When is european football season

This has been known to go as far as the team with the fewest yellow cards. If needed, teams can also be separated by an additional one-off match, the drawing of lots, or a coin toss. What may be considered the 'regular season' in the USA is in fact just 'the season' in most European leagues. For them, any reference to the 'play-offs' is usually to do with promotion and relegation more on that later. In the Bundesliga, 18 teams play a total of 34 matches each — two against each team, once at home and once away — in a random order set out by the fixture list.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach, though. Scotland, for example, has three parts to its 'regular season'. Since the Scottish Premiership consists of only 12 teams, the first 22 rounds of fixtures see them play the customary home and away match against each other. They then play each other a third time, either home or away depending on how the fixtures are drawn. Once 33 games have been played, the league 'splits' into two halves of six teams.

Each club will then play five more matches against the other teams in their half. The champion is again the team that finishes with the most points, but teams cannot leave their half of the table.

This can result in an odd situation where seventh place may have more points than sixth come the end of 38 games. Things are even more complex in Belgium. After 30 rounds of fixtures in the team league, the top six then enter the championship play-offs. Their regular season points are halved as they begin a new mini league, playing home and away against each other to determine the champion and also European qualifiers.

As for the remaining 10, the bottom side is relegated but will still compete in the Europa League play-offs with the nine sides above them — as well as the top six teams from the second division. Those teams compete in four groups of four, the winners of which will play a semi-final and then a final for the right to face one of the teams from the championship play-offs for the chance to play in the Europa League.

As long as everyone understands the rules, of course, in what is a particularly unusual system. The great difference with soccer in the USA and Major League Soccer, however, is the system of promotion and relegation. In Europe, teams move between levels of the pyramid at the end of each season. That means a set number of clubs at the bottom end of a division except in the bottom-most league will drop into the one below.

Sides finishing at the top end of all leagues — bar the top tier — will move up a level. It will be no surprise, though, that things aren't quite that simple and are rarely uniform across leagues and countries. For example, the Bundesliga has two automatic promotion and relegation places. The top two sides at the end of the Bundesliga 2 campaign therefore replace the bottom two in the Bundesliga. There is one more spot available that isn't automatic.

Since , the team finishing third from bottom in the Bundesliga faces the side third in Bundesliga 2 over a two-legged play-off. The winner plays in the Bundesliga the following year. A similar practice is used in France's Ligue 1, although the team third from bottom there will face the winner of a series of play-offs between the sides finishing third to fifth in Ligue 2.

Across the remainder of Europe's "big five", they use another slightly different method. In England, the third team in the second-tier Championship plays sixth while fourth faces fifth in two-legged semi-finals, before a one-off final at Wembley to determine the third promoted team. In Spain, both semi-finals and the final consist of two legs. In Italy, teams third through eighth in Serie B enter the play-offs.

Fifth plays eighth and sixth hosts seventh over one leg. The winners then face a two-legged clash with either third or fourth, with the victors of those semi-finals contesting a two-legged final. Similar patterns are found throughout the continent, and play-offs are usually seen as end-of-season highlights before the summer break. While the MLS Cup is what decides the league's champion at the end of the regular season and play-offs, European cup competitions are nothing to do with the domestic leagues.

The limit of a league's involvement in a cup is often at what stage certain teams enter the draw, or who they can be drawn against. National cups are predominantly run by the national association, who nowadays tend to no longer run the top domestic leagues.

Ligue 1 began on August 21, - a month earlier than most of its counterparts in Europe - and it will come to an end on May 23, The Ligue 1 season will follow a similar time schedule, beginning in August and ending in May The Coupe de France began in September , but was paused in October of that year due to Covid restrictions brought into effect in France. The Champions League group stage began on October 20, and the final will be held on May 29, The Champions League is set to kick off in June qualifying stages , with the group stage expected to take place between September and December Latest Champions League fixtures and results.

The Europa League group stage began on October 22, and the final will be held on May 26, The Europa League will kick off with qualifying matches in August , with the competition proper commencing with the group stage in September , running until December It will conclude in May Latest Europa League fixtures and results.

Euro will begin on June 11, and the final will be played on July 11, The tournament, also known as the UEFA European Championship, was supposed to take place in summer , but it was postponed until as a result of public health concerns arising from the Covid pandemic. The women's tournament will kick off first, beginning on July 21, and the final will be played on August 6, The men's tournament is expected to begin on July 22, and the final will be played on August 7, From February through October, the teams compete in two conferences.

First, there is the league stage where every team competes in a league format intending to finish with the best record overall. Each team plays every other team in their league two times throughout the season. The team that finishes this stage of the season with the best record wins the Supporters shield.

While most soccer seasons take place from Fall through Spring of the following year, the MLS runs through the summer. MLS season takes place in the summer, so there is less crossover with the more popular American sports. Operating at this time of year means there is a long period of the season where the MLS is not competing for attention with basketball or football.

When the MLS was founded in , the creators were aware that they would be competing against the traditionally popular sports of football and basketball. If they were to attract a significant number of fans, they would need to stand out from the competition. One way to do this was to schedule the season to take place outside of the timeframes that other sports used.

While this season schedule works on the basis of drawing a larger fan base, there are some disadvantages to this disparity with the rest of the FIFA calendar. These two factors alone cause major disruption to many teams, which would instantly disappear if the MLS season matched the soccer season calendar for the rest of the world. With over 3 million players , US youth soccer has one of the highest numbers of participants of any level of soccer in the US.

Every one of these players needs to know when the youth soccer season begins. Youth soccer season takes place from February through May or September through November each year. Although there is no set schedule a youth soccer season must follow, most seasons around the US take place in either Spring or Fall.