Day 27 – Cups: club and country

Topic Point: European football, particularly the EPL, has a significant followingin the United States. As mentioned earlier, clubs play their league gamesweekly minus international breaks. Periodically through the season, clubs willplay in their domestic cups. If they lose, they are eliminated and left totheir regular season schedule,[1]and possibly continental cup if applicable.[2]Appendix 4 lists several countries, the name of their Tier 1 league, and thename of their domestic cup. The domestic cup is a unique situation becauselower tier teams enter and can play against teams in higher level teams. Appendix5 lists the Continental zones, the club continental cups, and which teamsqualify for the respective cups. The European zone has three levels ofcontinental cups for which teams qualify based on their previous seasonresults. A team that qualifies for two continental cups will only play in onecup (the more prestigious one). This can open a spot for another team in thelower cup. Appendix 6 lists the continental zone and the national team cup,along with past champions.

Ted Lasso: AFCRichmond competes in the FA Cup in Season 2. They play a quarterfinal matchand, after beating Tottenham, play in a semifinal at Wembley. This is a realphenomenon as the FA Cup semifinals are played at Wembley Stadium in April andthe final at Wembley in May.

Heading into the final match of Season 3,AFC Richmond is guaranteed a top 4 finish in the EPL and thereby a spot in theUEFA Champions League competition (acknowledged in a scene with Rebecca andHiggins, as well as Ted and the coaching staff).

Soccer-related note: A typical season is around 38 games (20 teams in the league and eachteam plays the other 19 teams twice – once at home and once away). Some leagueshave a few more teams and, hence, will have more regular season games. Thereare no playoffs; the champion is crowned by their regular season record.However, the top teams in the league also make deep runs in their domestic cupsand often place into the continental cup. As a result, they may play 50 or moregames in season (approximately 9 months)

Domestic cups are a unique and excitingopportunity for lower tier teams to play against higher teams. Promotion from alower league to a higher league is a difficult accomplishment. However, there arealways a few rounds in domestic cup tournaments where a lower tier team ismatched up against a team from a higher tier. Imagine if an NCAA Division IIIteam played against a Division I team! Or an NCAA Division I team against aprofessional team! It was suggested by some fans (most likely under deepillusion) that Alabama football at their peak could beat the worst NFL team atthe time. While most agreed there was no way Alabama could beat a professionalteam, there was no system in place to test the theory. That system technicallyexists in European soccer.

American Sports comparison: Outside of our own domestic soccer league and national team, thereis no significant comparison in our professional leagues. The NBA institutedthe NBA Cup which is played during the season. However, this is simply NBAteams playing against each other. There is not the drama that the FA Cup orCarabao Cup in England draws because there are no lower tier teams playing. Further,our professional sports teams (outside of soccer) do not compete in aninternational competition like Champions League. This could only happen ifother countries in North and Central America had top tier American footballleagues. Then those champions could compete against our top NFL teams.

[1] England is unique in having two domestic cups – the FA Cup and theCarabao Cup. Thus, teams are playing in two single elimination tournaments inaddition to their regular season competition, and potentially continental cup.

[2] If a club in the top tier of their domestic league finished highenough in the previous season, they will qualify for their continental cup.

Interactive:

Below are two links that show results from the 2025-26 FA Cup. One is list form and the other bracket form of the FA cup schedule. The tournament is open to the top 10 tiers of the English Football League (EFL). Over the first several rounds, teams from tiers 5-10 play each other. Once they are down to 32 teams, they play teams from tiers 3 and 4. Ultimately teams from Tiers 1 and 2 (EPL and Championship) will enter. The entire tournament is a knock-out format.

https://www.thefa.com/competitions/thefacup/results

https://www.fotmob.com/leagues/132/playoff/fa-cup

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