If a footballer makes the second tier of any major footballing country, it is safe to say that he is at least an accomplished player. He will have mastered at least one physical or technical aspect of the game, at least got near the 10,000 hours of practice that Malcolm Gladwell feels is necessary to become top class in a field and, particularly if he’s playing in England, will be earning a sizeable amount of money to come with it.
The main priority for second tier clubs is trying to get into the top flight, but even for those stuck in the second division, life is usually rather enjoyable. In fact, one of the few things missing from the lives of both the players and the fans is the opportunity to play in Europe. Unless they manage to achieve a miracle by winning a cup competition, clubs outside of the top flight have no chance of playing in exotic locations in countries like Spain, France, Italy and Germany.
However, this could easily be changed. The Champions League remains the pinnacle of European (and possibly world) football, and UEFA are marketing the Europa League well enough that it continues to grow, but something new is needed to prevent matters from becoming repetitive. Since it wouldn’t be possible to squeeze yet more European competition out of top flight clubs, a refreshing change would be to create a competition for those in their countries’ second leagues: The Second Division Champions League.
When would it happen?
It would be simply impractical to suggest that this could happen during the season—Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are taken up by the two major European competitions, for starters—but the Second Division Champions League could be an entertaining summer “treat” in years where there is little or no international competition. In fact, UEFA could easily make it a yearly competition to be played between July and August, but that would risk doing it to excess and would also exhaust those who would have to play in both international and domestic competitions throughout the whole summer.
Depending on how many teams there would be in it—32 would be ideal because it would allow for the nations with higher coefficients to get all their play-off losers or top non-promoted clubs in the contest—it could easily be played over a month, just like the World Cup is. Since it would be a smaller spectacle, however, perhaps it would be better to have it over a shorter period of time to prevent viewers from losing interest, which would be a bit more difficult.
Say the tournament had happened this summer. Whereas the World Cup only has two groups’ matches shown on one day and then there is a four or five day break before those groups play again, you could have three groups on one day and the group of three and two on the next two days with a three or four day break for each.
For example, rounds one and two of the group stages could have happened on Tuesday-Thursday 7th-9th and Friday-Sunday 10th-12th June, 2015 with the final round happening on Tuesday and Wednesday 14th-15th with four groups playing on the two days.
In the latter rounds, since part of the fun would be playing it over two legs so that the teams can visit each others’ grounds, you would have to have one leg in the midweek and one over the weekend, with a week’s break between the semi-finals and third place play-off and final to make those two matches happen at the weekend.
Who would be in it?
Most likely the system for picking teams would be used with the UEFA coefficient. If there were to be 32 teams in the competition, ideally there would be effectively the play-off losers in each of the major countries or the top one, two or three teams who were not promoted in countries who don’t use the play-off system. Perhaps it is best to use the example of what would’ve happened in the 2015 tournament and try to work out the teams from each country.
From England it would be simple. There would be the three play-off losers: Middlesbrough, Ipswich Town and Brentford. All three are good teams with entertaining players in their own right, and they, along with their fans who would greatly enjoy the European tour, would bring plenty of excitement.
The Spanish selections would be equally as simple. Their three play-off losers in 2014-15 were Girona, Valladolid and Real Zaragoza, the latter of whom are a famous club with a ground that seats over 34,000. Certainly, players in other second tiers would relish the chance to play teams of their calibre.
Italy would be a bit more difficult as Serie B has six teams in its play-offs. However, the two teams who don’t make it through the preliminary round would not qualify and so the losing semi-finalists and finalist would make it through to the competition. For this hypothetical competition Pescara, Vicenza and Avellino would have qualified. Who in their right mind would reject the chance to go to such beautiful places over the summer?
The Dutch system is a bit more complicated. There are multiple rounds where ten teams compete for two spots in the next season’s Eredivisie, but since there are two third rounds which are effectively separate “finals”, the two losers in those matches would be the qualifiers.
In Germany there is only one play-off loser so the next one or two teams below the play-offs would have to go through. In France it is pure automatic promotion so the two or three teams below the promotion places would qualify. The same would apply to Portugal, who would only have two teams. For 2015 the teams would have been Karlsruher, Kaiserslautern and possibly Leipzig; Dijon, Nancy and possibly Brest; and Chaves and Sporting da Covilhã. Belgium has a four-way group play-off system, so it would be best to have the second and third-placed teams, who are not promoted, in the competition. This would have been Eupen and Lierse.
In Russia the top two non-automatically promoted teams play against the 13th and 14th teams in the Premier League for two spots in the next season’s top flight, so the two losers would qualify. Tom Tomsk and Tosno would have qualified for the 2015 Second Division Champions League. In Ukraine there are two automatic spots and nothing else, so one or two spots would have been given to Hirynk-Sport Komsomolsk and possibly Zirko Kirovohrad.
This gives us 23 or 25 teams. Therefore it would be best to have the full 25 and give one spot to each of the countrie outside the top ten ranked 11th-17th. This would create some rather interesting away days to say the least: imagine Middlesbrough playing away to Balotești in Romania, for example.
However, considering that this is just a pre-season tournament, it would be a tad over the top to have all these teams and fans travelling all over Europe. Perhaps it would be best to have a host nation each year with only one leg in the knockout rounds, meaning that the tournament could very easily happen over three weeks. The semi-finals could be over two legs to create proper “away days” for the remaining teams.
Some of the ideas still need some ironing out, but this Second Division Champions League could be a great source of entertainment every now and then and an opportunity for second tier clubs to experience the glamour of European competition.
