Question for the Brazilian contingency of the forum

[Clockwork Orange]

Hello there. I am relatively new to the forum. I am currently trying to expand my football horizons beyond the very few european leagues I watch. I really do not know where to start. I generally did not think much of Brazilian football because over here, we have this sort of arrogant notion that Brazilians do not understand football (in terms of tactics and team shape) when compared to their European counterpart. I say arrogance because your country while going through a bad phase on the international front, still has 5 world cup trophies, while mine, on the other hand, has failed at 3 finals. This emoticon is the most appropriate

Anyways, so I don't ramble too much, please could someone explain the competitions in the Brazilian league and the main competitions in South America as a whole. From what I have gathered, there are 2 leagues being played in Brazil, the normal league and the state championships. There is also the Brazilian cup, a potential recoppa and the copa libertores, and a potential club world championship as well?

How can one team potentially play that many games? It seems really inhumane to me. How does this work? Do people not complain about the schedule. I literally was bewildered when I found out.

Apologies to the admins in advance, I don't really knwo whether this is the right place to put it. Shocking stuff to be honest. I never thought I would say this, but South American footballers are treated inhumanely.

[McAgger]

One thing I can tell you is that they have some weird a$$ ways of getting promoted and relegated in the leagues. It's completely unlike any other European league.

[Clockwork Orange]

One thing I can tell you is that they have some weird a$$ ways of getting promoted and relegated in the leagues. It's completely unlike any other European league.

I am still trying to wrap my head round the inhumane amount of games that they play. I hope someone from the Brazilian thread sponsored by itau can shed further light on the situation.

[chinomaster182]

Hey, i'm not Brazilian but i know a lot about Latin American football, i've followed alot of it throughout the years.

Break it down and you can see that the average Brazilian team does not play more games than your average Premier League team.

Brasileirao is fairly new and is now the main competition, just like the Premier League. Depending on the team, the state championship is more or less important, however it is my understanding that it is now much less of a priority than Brasileirao, and of course there's less teams in the state competitions, so in a way its like the FA cup. Copa Libertadores is analogous to the Champions League, knockout competition with playoffs and a group stage.

I bet and watch all kinds of football matches throughout the world, you are very right it expands your horizons, its not all glamour though. Even though its arrogant, the European mindset is somewhat correct, we have a much more limited understading of many advanced footballing concepts over here, combine that with much less money and you get poorer results. Its not because we're retarded over here, it has to do with the way we were much more isolated in terms of information in the 70s and 80s. For example Hugo Sanchez was a national hero in the 80s but no one saw him banging in the goals for Madrid because there was no satellite television to show live European matches, people just read in the newspaper about him.

This is all changing now, its going to take several years for it to make big effects. One of the biggest teams in Mexico, Chivas is paying Johann Cruyff to consult and transform the club like Ajax or Barcelona, they brought in John Van't Schip to coach the first team. However old habits die hard and that's amplified in football. One season in and people are shocked that Chivas aren't playing Barcelona tiki taka in a span of four months , if you listened to the press you would find out that Dutch knowledge is a big fraud and in someway total football can't make the jump over the Atlantic .

Its true Brazil has 5 world cups and Holland 0, however Brazil is a nation of 200m people and the Netherlands is only 15 million.

What i recommend is of course watching football from all around the world, it will open your mind alot. However if your just doing it for leisure, i recommend you schedule and watch big important matches, like Libertadores semifinals. The Fluminense - Flamengo derby. The liguilla in Mexico and Argentina. Concacaf champions league final. Gold cup final, Copa America, etc. I also suggest looking at some other kinds of matches you wouldn't think of like some Belgian Jupileer League or Ukranian premier league. England Championship, Brazil Serie B. There is some eye opening stuff in alot of them.

[Funkentelechy]

Relegation is weird in Argentina. In Brazil, the worst four teams get relegated like in Europe.

State championships generally run from late january to late may. Their quality is pretty low, except maybe for the finals, in which generally two big teams face each other. Also, through them teams can qualify for the fourth division and for the Brazil cup.

The League runs from late May to late December and its format is identical to that of any European league.
Brazilian Cup, in turn, is pretty much like any other national cup, the difference being that the champion gets a Libertadores spot.

Libertadores is South America's Champions League and Copa Sul-Americana is South America's Europa League.

Yeah, the schedule is crazy and doesn't respect FIFA dates, that's part of the reason why Santos is a midtable team in the league lol.

[chinomaster182]

Santos is a mid table team because besides Nerman, their team is pretty average. This is my opinion of course.

Apparently Argentinas relegation system just changed, but for many years it was the same as in all Latin America, let me explain the "porcentual" or percentage system.

Only one team gets promoted and relegated, and that happens every two tournaments (one calendar year). When you get promoted your "percentage" starts running, the team with the lowest percentage at the end of the calender year gets relegated. The percentage is calculated by taking the number of points that the team has won and dividing them by the total number of possible points that could be won. So for example if you win your first match after promotion you get your three points, so its 3/3 = 1.00... Lets say its match #8 and your team has won 18 points out of a possible 24, 18/24 = 0.75 and so on.

Now here comes the really shitty part, the percentage is calculated with all the points over a 5 year span. That means that any team, like Boca Jrs could finish bottom of the table two season in a row and not get relegated because their average point percentage is higher than the promoted teams. Its a super shitty system designed to protect the big clubs, because of the way the seasons go, we have the European wet dream of a "competitive" league or a league in which everyone can beat everyone any given Sunday. Its terrible because it just means everyone sucks, there are no big clubs, no spectacular teams and established clubs can be utter trash and continue to play since promoted teams have to start delivering results immediately.

[Funkentelechy]

You're right (I even fixed this part of the text ), but Neymar's absence plays a huge role in their performance too.

Santos performance in terms of points earned raises by about 30% with him playing.

[BarrileteCosmico]

Continental Football:
There are two continental competitions. There's the Copa Sudamericana (Southamerican Cup) and the Copa Libertadores. The Sudamericana is a less prestigious competition because it's only been around for a decade, and many leagues don't send their absolute best teams to it. Hence, it's European equivalent would be the Europa League, however it's regarded with more prestige than this one. To a top club in Europe winning the EL would probably not mean much, whereas it does for South American clubs. The Copa Libertadores would be the equivalent to the Champions League and the more important of these. Sometimes teams from North America are invited to participate in these competitions to increase viewership. The winner of the Libertadores goes on to participate in the CWC, formerly the Intercontinental Cup. While not really regarded with respect in Europe, to South American teams this is the absolute highest possible honor.

Argentine Football:

Argentine football is renown for it's competitiveness, technical ability of it's players, die-hard fans and club rivalries. The half-season format, though recently changed, ensured that any team that was on form had a decent chance of winning a title in spite of not being the best, and for this reason almost every team is a contender at the start of the season. On the terms of actual football one of the key differences with Europe, and that our players struggle the most to adapt with, is that we play a lot more with the ball on our feet. This is why it's rare to see an Argentine forward that doesn't excel at dribbling.

The Argentine football structure is weird to Europeans. Seasons are divided into two halves: Inicial and Final (formerly Apertura and Clausura). Each half consists of 19 games. At the end of the full-season the winner of the Inicial and the Final will play a match to decide on the winner of the season. This is a new system, a year ago each half-season was worth it's own trophy.

Another new addition to Argentine football is the Copa Argentina, which is the equivalent of what you have in most European leagues. We had the first one in 2011 and frankly it was very poor, with most teams choosing to use it to give playing time to their substitutes until the semis.

Relegation works by a system of averages during the past 3 seasons. The teams with the least amount of points per game played are relegated. This system was created to protect the big teams from going down because of a bad season, but it has actually played against them. It's quite ridiculous because it's mathematically possible (and this almost happened last season) for a team to win a title and still get relegated. Additionally it means that teams still have to make up for the results of 3 years ago, even if they have been completely renovated, which is not exactly fair.

A positive change in the new Inicial and Final structure is that the teams with the 3 lowest averages (called promedios) are automatically relegated. In the Apertura and Clausura system the two teams with the worst averages were automatically relegated and then the 3rd, 4th and 5th worst of the average table would compete against the 3rd, 4th and 5th best of the second division table in a two-legged match that would often bring controversy and violence.

[Clockwork Orange]

Thank you for the information guys. It's post's like these that remind me that this place isn't just full of WUMs

[Rebaño Sagrado]

Mexican teams aren't "sometimes" invited they have been going to the Libertadores for years now.

The Libertadores is by far my favorite club competition. The atmosphere in S.A is like no other. Games are generally intense, and extremely fun to watch. I def recommend you watch it.

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