Two teams, many dreams

It has been a long while since the last time I wrote something in this space. Obviously, I’m blaming it on the pressures of work, never on the lack of stories and adventures of life. In any case, I thought the stories that I will talk about were too interesting to let them pass by. In all frankness, the chronology does not seem very current, but I want to show a collection of stories that have not finished yet. One of the biggest annual competitions in football is the UEFA Champions League (UCL) which allows more than 70 clubs to compete for glory and a place in the FIFA Club World Cup, glory being the biggest incentive. Given the format of the tournament, at least one team from each of the European national football federations has the right to compete, with the exception of Liechtenstein, for not having a national league, and Gibraltar, which will feature a team beginning in the 2014-2015 season. Because of the difference in quality between a few leagues (English, Spanish, German, among others) and the rest, many of the games, especially those in the qualification rounds and the group phase, are one-sided and tend to have a team dominating and another doing its best to avoid goals hence lacking spectacular play. There is, though, another competition for the second best teams in the continent: the UEFA Europa League (UEL). For this tournament, the great majority of the countries provide three teams, usually the national cup champion and the two best league teams that did not qualify to the UCL. Generally speaking, the matches in the UEL are somewhat more even than those in the UCL, albeit of lower quality. In addition, it is not uncommon to find teams that play in the second tier of their respective associations among the participants; this happens because clubs from different tiers are invited to compete in the national cups and that allows small teams to go through and book a place in this European competition. For instance, a few years back, Guingamp, a French team from the second division lost the final of the French national cup and participated in the UEL; being Ligue 1 one of the best leagues in the world, it was outstanding that a minor team had gone that far in their most important play-off competition. From Liechtenstein, only a team participates in European competitions because the country does not have a league and only organises a national cup. Vaduz has won many titles and has been a constant feature in the UEL for decades but last year they lost the final to Echen/Mauren, a team that regularly plays in the fourth tier of the Swiss football pyramid. This is really extraordinary, but the fact that they have a lot less competition and that the most successful club in the country is Vaduz, itself belonging to the second tier on Switzerland, makes this achievement less exceptional. This year the UEL is special because three teams, from England, Israel and Macedonia, will play having won the national cup and being relegated at almost the same time. In addition, a team from Norway, Hødd, won their national cup playing in the second tier; even stranger is the fact that a team from Northern Ireland will play representing the Republic of Ireland and a Welsh club will play as an English one. With that in mind, I present to you two teams that were involved in the qualification phase to the UEL and who, having a successful 2012-2013 season, will have different challenges the next: FC Pasching and Bradford City, a third-division Austrian club and a fourth-division English club, respectively. Pasching, playing in the Regionalliga Mitte had a very good season, winning 21 out of 28 matches and being, by percentage, the third best team out of the 47 teams divided in the three sections of the Regionalliga. Unfortunately, only the best team from each section is given the chance to be promoted to the Erste Liga and LASK Linz won that privilege over Pasching by only two points. But the league was not the only competition Pasching was playing in; they took part, along with other 63 teams, in the Austrian Cup. The format of this competition is different from analogous in other countries in the fact that there are not qualification rounds; thus, all teams, from different tiers, play from the first round onwards. This format might be advantageous to smaller teams because with some luck in the seeding and the draw, they can play against other small teams in the first few rounds. For instance, Pasching played the first round against a smaller team, but had to face Austria Lustenau for the second, one of the best teams of the Erste Liga. At home, they defeated the Lustenau side after extra time, which meant being host to a fellow Regionalliga side in the Round of 16. Then, the luck ended and the next match was to be played in the ground of the Rapid Wien, one of the most traditional and successful teams in the country. A goal in the sixtieth minute by their Spanish forward Casanova allowed Pasching to face Red Bull Salzburg in the semifinal, again away from home. The other semifinal was between another two Bundesliga clubs: SV Ried and Austria Wien, the latter being, along with Rapid Wien and Salzburg, one of the best teams of the country. Pasching came from behind to win the match and book a place for the final in Vienna. By then, Pasching had secured a place in the UEL because Austria Wien had already qualified for the UCL; nevertheless, they bravely played and defeated the Austrian champions to have a place in the Play-off round of the UEL and potentially face powerful teams such as Tottenham Hotspurs, PSV Eindhoven or Celtic. In England, teams from the first four tiers of the football pyramid can qualify to the UEL through the national cup or the league cup. Blackford City, as a fourth-division team, would enter the national cup in the First round proper (the actual seventh round) and the league cup in the First round. For the “bantams”, the league cup began in August 2012 in Nottingham against the oldest club in the world: Notts County, which plays in the third division. Bradford City scored after five minutes into extra time to go to the second round against a second-tier club again away from home. The “bantams” had to come back from a goal down to win in injury time and book a place in the Round of 32. Finally, a game at home against a team from the same category looked easy to handle but proved a lot more complicated: Burton Albion kept a two-goal advantage for most of the game which slipped away in the last ten minutes. Bradford City demonstrated being the better team with a goal in extra time to have a place in the Round of 16. Then, an away game at Wigan Athletic waited. The team was outstanding in defence, although they did not have many chances up front to win the match. At the end, converting all four penalties combined with two misses by the top-class players of Wigan was enough to see Bradford City through to the quarterfinals against the mighty “gunners” from Arsenal. The game played at home was exciting for the crowd since the beginning with a goal for Bradford City after only 15 minutes. Arsenal had to wait until two minutes from time to score an equaliser because of the extraordinary effort from the Bradford City defence. Penalty kicks were again the way to decide the winner with the “bantams” scoring one more than the “gunners”; a famous victory. The semifinals in this competition are played in a home and away basis, which somewhat avoids big upsets. Thankfully, this was not the case for Bradford City, who after winning at home by two goals, lost to Aston Villa in the second leg by only one to play the final against Swansea City in the beautiful Wembley Stadium. The magic would end there and Swansea City got hold of the ticket to the UEL with a definite win over Bradford City. In the national cup, the “bantams” first faced Northampton Town, which plays at the same level in English football. After each team scoring a goal in the first match in Northampton, the decider was to be played in Bradford. City scored in the late first half just to be equalised at the end of the period, then a penalty kick was granted at the end of play which was converted, but suddenly the Town got an immediate goal back to send both teams to extra time. There, each team scored once and in the penalty shoot-out Bradford City came in front. In the following round, the third-tier team Brentford, amid an administrative controversy, extinguished the hopes of a place in European competition for the “bantams” with a sequence of three goals in five minutes. During the season, Bradford City did just enough to take part of the promotion play-offs: they finished in the seventh position of the table, fourteen points below the champion and only two points above the eighth place. Nevertheless, after the good run they had in the league cup, City would be the team to beat in the play-off format. First in turn was Burton Albion (fourth place), which City had played in their run to the final of the league cup: losing by a goal at home was not the best result, but combined with the win by two goals in Burton upon Trent was enough to play for a spot in the third division next year. The following opponent was Northampton Town (sixth place) in Wembley Stadium; after thirty minutes a three-goal advantage to the “bantams” was enough to move up in the football pyramid. After this long long account of successes and losses for FC Pasching and Bradford City, who do you think got the best out of the season? One will play against the “almost” elite of European football and the other proved its value in one-off games but not so much in the regular season. I personally prefer the consistent work of Pasching, although it was not enough to reach the Eerste Liga. Next season, both teams will be in the third tier of their respective football associations but there is no doubt in my mind that Bradford City would win in the case of a match-up. What do you think?