, his commentary around this goal shows how special it really is

Hi DrunkTexanSays, first time I watched your content and so far I like what I see. The idea of drinking and having fun while creating content and not taking yourself way too serious is great. Damn, it even made me mix a good chunk of London dry gin with coke for myself (I am no fan of tonic water, that's why I mix it with coke and I totally understand if that sounds odd to you) Anyways, back to topic: 1) I didnt know and also didnt expect American sport is stuck in such a boring system, makes me feel sad for you guys 2) players can have a release fee in their contract, but they have to negotiate it in unless they play in the Spanish league where it's a must-have in every player's contract or else the clubs are not allowed to register that player for their team for the current and/or upcoming season. But since they are forced to have release fees the amounts for a players they dont actually want to let go are so humongus that no rational thinking club is considering to pay it. Top lvl players have fees of about 1 billion, not joking around here. But in the 4 other big leagues i.e. England, France, Italy and Germany the fee's are set to reasonable values which still can hit 200 million € for excellent and young players who still have about a decade off potential seasons to come like Kylian M'Bappe or Earling Haaland. 3) my third and last ponit i wanted to say is that the relegation system keeps the lower end of the table interesting but can harm big clubs as hard as it can help newcomers to step up. A good example for that is Hamburg which has a huge fanbase, but is now stuck in Germanys second league because they cant make it to the top within that League and therefor cant get a hold to players with the skill to change that situation which ultimatly leeds to a permanent lower income from tv shares and so on which excludes them from being able to compete on the transfer market for the kind of players that they would need to make it to the top spot of the league. There is also a rule here in Germany that only the last from the top league and first from the second league are directly swapped with eachother. Number 17 and 16 of the Bundesliga have to play relegation matches with the second and third of the second league to settle the relegation swap or to stay where they are. And due to money reasons its most likly that the teams of the Bundesliga will win versus the teams of the second Bundesliga. So it is more likely to get swaped back in the above league if the last season was the season in which you got swaped and still have the human recources to reclame your top tier spot. The more seasons pass in which you didnt make it to the top, the more likly it is that you wont goin anywhere near a relegation spot anytime soon. So as nice as it sounds, there are still flaws in that system we need to fix in the long run.

Tournaments like the fa cup and carabao cup often give lower tier teams in england a chance to play premier league teams, which gives a lot of important experience for coaches managers and players of lower league teams. This generally improves the quality of football thru the whole of the England thru a sort of trickledown of experience. Even though some premier league teams will play backup squads in these tournaments, the backup squads are still competitive at a high level to give experience to smaller sides.

Love your channel from the couple soccer videos I've watched so far, would be cool if you threw the link of the video you watched in the description just so we can support that creator too.

Offside: the a teammate makes contact with the ball but your body is past the other teams defence and if you touch it, it’s a miss play.

17:44 UEFA has invented in 2021 (3 years ago) a tournament called Conferece League... This tournament is played mainly by teams of small leagues who get place for two or three teams, while big leagues get only one place for a single team...Then the 8 2nd quailified of Conference play against the 8 3rd quilified teams from Europa League they face on a play-off; then the winners of that play-off, face on Round of 16, the 8 1st qualified teams from Conferece... Then the winner is decided by kick-off (quarter final, semi final), and then the great final. This 2024 we've 3 exciting European finals: Champions: 🇪🇸Real Madrid - Dortmund🇩🇪 Europa League: 🇩🇪Leverkusen - Atalanta🇮🇹 Conference: 🇬🇷Olympiakos - Florentina🇮🇹

When he's talking about the FA Cup - the thing that's closest to it in American sports is March Madness. But it's even more chaotic (and therefore fun) than that: the games are a complete random draw. So sometimes top teams draw each other in the early rounds and knock each other out, other times you get tiny local teams against Premier League teams. Also, which team is at home is also random, so the Premier League team has to play on some tiny ground with fans screaming from only five yards from the white line, and with a surface that isn't exactly flat - but the local team knows all the bumps of the ground and knows how to play around them. The first or second weekend of January is the "Third Round" of the FA Cup - the first two rounds are qualifiers; the Premier League teams don't arrive until the Third Round. There are 64 teams involved, so there are 32 games spread from Friday evening to Monday night. 20+ of them will all kick off at once at 3pm on Saturday. Listening to that on the radio, where they can rapidly switch to whichever ground something interesting is happening is like the NFL Red Zone on steroids.

Offside: An attacking player is behind the last defender and in front of the goal keeper of the defending team as the ball is kicked forward to them or anywhere towards them or the goal. If that player touches the ball, interferes with play in any way at all leading up to a goal for that players side it would/should (ref dependant) be disallowed. This will result in a free kick to the defending side mostly.

Jose Mourinho "The Special One", famous for his attitude of self confidence. Won the Champions League with Inter milan (One of Italys best teams) whilst almost every player was over 28 (Average age of 31 i think) which is insane, they beat some of the best teams to win. He also won with Sporting (Lisbon?) one of Portugals best teams but a small team in europe over all winning whilst other giants lost. Broke Records with Real Madrid (Arguably the best team in Europe). Won the Premier League (Englands highest tier of football) for the first time in a long time a while back (Left and came back to do it again). He is one of the Greatest managers of all time and is in the race for the number 1 title with Pep Guardiola and Sir Alex Ferguson. Hope i didnt make it confusing!

Get yourself to The Phoenix on Westheimer and catch a match or two some Saturday or Sunday morning. I live in Austin, but lived in Houston for 20 years. Great (EU or "proper") football presence there. Go to a Houston Dynamo match (not great, but again, exposure) or come on over to Austin and, as a season ticket holder, I'll take you to a match here. It's great that you're getting into the sport! I've only been a fan since 2014, but it's been amazing and I've had more fun with the "soccer" community than I ever did with any American sport fanbase - and I grew up playing the big three!

At 18:33, where you’re talking about the point regarding the mid season issues, a great example of that is the team I support. It’s a German team called Eintracht Frankfurt (our fanbase is insane btw, it would make a rlly good video checking out the shenanigans we get up to :) ). Anyways around 2 seasons ago we were doing mediocre in our domestic league, where we ended up 11th. This maybe around 6 years ago wouldn’t have been too bad for us but recently we’ve been doing really well to the point where we qualified to the europa league followed by the champions league (the b tier and a tier of European continental club football respectively). And due to the bad nature of our season everybody was giving up halfway through the domestic league but everybody was fully behind the europa league efforts. This ended up in Frankfurt winning the europa league and earning the first ever qualification to the champions league and first ever international trophy. The multi competition aspect of European football also creates this interesting dynamics between more league oriented „stability teams“ vs knock-out/play off oriented „emotionality (or heat of the moment) teams“

0:33 Perrotta looking confused, with three Romanian players writhing on the ground in "pain". Alright, I see what you did there. 🤣

In Chile we have an FA Cup equivalent called Copa Chile and years ago this amateur team formed at some cheese factory in the south actually managed to knock out a second division (i.e. professional) team and while they were shattered by all the first division teams in the next round, just getting to play at some fancy stadiums, against fully professional players, with mainstream press and TV covering the games, was quite the experience for them.

A bit of a long post but explains a bit about the FA cup and the benefit for smaller clubs. For English Football there is 11 tiers of leagues, where at tier 6 there is more than one league in that tier and those leagues cover a specific region of England (cheaper for teams to play more locally). With each lower tiers gaining more and more leagues the further you go down) The FA Cup is a knockout tournament that each round has 1 game. Unlike the annual tournament which is only available to the teams in the top 4 leagues, the FA open up to the 9 / 10 tiers of English football leagues. In the lower tiered leagues the players quite often have a normal day job as the payment of players gets smaller, there’s even some teams where the players have to pay a small amount of money to play the game, this is used to cover costs (league fees, ground / pitch hire / washing for kit or even buying kit) . In theory it is possible in the FA Cup for someone like a postman / garbage man / road sweeper to be playing in the FA cup final against a top tiered team where the players are multi-millionaires being paid more in a day than the other teams players earn in a year from their day jobs and playing football. The thing about the FA Cup is that a small team for a lower league level although they know their chances of winning against a team from a top league is very slim, they will be happy to play against them. The reason for this is because the money they get from competing in the match will be much more than they normally get, sometimes the lower level team gives up the advantage of playing at their home ground so that they can get more money from playing at the oppositions bigger stadium, where they will get considerably more money due to their cut of the gate receipts / ticket sales. where normally a low level team would be hard pressed to get anyone to attend their games, in the FA cup there is a chance to play with at a stadium of a club from the top league which they have a capacity from 10,000 to just under 75,000 people (average around 30-50k). The FA cup could be a big payday for the smaller clubs from the lower leagues if they go up against a top team, even if they do not win they game the money they get can cover their expenses for years.

José would play very defensive and use older more experienced players and sit deep in his own half, and once the other team has been attacking they would steal the ball and do a quick counter attack. He used this at Porto a team outside the top 5 leagues in Europe to win the champions league the biggest trophy in European football. He had success at Chelsea, Real Madrid, Roma, and won silverware with Man United

Offside: The player which receives a pass should be behind two defending players of the other team. This includes two defenders, or mostly a defender and a goalkeeper (the latter happens generally). Offside cannot occur if all offensive players are before the mid line. Also, if they manage to dribble the ball past one or less defending players, (including goalkeeper) the ball can only be passed to another player who is behind the ball or it is offside. If this rule is violated, the defensive players get an indirect free kick.

Offsides is pretty dman easy: it's when the mustard is past the mayonnaise when the chocolate egg is played but the vinegar doesn't count. Side note the watched video is a little older since the substitute rules have changed a little. Enjoyed the vid!

On release clauses, not every player will have one (especially if already playing for an elite team) and they are often much higher than any team will be willing to pay for that player. Some teams will put a more affordable release clause in a contract as part of the negotiation with the player, knowing that an elite side may eventually pay the release clause but at least getting the chance to sign the player in the first place.

Offside; - When a players receives a pass, while standing behind the opponents last fieldplayer, on the opponents half of the field. -Only goalscoring body parts count, so no hands or arms can be offside. - passes from a throw-in also can never be offside. -corners can't be offside. -passes from own goal kicks can not be offside. -purposely deflections by opponents also cansels out offside. Before Off-Side, games resulted in 9-4 score, or even higher. They were waiting at the opponents goal all game. I love offside, it brings a thinking game.