Tighter Than a Tick

There are many in the know that consider the English League Championship (the "second" division of English soccer, one rung below the Premier League) the toughest league in professional soccer. This year, a division that's routinely a mad scramble has upped its game, poised for a rollercoaster ride (see what we did there?) of a run in to the final matches. 

With respect to the competition's toughness, start with the fact that each of the 24 teams plays 46 regular season league matches (before factoring in outside competitions like the FA Cup and the League Cup), which is considerably more than any other league my deep research has identified. By way of comparison, the Premier League, Spain's La Liga, France's Ligue 1, and Italy's Serie A play 38 matches. Those tissue-soft Germans only play 34 in the Bundesliga.

Add to the fixture congestion the notion that the top two teams automatically qualify for promotion to the world's most prominent league (and teams 3-6 play a mini-tournament to identify the third promoted side each year) and we get highly motivated squads competing up and down the table.

Finally, and despite the number of matches, Championship football is routinely described as more physical than the Premier League. The level of skill isn't quite as high as that at the top of the pyramid, so there's more of a premium on pace, fitness, and physicality - the beautiful game, it ain't always.

Given what's at stake, the final matches of a Championship season are always fraught. I've lived this over the past several years as a fan of a yo-yo club like Fulham (so described because they've had a recent habit of getting relegated from the Premier League, winning promotion, and being relegated right back down - seems we've kicked that pattern, at least for this season*). This year, though, the race for the playoff makes five-wide at Daytona seem like riding Tomorrowland Speedway at DisneyWorld.

*vigorously knocks wood

Check this mess out:

Recently relegated Burnley is playing really good stuff under new manager (and playing legend in his own right) Vincent Kompany, and along with second-place Sheffield United seem a good bet to cruise to automatic qualification. After that, we've got the 5 on a Friday afternoon. The distance between Watford in third and Hull City in 16th is nine points, or three wins/losses on the trot. Last place Wigan (on 25 points) is only 16 points out of a playoff spot (the last of which is currently held by West Bromwich Albion. Ten teams are within six points of the playoffs, including Sunderland, who suffered the ignominy of relegation from the Premier League to the Championship to League One in consecutive seasons in 2016-17 and 2017-18 (if you haven't seen the documentary Sunderland 'til I Die, which chronicles those seasons, I insist you fix that).

At least one of you follows a team that's flirting with relegation from the Premier League to the Championship (though I find that an unlikely outcome), so it might be worth your time to get familiar with the grind. Regardless, if you're looking for some dumb fun, you could do worse than paying attention to the car crashes happening right below the top division.