Over the past few seasons, Arsenal have been ‘bantered’ for finishing second and previously given seriously stick for Arsene’s misunderstood ‘Top 4 Trophy’ statement.
As Arsenal fans, we live with this, knowing that 2nd is where the other 90 teams would love to be and Arsene was being realistic when stating that Champions League qualification is greater achievement than winning the Milk/Worthless/Carabo Cup.
But what if you could get a trophy for finishing 8th?
If the Australian Rules Football (AFL) finals series was implemented in the EPL, things could be soooooo much different.
After 16 years in Aus, I think I have finally understood the process and I’ll try to break it down for you.
If you win the league, you are ‘Minor Premiers’ (not that important down here), the critical thing is finishing in the top 8 and making the ‘finals’ and then the below spiderweb of fixtures come into play.
Right, here we go!!!
Finals week 1
1st plays 4th
2nd plays 3rd
The winners get a week off and go straight to the ‘preliminary finals’
The losers get a ‘second chance’ in the ‘semi finals’ against the winners of 5th vs 8th and 6th vs 7th.
Week 2 – Semi Finals
So loser of 1v4 plays winner of 5v8 and loser of 2v3 plays winner of 6v7 for the right to play the winner of 1v4 and 2v3 in the Preliminary final.
Week 3 – Preliminary Finals
This week, the winner of 1v4 and 2v3 (having had week off) play the winner of the losers (getting a second chance) and the better 2 teams from 5 to 8, for the right to meet in the Grand Final
Week 4 – The Grand Final
After 4 weeks of hype of this season being the greatest final ever (again), the winners of whoever vs whoever, play out the Grand Final, in front of 100k fans at the MCG to earn the right to be called Premiers.
So basically, after a full season of games, you can scrape into mid table obscurity by winning 14 of 23 games (don’t get me started about a 23 game season), finish 8th (out of 18), win 4 games and be crowned champions.
And you thought the new Champions League system was confusing.
English by birth, Australian by choice. Traffic Engineer, Arsenal ST Holder, Sun DreamTeam Winner, Writer on @GunnersTown, Depeche Mode, Welcome to my world…
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