European Super League 2018-19

UPDATED May 29, 2019: Final Standings are below.

Some of the the richest clubs of European football have made noise about permanent spots in the UEFA Champions League, or wanting to create a closed European Super League. Naturally, I would prefer an open Super League, with promotion and relegation with the domestic leagues.

Since there are too many "big" clubs for one twenty-team league, I have created a twenty-team Super League and a second division with forty teams, split into East and West Leagues. To pick which teams are placed in which leagues, I used the UEFA Club Coefficients from the end of the 2014-15 season. Since then, each season, two teams were relegated from the Super League to Division 2, replaced by the East and West champions. Two teams from each Division 2 league were relegated, replaced by the four teams that progressed the furthest in the Champions League and Europa League. (Ideally, this would just be the final four Champions League teams, with the relegated teams automatically qualified for the next season's Champions League so they have the potential for promotion as soon as possible).

Bayer 04 Leverkusen and Benfica were relegated from the Super League to Division 2 West. Ajax and Internazionale Milano were promoted to the Super League. Borussia Mönchengladbach, AZ Alkmaar, Sparta Praha, and PAOK were relegated to their respective domestic leagues. Lokomotiv Moskva, RB Leipzig, Salzburg and Ludogorets 1945 were promoted to Divison 2 East.

To keep East and West at 20 teams each, Monaco were moved to the West.

In a change this year, three teams will be relegated from each league. The third Division 2 team promoted will be the second place team with the higher points per game. Ideally, though, this would be a playoff.

Here is a map of the sixty teams in the international leagues. Click the rectangle tab thing in the upper left to get to the list where you can deselect the separate divisions.

Here are the final standings for the 2018-19 season:

The standings include only games against teams in a team's division (Super League or Division 2). The first tiebreaker is the number of games played. The second tiebreaker is the UEFA club coefficient rankings.

The six teams that will be promoted from the domestic leagues are the six teams (that aren't above) who progressed the furthest in the Champions League and Europa League. Since no "new" team advanced to the knock-out round of the Champions League, all six are from the Europa League: Eintracht Frankfurt, Slavia Praha, Krasnodar, Dinamo Zagreb, Stade Rennais, and Celtic (who had the highest coefficient of the teams eliminated in the round of 32, above BATE Borisov, Rapid Wien, Real Betis Balompié, Malmö, and Zürich).

US Soccer Combined Leagues 2018

UPDATE 12/8/18: Final standings of the 2018 season.

Just suppose that many years ago, the US Soccer Federation required all professional teams to play in the same league system. Just suppose that they decided that it would be best to always have two equal leagues, east and west, and then divide teams vertically into Division 1, Division 2, etc. Just suppose that, each year, they promoted the best teams from Division 2 and relegated the worst teams from Division 1.

And here's the big leap. Just suppose that we didn't have any more teams playing than what we actually have.

In 2018, the USSF has 56 professional teams. Nine teams folded/withdrew after the 2017 season (Edmonton, Jacksonville Armada, Miami, New York Cosmos, Orlando City B, Puerto Rico, Rochester Rhinos, San Francisco Deltas, and Vancouver Whitecaps 2). New teams added to Division 2 West are Fresno, Las Vegas Lights, and Los Angeles. In the East, the new teams in Division 2 are Atlanta United 2 and Nashville.

To balance the leagues, Saint Louis and Swope Park Rangers were moved from the West to the East.

Here is a map of the teams. Click the rectangle tab thing in the upper left to get to the list where you can deselect the separate divisions.

Here are the current standings:

Since a wonderful home-and-away round robin didn't actually happen in each league above, I have substituted that with ranking the teams by points-per-game, including each team's league and cup games played in 2018, only counting games against teams in its division (Division 1 or 2).

At least one team from each Division 1 league will be relegated and at least one team from each Division 2 league will be promoted. The final number is determined by the number of professional teams in 2019 and the resultant promotions without relegations to even out the divisions. Without adjustments to the number of teams, three would be relegated and three would be promoted. With a current net gain of 13 teams, four are promoted for each team relegated.

B teams in Division 2 are ineligible for promotion as B teams can't be in Division 1.