You mentioned hypothetically Kansas City winning the Super Bowl and then being relegated a couple of years later, that literally happened in real life here. Leicester City won the Premier League in 2016 and were relegated last season. They’re doing well this season and looks like they might come back up again, though

Football is an institution in Europe, you can hear a conversation about a team in every bar across Europe, everyday, every hour, every minute. 😎✌

You talked about teams fading into obscurity, and the narrator says that "nobody cares" about teams in the national league. Just to help you understand how important the game is, even at such a low level, teams in the national league (5th tier) can play in front of thousands of fans (average gate about 3,000, the top clubs average 6,000-8,000). Even in the 6th tier, there are quite a few teams that pull in over 2,000 fans per match on average, and can go up to about 3,000-4,000 for a big match such as a local derby or top of the table clash.

So in soccer, offside is similar to offside in ice hockey, but the blue line is not painted on the field because it is "moving" with whoever the last defender before the goal is. That's why the two side refs are usually always on the same level as the last defender.

Football is a game of anticipation. Nobody expects more than 4 goals in a match, the average is 2 goals, 0-0, 1-0, 1-1, 2-0. The excitement is the possibility of your team scoring when they go forward and the possibility of the opponents scoring against your team. That's the very base level of football. After a while you'll understand the Ins and Outs of the game

18:17 the top 4 leagues in England are all fully professional. I support a team in League One (3rd tier), Oxford United, who are a professional club. The third tier isn’t complete ‘obscurity’, there’s still thousands of fans that go to each of the games in these leagues. We managed to get to the top league in the 1980’s, and won the League Cup in 1986.

Our Football clubs are the heartbeat of our cities, towns and communities. We are intrinsically linked to them. It's the world's no 1 game and a year round obsession 👌⚽🧡

The idea that it's the same teams in the NFL year after year and that if you suck you get rewarded is not only boring as hell but bizarre, and that you have no comps where everybody and anybody can play is also boring, these differences are some of the reasons normal club games have way way more viewers than the superbowl final.

Relegation/Jeopardy in the league makes it far more exciting. Like this season in the Premier League, it's looking like a 3 horse race to win the title between Liverpool, Man City & Arsenal & it will probably go down to the last game of the season to see who is crowned champions. But there's 5/6 teams at the bottom who will all be scraping it out not to be 1 of the 3 teams relegated on the last day of the season. Making it a nail biting last day of the season, with loads of different storylines all being played out.

Arsenal (my club) even told their fan channel, Arsenal Fan TV, and made them take out the Arsenal part.

What the video failed to mention is that in England, the top 2 teams gets promoted straight to the premier league, while third to sixth are sent to a knockout-style mini tournament playoff with home and away legs, with the winner getting the third promotion spot. Also championship playoffs are usually the hypest set of matches of the year due to how much is at stake.

On the release clause thing, when you pay a player's release clause they don't actually get released. It's basically a transfer fee that the club has to agree to. For example if a player's release clause is $50,000,000 and a team bids $35,000,000 for him the club would be able to choose whether or not that release clause is good enough but if a team bids $50,000,000 then the club is required to accept the offer and then they can negotiate with the player. If the player refuses to join the team that bid $50,000,000 for him he'd just stay at his old team. He can't choose to move to a team that didn't pay his release clause if they didn't accept. Also if more than one club activates the release clause it's up to the player to choose what club he wants to go to or if he wants to stay at his original club. Most players don't have release clauses since Spain is the only big league to require them but Spanish player's release clauses are usually massive because they'd prefer to go through standard negotiations so that they can reject offers from rival clubs or if the player becomes better than how good he was when the contract was first signed the release clause would still be too high for any club to realistically pay no matter how good the player becomes are. There are plenty of players in LaLiga with release clauses of $1,000,000,000. This is because of a transfer that happened in 2017. A player called Neymar - you may have heard of him, he was touted to be as good of a player as Messi and Ronaldo however his career came a little short, he was still an amazing player but not on the same level - had his release clause in his contract with a club called Barcelona of $235,000,000. He was Barcelona's star boy along side Messi and Barcelona thought that no club would spend $235,000,000 for a player but one extremely rich club did. Paris Saint-Germain or PSG for short activated the release clause and signed him. This left Barcelona with a lot of money to spend on replacements however the replacements were not the best. They bought two players, both for $145,000,000. The first was Coutinho from Liverpool and the second was Dembele from Dortmund. Coutinho would end up leaving the club for $20,000,000 in 2022 and Dembele (Who was injured for a long time and didn't really do well until 2022 and 2023 when he started playing amazingly for Barcelona) ended up leaving for $50,000,000 with a release clause that only activated 5 years after his original signing. However the contract also stated that Dembele would get 50% of the transfer fee from the release clause so Barcelona only made $25,000,000 on him. Because of that happening with Barcelona selling a player for $235,000,000 then buying two replacements for $290,000,000 but then ending up making only $45,000,000 back from those sales only 5 years later (So they basically lost $10,000,000 and their second best player in Neymar leaving, one of their best players in 2022 and 2023 in Dembele leaving, and a player who did really poorly for them in Coutinho also leaving.) Most big teams in LaLiga - especially Barcelona - give all best players $1,000,000,000 release clauses so that no team can buy them out so that the same thing won't happen again.

Release clause is kind of "if someone offers this money we have to accept it", so it takes the owning club out of the equation. And then the team that offered that money can negotiate with the player directly on their personal contract. The player doesn't have to accept the move if they don't want to. Anyone else who wants to buy the player would have to offer the same money as the clause to negotiate with the player direct. So it doesn't make the player a free agent. In England, we don't really have many release clauses. I'm not sure I've heard of too many players moving in England because another team decided to play the release clause. Although I think in Spain release clauses are compulsory in every contract. That's one of the reasons Paris SG bought Neymar back in 2017. FC Barcelona set his release clause at 222m Euros, thinking they were safe, as only the previous year Manchester United set a new world record fee when they bought Paul Pogba for 89m Euros. But the Qatari owners of PSG were happy to more than double the world record fee to buy Neymar out of his contract, and Neymar himself wanted to go there and there was nothing Barcelona could do about it.

Offside rule: When the attacking team with the ball passes the ball forward...the player recieving the ball MUST be behind or in line with the last defender (not including the defending goalkeeper) ie as soon as the ball is kicked (touched) by the player passing to him..he cannot be ahead of the last defender..or it will be ruled offside. There is slightly more to this with various circumstances, but thats the basic jist of it. This is when you see replays of the attacking move freeze framed on screen with 2 lines accross the pitch..showing where the last defender and the attacking player who is being passed to as the ball is kicked. It can literally come down to a half inch difference sometimes. The attacking player must time his run perfectly to beat the offside trap set by the defending team.

Midfielders are considered the generalist, all round players. They are usually the brain of the team. Many great football coaches and managers used to be midfielders in their playing days.

Banging video :) The European Championships is coming up this Summer, I highly recommend trying to watch a few games. Or at least watching the daily recaps each day for the month it's on, might be useful to get a grasp of the top players in the modern game, etc ...

Germany with world largest soccer association and club structure have a 13 level deep system of leagues. There are over 2000 different leagues in this system with over 30.000 teams compete in it.

You said Arsenal blocked content.. Do you know who owns Arsenal? An American Stan Kronke who is a big owner of LA Rams amongst many other U.S teams in various sports and is worth in excess of £7bn +.. everything arsenal do on or off the field has to be ratified by him

Centre backs who stay in defence. John stones: "Am I a joke to you" 😂😂

I’ve never understood the idea that football is slow or boring compared to US sports. My wife watches baseball and they celebrate if someone hits the ball. Once. It changes personnel quickly I guess, but nothing happens for most of the time.

I utterly disagree with the (idiotic, to say the least) statement that 'only their Mum's care about the league at this point.' Considering there are 20 tiers in England alone.

The richest single game in sport is actually the championship league play off final which is played at Wembly .The winner takes the third place promotion to the Premiership which is worth several hundred million pounds .

Ok, this is the first football video I've watched ever since today, so I'm gonna rant here. It's been 2 years in a row of Arsenal absolulutely bottling the Premier Lague title. Our biggest title race competitor, Liverpool, just fumbled away crucial points against a midtable team, and we just lost against a midtable team as well. Now our second competitor, Manchester City, that were given for dead, are 2 points ahead of us in first place and both Liverpool and us have already played our 2 matches against them. Now we relly on the midtable teams that Manchester City has to play against in his last games to tie or win against them, which is nearly impossible. We are doomed.

A player is offside if any part of his body that can legally score a goal (that's every part except the arms) is further upfield than the last opposing defender when the ball leaves the foot of the player passing to him. It was brought in to stop teams just leaving one of their players standing by the goal all match.

We don’t have vuvuzelas in Britain 🇬🇧 - that’s just a South African 🇿🇦 thing!

A few teams in England have gone from the top flight to the fifth tier (Still mainly full profesionals). Notable teams are Oldham Athletic and Luton Town, although Luton have recently won promotion back to the Premiere league after nine consecutive seasons, which is pretty good going considering the little they've spent compared to most?

This is a good explainer video at laying out some of the key appeal that may get lost if you don’t know what you’re watching. For me it’s always been a couple of things: both teams are 20/30secs away from scoring…. and the free-flowing nature of the game. This creates a gnawing see-saw of tension that isn’t so present in sports where there are short bursts of coordinated action. With soccer, there’s an unpredictable quality that can be utterly anxiety inducing when you’re invested. Because of the ‘low-scoring’ deadlock nature of it, one tiny mistake and the punishment can be brutal. There’s more to it, of course but this idea is good to have in mind when getting into it…👍⚽️

Football is full of different playstyles. A lot of the top teams are possession sides but you have counter attacking teams, very defensive teams, teams who play a fast passing style. That's what keeps the game insteresting

*YALL need to watch this video By Zealand " WHY THE USA SUCKS AT FOOTBALL ⚽" He explains the history of the sport in the US*

3:50 nba basketball court fits inside one of the 18 yard boxes where the keepers hang out

I tried to tell an an American movie reactor to try the running around a field experiment after he said footballers go down too easily, he really didn't understand.

Not every player has a release clause . In Spain it's a rule that every player has a release clause but most of the good players have ridiculous ones that no one would ever pay. If your a minor team with not much money you might have a young kid come through the youth team and you know you won't be able to keep him so a release clause would be a good idea. If another team bids the amount set in the release clause that player has to atleast enter negotiations but is not under obligation to leave but usually the bidding team is better so he leaves.

Definitively a great video from this guy, and great thoughts from you too 👍🏻

You were the King of the draws Daniel! It was really fun to watch it while you were outside at night. What about the European Cup? You have to watch that as well. Writing all the predictions on a paper. Sorry we threw you out of the World Cup. We still don't have a great team. We have no real strikers yet.

We have a few football teams here in the UK that we call “Boomerang Clubs” as they often get promoted to a higher league one year only to get relegated back down again the next year. Peterborough United is a big example of a Boomerang Club.

Tactics also involved in playing the ball around, is to try and tire your opponent out, so when you attack they have run out of energy.

I never immersed myself with fotball as a kid or even as an adult. But living in Europe and it being all around me all the time I picked up on most of this. Even the offside rule that so many people struggle with felt really logical to me. I must be weird.

In england you could set your own team up and if things went incredibly well you coukd eventually find yourself in the premier league. Its highly unlikely but the "pyramid " structure gives fans of all clubs that essential thing they need.....hope.

One of my local teams was relegated down to league 2 (the 4th level) but this year they are now back up into the Premiership. There are instances of lower league team, below league 2 haveing been promoted to league Football. The football player gets a percentage of the transrer fee when they move clubs.

the offside rule is very simple, if you are ahead of the play/ball whilst being between the defender closest to the oppositions goal line (where the touchdown zone would be in NFL) and his goalkeeper, whilst in the opposition half when your team passes the ball forward or shoots and it touches you, you are offside. If you are behind the player with the ball and between the the defence and goalkeeper and the ball is passed to you you are on side. You also can't be offside if your behind the opposition defence in your own half of the pitch (the side your defending)

25:20 It might have been said already, but the release clause basically is something a player adds to his contract when he joins a club these days (almost all the time).. It is to ensure a player is not treated as a slave at a club... i'll explain that bit next paragraph. if a club comes along that the player wants to join, he can- leave the club, regardless of whether the club he is at wants to keep him or not. Once a club offers the release clause fee, it is down to the player whether they want to sign for this other club or not, the club is obliged to accept the offer (and its usually very high) .a few decades ago, a player called jean marc bosman wanted to leave his club at the end of his contract & A club in france I believe wanted to sign him, but his club didn't accept the offer. They then reduced his wages during the next season and stopped playing him... he took the club to court and won on the grounds of" freedom of movement". He successfully won his case . This created what became known as "the bosman ruling". This ruling meant that players could leave at the end of their contract and join any team that wanted them. After this ruling, the "release clause fee" was soon introduced, to allow players who where unhappy- or could be unhappy or maybe wanted to move to a bigger club in future, the opportunity to leave their club immediately in a transfer window- but the club that wants the player must pay the full fee. It allowed the clubs to get something back for the player and for the player to go a club that clearly desired him. ALTERNATIVELY, the player could wait out his contract, and join another team at the end of his contract on a "bosman"

Signing very young players is getting stricter in the PL. As these 8,9 and 10 year olds can't be bought but are free to move on a youth contract the biggest clubs would poach the best kids by offering well paid jobs to the parents and maybe a brand new home to move in with their talented son. They decided this was exploration and strictly speaking the under 14's can only be picked to train with a club within a certain radius. 14-17 year olds that can't sign a professional contract until an adult and 18 can sign a contract elsewhere but the club losing the player can demand a 'training' fee which could be as much as £2m based on achievements. A tribunal will decide the fee if the clubs can't agree. After 18 it's a matter of making an acceptable offer to the players club to buy the player or paying the release clause. To answer your question, no a player never has to accept a transfer out of a club. There's been stories of managers putting players on planes to fly to sign for another club and the player not arriving. There was also the famous story of Bogarde at Chelsea. Signed by one manager who left after a few weeks of signing him. The next managers didn't want Bogarde and tried numerous times to sell him. He refused so they kept making him play for the u21 and then the u18's. He played 11 times for Chelsea during his 4 year stint. Collecting a reported £160k a month during this time!! Of course the flip side is players or their agents try to engineer a move out of a club. That happens a lot.

27:47 when players are signing kids, they’ll be scouted whilst at school, usually when they’re playing exceptionally for county or district clubs. They’ll then join the club’s school system (which most big clubs have) or move in with a foster family close to the club they’ve joined and go a normal school there. At either a football academy school or local school they learn and get their qualifications whilst also training and developing as a player. Eventually when they enter their late teens, they’ll either get promoted to their club’s first team if they’re exceptionally good, get released and have to get a job of join a lesser club, or get sold/loaned (temporary transfer-usually for one season) to a rival who thinks they have space for that player in their team.

That was a brilliant video. All the essential information with handy graphics. It is strange it didn't connect with Americans the same. You can go anywhere in the world, not speak the language, but gather a group of lads & throw a football down & it all just happens. We've all experienced that. It's truly magical. You really missed out. Those Man City documentaries are good but I am a City fan. Not sure how old that was. City did the treble last season, there's a documentary on Netflix about that. 👌🏼

To answer your release clause question, if team A committed to paying the release clause, it won’t be fulfilled until the player has agreed to his contract with the club so his wages, contract length, any bonuses etc. so it wouldn’t be opened to other clubs but often if one club is happy to pay the release other clubs will be so the player can choose where he goes. Release clauses aren’t activated often as it’s normally the two clubs will negotiate what they feel is fair for both sides.

Offside is, when the forward pass was played, when the attacking team has the closest player to the enemy goal, involved in the attack play.

On the FA Cup and other European domestic knockout cups where any team from any league in the country can play! Yes they are normally won by top tiered teams but for the smaller clubs from the lower leagues if they get a chance to go against a top team like a Manchester United / city, Liverpool, Barcelona, PSG etc the financial reward they can get is sometimes a life saver for the clubs especially if they get play at the big clubs much bigger stadium as win or lose the small club gets a % of the gate, considering that some of these smaller clubs have much less seating capacity in their stadiums this could bank roll the clubs for years. There used to be a situation where smaller clubs would give up the "advantage" of playing at their place so that they could play in the bigger stadium and get a % of the gate from the bigger clubs stadium even if the turnout was low for the big club it would still be more than the small club could get in the terms of gate receipts from having the game played at their place.

The owners of Arsenal are American. They also own the LA Rams. Might explain a few things 😂

So for the release clause is only for that club, but the player doesn’t even have to consider their offer. The transfer of a player only happens when a player agrees terms with the other team. So the release clause could be offered or another fee agreed but if the player ends up not wanting to move… the transfer doesn’t happen. Additionally, a player may pay their own release clause to become a free agent essentially.

25:10 Release clause is payed after the negotiation between the player and the buying club are concluded

the offside rule is basically a rule against 'cherry picking'. an attacking player cannot be involved in a play when they are ahead of the last defender. so basically they have to be either behind or inline with the defence when the play involves them like receiving a pass

I complained about the amount of time spent sitting around passing in soccer until I had a friend complain about the time between plays in American football. I explained that if you know what is going on in NFL pre-snap strategy and positioning, it's pretty interesting from a tactical perspective. Then it hit me- the same probably held true for the "boring" passing in soccer. I looked into some rules and strategy and watched some matches, and sure enough, it's really cool to watch them set up the plays now.

havent read all the comments but regarding high school - college - professional u can see that also instead of feeding clubs as countries with lesser money in the sport can earn money by selling their young players (18-22 yrs old) so they can profit and build their club. As for me who live in Sweden we also have a rule called 51% rule wich means no company can come in and buy more then 49% of shares in a club. 51% belongs to the members of the club so i can be a member and have the right to vote on yearly meetings and so forth. negative with this is we can never compete moneywise with the big countries but the passion for your team is real since ur part of the club if u get what i mean but in the meantime it makes people follow their club in another way and when u get kids the usually do what u do and thats the case in Sweden. Love ur videos keep it up!

The release clause is there in case the current club don’t want to sell their player then you pay the release clause and go directly into negotiations with the player and you don’t have to deal with his current club at all. However keep in mind release clauses are usually a lot higher then the players actual value if they’re good, so it has to be someone you realllyyyyy want for your team to spend release clause money. And the players doesn’t have to go to that team if he doesn’t like the contract offer he can say no and remain at the club he’s in the release money only goes thru if the transfer is made if the player says no the team that paid the clause gets their money back

Hi Spencer and Daniel, another great reaction guys! Now before the 2026 World Cup in USA 🇺🇸 Mexico 🇲🇽 and Canada 🇨🇦, we have the men’s Euro 2024 tournament in Germany 🇩🇪 starting from 14th June and the Final will be exactly a month later on 14th July. It’ll have 24 countries in it and hopefully you’ll get to see most of the games. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again American 🇺🇸 sports would benefit from relegation and promotion in its setup. You guys are fantastic! Keep doing great videos and reactions.

I don't know where you guys specifically live, but you could go watch a game of the Maryland Bobcats, only pro team in the state that plays in 3rd division in Boyds, MD. If you want to see 1st division game there are both the Philadelphia Union and the DC United, and even Loudoun United a 2nd division club from Leesburg, Virginia, just west of DC

JJ Watts said something super interesting in a UK interview. He said, America aims for all teams to be kinda central and in the middle of the the league.

The key issue with relegation is that there's really a massive difference between leagues in terms of revenue from TV rights, advertisements etc. So being relegated means a club will take a major hit financially. They will often have to sell some of their higher-salary players (who will often be happy to leave if they can take another slot in the higher league), which will in turn limit their capabilitites. Being relegated can break the back of a club and some end up dropping down yet another league as a consequence - and some just cease to exist after a few years. Especially clubs which have been in the top league often have a stadium to maintain that was built or upgraded with top-league revenue in mind. If that money isn't coming in any more, but the bills are, plus you also have to pay the players, that can be a serious problem and at a minimum, the consequences can tie a club down in the lower league for an extended period.

Very few players have release clauses, although it's more common with clauses like "if the team is relegated the player is released" or something like that. But release clauses are usually only for big stars. It's to deter other clubs coming to poach their best players, so they set a release clause usually waay higher than their actual market value. Often based on what they think they might be worth after e.g. a year if they are confident that he's going to do well. Either way, release clauses are not that common. And no, they are not released "outright" like an American UFA, everything is done in one swoop, the team will obviously not pay to release someone if they can't sign him.

A typical timeline of a football fan will start in July: with the preseason friendly games, kind of like US exhibition games, this normally means big teams playing in the States or more medium sized teams playing against random opponents they have arranged to play. August: Not long after Champions League and Europa League qualification begins, half of the teams in these competitions have already qualified based on their result the previous season that ended in May, but the final spots are made up of teams that will play each other for the last spots, this is normally a 128ish team knockout, with teams from places like Iceland and Luxembourg in the early rounds with clubs from bigger nations joining in the last few rounds. Brackets don't really exist as its common in football for draws to happen, not draws as in 0-0 2-2, but where names are pulled out of a ball like the lottery to decide the fixtures. After the Qualification begins the leagues often start, not all leagues start at the same time but its normally at some point in August. These will normally be played on weekend, occasionally Mondays/Fridays, and the odd midweek game on Wednesday. Some countries play a super cup to start the season, Superpokal in Germany, Supercopa del Rey in Spain, this is where the League winner plays the Cup winner, this game you'd think from an American perspective would be the biggest game, but most people don't value it highly. A few weeks into the season Cup games which often happen midweek start, these are separate from the league tables and will see teams play teams from other divisions, these are domestic, ie you only play teams from your own country. Cup competitions often predate the league since back in the day leagues where harder to arrange as they required season long commitment from teams rather than playing a few games at a time like a cup. Cup games often lack momentum as they are played weeks apart but they are an important traditional part of football. The league is only valued more as it is the fairest competition, it doesn't have upsets, truly the best team wins, but the cup allows for more underdog stories. September: Champions League/Europa League group stage begins, this will be 6 games, where you play each team twice, similar to how the Bears have to play the Packers, Lions and Vikings twice a season, the groups are random though as different teams, from different countries enter each year. this last from September to about December. October to New Years: The season runs as normal, some countries like England and Scotland have two Cups, one called the Leagues cup, normally its ____ Cup after a sponsor, like Carling Cup, Carabao Cup, Viaplay Cup and the more traditional Cup ie the FA Cup or the Scottish Cup. The traditional one features every team in the country where as the league Cup is only the ''league'' teams, which is a term that describes the top 4 leagues in the country ie the leagues that are fully pro and not semi pro/amateur. This is minor but its important to know. Most places dont do this. January: at this point the season is underway, the Champions League and Europa league group stage will be done and top two teams from the groups of 4 will progress to the knockouts and the 3rd place team in the case of the CL will play an extra round against the 2nd placed EL teams, both tournaments then having 16 teams that will drop to two for the final. at certain weeks during the last 5 months there will have been breaks for national teams to play in friendly matches or against each other to qualify for the World Cup or the Euros(the Euros is the WC but just for European teams, each continent has one). We might also be down to the last 16 or 8 teams in the Cup. The league will be halfway done, we often look at the team who is top of the league at Christmas as the team who will win the league, or if they fall off and choke we say, 'how could you do that you were top at Christmas'. May: Most seasons often end about May, just like how the leagues start at different times they will often end at different times, if the top teams is so dominant that they have more points than the second place teams and the second place cant mathematically catch up they are crowned champion before the League ends. The Cup finals in most countries happen after the last matches of the league have been played, and that ends the domestic seasons in most countries. Teams that finished in the top 4 places in England, Spain, Germany and Italy are now in the Champions league for the next season. Other countries get less spots which is unfair and maybe the only big downside to Football in Europe. The Champions League final will now be played in late May early June. This is at a neutral venue that will be selected ahead of time, like the Superbowl, except tickets aren't a rip off so that only the elites can go. There are no halftime shows and only people who like Football will watch it, you won't have watch parties where people make stupid bets and only watch for the singer, not acceptable behavior. in Europe. After the Champions League the season is over and the preseason games begin a month later. Other things: Transfer of players can only happen during transfer windows, if a player has a contract at a team for say three years and he has only been there a year then he can only move to another team for a fee during the window, these windows normally start at the end of the season and will close a few weeks into the new season, and there is a second window at Christmas to late January. You can sign players outside these time periods but they can only play once the next window starts. These rules are consistent because European football has an Organisation that maintains every thing called UEFA, often labelled UEFA MAFIA by many ultras. They control the Champions League, they are very corrupt but are necessary evil to maintain order. 2 years ago twelve teams from England Spain and Italy tried to break away from UEFA and found their own league and this failed hard because the fans saw that this was only for greed and they protested, and they had to step away from their multi billion dollar plans. Last thing is that every two years Either the Euros happen, or the World Cup happens, this is the biggest and most important event in the whole sport, so pretty much 2/4 years there is no off season, meanwhile the off season of college football lasts 8 months, sheesh. South American seasons start in January due to their seasons being inverted because they are in the Southern Hemisphere, some countries like Japan and the US also do this for their leagues. In Brazil in particular the season starts with state leagues since Brazil is so big it has individual states that are comparable to countries so they play a league competition which last 3 months before the real league starts in about March. Non Brazilian Leagues in the Americas in places like Argentina and Mexico often split the league into two halves with a champion awarded in the middle and at the end so there are two national champions a year plus the cup, I have no clue why this is and this will be foreign to even die hard European football fans but considering Argentina's influence on the world stage with Messi, Maradona, teams Boca Jrs and River Plate and their World Cups I'd thought I'd mention it. I don't know if anyone read this but thanks if you did.

13:25 VAR is just the video surveillance Offside is simple: If you are past the second last opponents player your teammates can't pass the ball to you. (second last is usually the defender nearest to the goalkeeper but it's worded that because in some cases the goalie ends up in front of other players although that's exceedingly rare) and some people think it's a dumb rule, but without it teams would have a big incentive to just leave half of their team behind to prevent those kind of passes. it'd KILL the game in the midfield and that's where you can see a lot of tactics at their best

Release clause or transfer fee is basically a price tag the club management put on the players. So whoever (the clubs) interested to that player had to make a deal with the current club where the player play. So to simplify, first the buyer club should made a deal with the seller club and after the deal is done the buyer club made the contract deal for the salary of the bought player

Really interesting video fellas, it's great to see you guys getting into footy. It's the Euros this year, are you guys gonna watch? Anyhow, cheers from England 🍻👍

The release clause is for the specific team that pays the release clause but multiple clubs can pay that release cluase then the clubs have to then offer that player a contract then the player makes the decision

The pace of the game varies across countries. England and Scotland tend to have fast paced games with a lot of running. Italian games tend to be slow for long periods, followed by frantic end to end running and bursts of high speed. Some of this is down to climate, but it’s also the culture of the game in different countries. Different tactics and strategies also play a part.

A pretty good explanation for beginners , he didn't mention we do have play- offs though . In the lower leagues the top two sides win promotion automatically and the third to sixth teams play each other with the final being at Wembley for the third promotion slot . It keeps the season alive up to the very last day .

The offside rule is a simple concept but a little unwieldy to explain. Basically, you're offside if you're on your opponents' half of the pitch behind the second to last opponent. (The last opponent is usually their goalie.) If you're offside when a non-backward pass leaves, you're not allowed to touch the ball. VAR is a way of checking it afterwards on video. I think they try to check whether any body parts you're allowed to play the ball with were offside. I think that's the basic gist of it. Feel free to correct me.

You mentioned you don´t understand off-side, but it is easy: the player that receives the ball from a team mate must have at least two opponents between him and the opponents´goal line. Usually the goalkeeper and a defender but could be any two opponents. Any part of the body you may use to play football (evertyhing but the arms and hand) count. So a player can be just a couple of inches off-side if for instance his front foot is slightly ahead of the back foot (or head, ot shoulder...) of the penultimate opponent. Hope that helps

the modern way of playing is to now pass in the own half not for defending but to draw the opposition in and then to break

25:09 It's a complete deal. You only pay the release clause if the player signs a contract with you. Usually you start negotiations with a player or his personal agent, and after you have an agreement you pay the other club

With the positions and strategy there are different schools of thought. Some football managers believe in disciplined teams staying in positions and doing their allocated jobs. Others go for a more fluid approach. Holland used to be known for “total football”, which meant every player (except for the goalie) should be prepared to play in every position

24:50 Yes and no. The new club can simply pay the amount of money needed to fulfill the release clause and the old club gets the money but the player gets around 10% of the sum (depending on how their contracts are, this can vary a little bit).

I can't speak for other countries, but the England (and Wales - they're combined) leagues started out differently. There used to be one league which was split into four divisions. The top was 1st division, with 4th being lowest. After that, you also had non-league teams. The difference between league and non-league teams was basically for media coverage and betting: league matches would be televised and were used for 'the pools' (a kind of semi-skilled lottery...). Yes, teams could be relegated on the back of a crappy season, and even leave the league if they were in the 4th division at the time. However, teams were also promoted by being at the top of their current division, and there have been a lot of teams who spend most of their time doing the hokey-cokey between divisions because they are a bit too good for one division, but not quite good enough for the next one up. Introducing the Premier League was basically a cash grab on a larcenous scale - concentrate everything on the top division (now the Premier League), and ignore everything else.

Idk if you guys know, But Ryan Reynolds bought Wrexham (the team) in 2020 when they were in division 3, and theyve just been promoted to division 1 for next season (2024/25). Two more promotions and they will be in the Premier League ⭐🏆

Some teams which were in the equivalent of today's Premier League when I attended junior school in England (then called First Division), have indeed faded into near obscurity, except among their loyal fans. Everton is the only team never to have been relegated from the top league in England. Of the 22 teams in the First Division in the 1960/61 season, Sheffield Wednesday, which ended second, now play in the Championship (2nd level league), as do four other teams. Blackpool and Bolton have both sunk to the 3rd level.

regarding release clauses.. by no means does every player have a release clause. whilst it's common, it's not across the board. each player will negotiate his / her own contract via their agent. which may or may not include whichever clauses are agreed between club and player.

On strategy there is a risky tactic where when you get the ball you kick it as far as possible up the field in the hope your team gets the ball and scores more than the opposition. This is a risky tactic against good teams but used in the 1980’s to early 90’s by a team that used to be called Wimbledon FC this took them from the lowest leagues to the top league and a FA cup win. A famous former player is the actor Vinnie Jones from lock, stock and two smoking barrels and Xmen where he played The Juggernaut, some of his highlights on the pitch is when fouled an opposition player in 3 seconds from the start of the match (note that teams must be on opposite half's of the pitch before game starts). And the time he grabbed another player called Paul Gascoigne between the legs.

Need to watch the part 2 of best chants of 2023 😊

5:18 Last Sunday, I was watching a Portuguese league game (FC Porto vs Sporting CP) with 2/3 minutes left to finish, Porto was winning 2-0, I went to the kitchen to prepare a coffee, When I returned to the living room it was already 2-2, Sporting in a minute scored 2 goals...

usually players use diving after faults to gain some rest and slow down the pace of the game

Speaking about dropping through the system: as recently as 2011 Scunthorpe United were playing in the Championship. This year they are playing in a "whatevs" league. This is a team which was, until very recently, a fully professional team with a 120+ year history. Same with Yeovil Town - they were in the Championship in 2014, this year 'whatevs'. So it absolutely does happen.

most teams dont have a release clause for its contracted player i mean u get it sometimes at some european clubs but mostly the buying team will be told by the club who own the wanted player how much they want for him then they end up haggling until either they agree a price or dont

24:00 well not every player has a release clause except for in spain where its mandatory (that doesn't mean they are reasonable, some ar borderline insane to protect the squad getting torn apart) many clubs try to avoid trsansfer fee clauses, led to many contract negotiations that failed

Usually those players have managers, if the player feels unappreciated he tellls his manager go find me another club and then the manager gets to work. So usually the player is good with his new club before the new club talks to the old. The teams set the money for the buy out very high for the best talents sometimes up to 1 billion euros.

Do not worry about the offside rule and VAR that is for full discussions in any pub around the land for a forthright discussion on any decision and you will never prove who is right.....

Offside - you are not allowed to pass the ball to a teammate that is behind the last defender (at the moment of the pass…) VAR - it’s a technology advancement to the game that lets the referee check important game changing decisions via smart cameras and monitors. Technically there are referees that monitor the VAR system back stage and whenever the referee asks them to check something they do that.

Correction about the positions "centre forward" and "striker" mentioned at around 9.15. A "centre forward" is a type of striker, and is the most advanced out-and-out striker. He wouldn't be playing slightly behind the "striker" as shown in the graphic. If there is another striker, apart from the centre forward, he would typically play slightly behind the centre forward.

If one (or more) clubs are willing to pay the release clause the player can speak to the team(s) but he still has to sign a contract and can reject some clubs. Example: Player A has a 20 Mill. Clause and there is one team in England, one in France and two in Spain willing to pay that. Ofc the player will listen to the paycheck, but if he insists on going to one of the Spain Clubs those are in a bidding "war" (just not the salary, but also playing time, standing in the league, european competion are valid arguments).

It’s football

19:50 2 weeks ago in the German "DFB Pokal" (the same tournament like the FA Cup in England) a 2. division team (Kaiserslautern) has beaten a 3. division team (Saarbrücken) to advance to the german cup final. Saarbrücken has beaten top tier teams like Mönchengladbach. They also have beaten the record bundesliga champion Bayern munich. Bayern (929 Million €) has the largest Team salary in Germany by a mile (saarbrückens Team salary to compare: about 5 million €). It doesn't happen to much but you see, it is possible. If Kaiserslautern will beat Leverkusen in the final they will get a spot in the Euro League as a 2.division team. That would gave them a massive TV contract. That's the beauty of this Sport.

I'd say for Soccer video games, if you can find it cause Konami discontinued it, is Pro Evolution Soccer, you can only get physical copies now. You actually have to deal with alot of realistic stuff, like the Release Clause, which almost royally screwed me over. I had just extended the contract of one of my stars, and he asked for a release clause of $52.5 million. I resigned him to the team, and the next day some one payed his new release clause. I thankfully have pretty good depth at the position so it wasn't to bad, but he was my top player.

some release clauses at the top are..Jude Bellingham - Real Madrid - €1bn (£871m/$1.08bn) ... Ansu Fati - Barcelona - €1bn (£871m/$1.08bn) ... Pedri - Barcelona - €1bn (£871m/$1.08bn) ... Ronald Araujo - Barcelona - €1bn (£871m/$1.08bn) ... Vinicius Junior - Real Madrid - €1bn (£871m/$1.08bn) and then a new clause is set after they move, my team is oxford utd because im from oxford. we are in div1 so the 3rd tier. and because we are close to playing to be promoted, we now have scouts turning up to buy our best players, so some may move up 1 or 2 leagues. so then we have to scramble to fill their roles. so our scouts will be out watching other teams to fill some gaps or take a spot of a player who isnt as good as the manager wants in any position. you also have players on loan who might only be with you for a season, like a goal keeper you can get a premier teams 3ed team one as he would be extra to what they needed, plus it takes some of their costs. as in, we would pay their wages which balances their books and they do not get fined and lose points for spending to much.

Release clauses aren't compulsory, I think in Spain every player must have a release clause in their contract but elsewhere it's optional. Generally it's more common that the better players will have the release clauses, often ridiculous amounts. Once it has been paid it means the club paying essentially bypasses negotiations with the receiving club and can immediately negotiate a contract with the player. Otherwise they first have to agree a transfer fee before they are able to talk to the player. Release clauses don't mean the player is then open to talks with anyone, only with the club who paid it. At times players can run down their contracts and refuse to sign a new one meaning that they are then a free agent. Again that means any interested clubs can negotiate directly with the player (and their agent).

Relegation introduces Jeopardy, Jeopardy introduces Drama and Drama is what makes Football interesting

A release clause isn’t always there. It’s kinda insurance put in place at a price that a club cannot refuse to allow a buying club enter negotiations with that player mid contract. However post contract if a player runs down the contract they negotiate a fee with a perspective club. “You aren’t paying a fee for me, therefore instead of the x million u r saving. I want some of that.

This video is an excellent step-by-step guide that provides a sound basic understanding. After watching this, you'll both have much greater knowledge when watching an actual game.

25:03 To make it simple, you need to negotiated with the player first for how much the new club willing to pay him and how long the contract would be, if the player accept it, then The new club must pay all of the player's salary under the player's remaining contract on his current team. Let's say the player's salary is $5 million, and he has 2 years remaining on his contract, so the new team must pay the team up to $10 million. Of course, the new club can negotiate the price to be cheaper or more expensive so that the team is more willing to sell their players. If the current club accept it, the player will be transferred at the end of the season (That's right, the player doesn't immediately move because the player still has the remainder of his unfinished contract). BUT if the player doesn't have any remaining contract and he didn't want to extend his contract at the current club, then the new club just only need to negotiate with the player, if the player accept it, at the end of the season he will be your player for free (without release clause) honorable mention that the new club can also just borrow the player for a short time of contract, if the contract ends the player will back to his old club, it called "loaning a player" and the system nearly the same, you contact the player, if the player accept, you contact the team, if the team accept, you can loan the player for a short time (in general only for 1 or 1/2 of the season)

The good thing about promotion/relegation is that it means that (in theory anyway) any club can get to the top league in their respective country. If we just take England as an example - Luton Town are currently in the top division but about 10 years ago they were in the FIFTH tier of English football. That is an extreme example but it is not that uncommon for some pretty big clubs to get relegated from the English premier league and go down to the 2nd tier. In the last decade or so Leeds Utd, Newcastle Utd & Aston Villa have all played in the 2nd tier. In fact Leeds are currently in the 2nd tier. Leicester City won the Premier League in 2016 and are currently in the 2nd tier. The argument against promotion/relegation is basically a financial one and it is mainly driven by the bigger clubs and is also a consequence of many English clubs now having American ownership. The American owners do not like the idea of relegation. The English premier league is by far the richest football league in the world in terms of the money it receives from TV, so relegation from the league can often prove financially ruinous for clubs who have budgeted to be playing in the premier league. Players sign 3, 4, 5 year contracts and then one bad season means the club now has to pay these guys Premier league wages when they are no longer in the Premier League. From an American point of view it'd be something like the New England Patriots giving Tom Brady a 7 year deal worth $100's of millions back in the day but then one season in to the deal, the Patriots are no longer an NFL team! The financial consequences of that happening are unimaginable for American sports teams & their owners but in European football it's all just part of the game

You're not quite right about the release clause. The figure appointed to any player is the amount you have to assure you are willing to pay (if the sale goes forward) before being allowed to even TALK to the player about a transfer. It doesn't mean if you turn up with the money you have the player. You only have the right to open negotiations.

About the release clause: that happened last season to Benfica (Portugal) and a player (Enzo).. Benfica bought the player mid-season (can't remember how much, but I'll point to no more than 20M).. He played VERY well, Chelsea noticed, payed the release clause (120M+), the player wanted to go to England, Benfica didn't wanted the player to leave, but the clause was payed. Benfica's president words: "We made 100M profit in less than 6 months, but we didn't want to. The only thing good from this is we have one less salary to pay to someone that doesn't want to be in our team".