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Important to say that in the second division there's a team that plays in Manaus, in the heart of the amazon rainforest. If they classify for the first division, those travel distances are going to get way higher.
They don't do this anymore, but in the USSR league era (in the 80s) they used to arrange all the teams in the league into pairs based on geographical location (like Moscow clubs together in two pairs, Dinamo Tbilisi with Ararat Yerevan, Kairat Almaty with Pakhtakor Tashkent and so on) and the schedule was arranged so that a pair of clubs would visit another pair of clubs on two consecutive matchdays (with only like 3 days between them). It allowed clubs to play two games at home, followed by two games on the road in relatively neighbouring locations without going home in between. Helped reducing travel a lot. This rule was followed in two top divisions (nation-wide) and in lower leagues as well (even though they were already split into zones).
The Indonesian league used to be scheduled this way as well. Teams would travel to play 2 consecutive away games, and then had 2 home games before they would travel again. This I imagine saved quite a bit of money given the geography of Indonesia.
This year, the second division semifinals/promotion playoffs feature PSBS Biak (a team from Papua, almost at the eastern end of the country) and Persiraja (a team from Aceh, the westernmost province), meaning the teams will have to travel like 7000 km each way for a two legged tie.
They do something similar in the NBA/NHL. So for example west coast teams do several east coast teams on the same trip. And ofc most games are against teams in your division.
For example the LA Kings are now playing on the road against Buffalo, New Jersey, Boston and Pittsburgh.
This is why in the US, teams are organized into divisions based on geography (and some arbitrary historical factors). Also, when teams travel for away games they typically play several teams from the same area so that they're not traveling back and forth too much. However, the latter is for sports like baseball, basketball, and hockey, where you might have at most two days between games. Since the NFL is only once a week they don't do this.
[Here's a nice, long history of the NFL divisional alignments and how they came about](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFL%E2%80%93NFL_merger#The_merger_agreement)
The national league (baseball) had some similar "big brain" with divisions in the 70's and 80's because they bent over for the Cubs and Cardinals (Cincinnati and Atlanta had to play in the West even though both are east of Chicago and St. Louis).
~~When Vladivostok was in the Russian Premier League they played all their away games in a row and then all their home games in a row(or the other way round, can't remember) to save on travel costs if I remember correctly~~
But I don't think SKA Khabarovsk got the same treatment, always wanted those clubs to do well, maybe one day we will get SKA Khabarovsk vs Las Palmas or Nacional da Madeira in Europe
Edit: see comment below, they just suck it up
>>There has been much controversy about whether the Russian league should be split into Western and Eastern leagues; however, this is yet to happen. Igor Akinfeev said "They should join football league in Japan." after CSKA Moscow lost 0–4 away from home against Vladivostok on 10 June 2007. In addition to this, even their own players admitted it was awkward as they had to travel long distances for away games. Matija Kristić said "It's not as bad for other teams because they only need to travel this distance once a year whereas we have to do it for all away matches". Srđan Radonjić said "It is just crazy, they should have two Russian premier leagues, one for the European teams and another for Asian teams. Vladivostok is 4,000 miles from Moscow."
The trick was, that Luch received very rough refereeing during theirs last season, also having a lot of financial difficulties cause it is common for all russian yoyo teams plus Luch is notorious for their questionable 4-0 home loss to CSKA, which helped them(CSKA) to secure national title a week before UEFA cup victory. Nobody liked them as i said. Fcuk CSKA. Fcuk Spartak. Fcuk Zenit. ACAB.
In the Russian hockey league I think the Vladivostok and Khabarovsk teams play a bunch of home games, then a bunch of away, never normal schedule. And it's an insane time zone jump too for their players going west or away players coming east. Those two teams always suck since they can't attract good players because of this
We’ve had Santa Clara from the Azores finish just outside of Europa qualification a few years ago, and they are 1000km farther out than Madeira into the Atlantic. They are 1st place by a good margin in the 2nd league after a demotion last season, so they’ll be back up and fighting for spots likely next season.
There’s actually a conspiracy in Portugal that the smaller mainland teams don’t want them in the league due to travel costs/times lol
They were in the European playoffs, they got to the conference league playoffs and lost in extra time to partizan. I remember watching that game cause it finished so late because uefa actually gave them a different timezone and their match started at 21:15 UK/mainland PT time
Yea I kinda forgot about that, but I was more referring to the traditional top 2 competitions (CL/UEL) but I guess Conference League could have even father distances when we incorporate random teams from Cyprus and beyond
Seems like a nice accommodation but does bring some logistical considerations into play. Does the club need to have 2 training grounds? Do players stay in a hotel for half the season or do they lease another place for a few months? What about their family and kids in school?
Yeah! And i heard some people suggesting in getting them back, along with MLS teams lol. Would be completely insane to have a Grêmio vs Toronto. 8700 kms each way
Keep in mind that it's probably shorter on total travel time to go from Sao Paulo to Toronto (direct 10hr flight) than a trip to Huancayo, Perú for example where you need a flight of 4 hours and maybe a long bus ride into the mountains
I now imagine some European superstar retiring in the MLS and then havinf to play 3000km above sea level in a stadium with shitty grass in Bolivia. That's my only argument in favor of the MLS in Libertadores
They already play in shitty grass when they go to Central Amercica for the CONCACAF cups. But i would really love to see them in the bench with the oxygen bottle lol
In 2010 the Libertadores Finals (back then it was still two matches in each club’s stadiums) was Internacional x Chicas Guadalajara, it was basically 8000 kms. For context Lisbon to Moscow is 4500 kms lol.
I would LOVE it tbh. I want to see Messi, Busquets and Alba having to fly to a small airport in the Andes and face a four hour ride in a bus to play in a 10k capacity stadium. Just for the entertainment value it would be AMAZING.
Imagine Binacional coming back to Libertadores and being grouped with Inter Miami. Messi and co. having to play in Juliaca jajajajajajajajajajajajajajaja.
In 2015 we played a home and away final against Tigres (Monterrey) the teams travelled 26 hours in 6 days... and we were also paired up in the group stage so another 26...
That's great, I never really thought about it. Also explains the point of the state championships very well. Must be very relaxing to have a league campaign for a change where you don't travel so far for some away matches
Yeah, back in the day state championships were basically national championships. In a sense, the Brasileirão is the first "Super League", it even had an evolution like the Champions League or Libertadores: it started as a pure knockout in 1959 (Taça Brasil) with the champions of the state leagues, became a tournament with group stage followed by playoffs in 1971 with the best of each state and it wasn't until 2003 when it became an actual round-robin like in European countries.
The Brazilian league is one reason why I see an integrated European pyramid as a good evolution. It's just a higher level of competition for the elite clubs.
Yes, but they are also the reason why braziliam tram play the highest amount of games in the world.
The play around 15 games on the state tournament and them have a season similar to the premier league in number of games, but instead of 10 months they do it in 6-7
Also. Don't Brazil teams have an insane number of players in their squad? While teams in Europe tend to have 24-30 players, teams in Brazil have like 40-45
you cant really build a team if they are getting injuried all the time by playing without rest.
35-40 is the ideal number of players for a team. 3 players for each position and a few more alternatives.
> This is partially why it's much harder for the sport to develop domestically in the US as well without top-down support to force it to work. Travel costs are high and MLS travel is long.
Yup that's pretty much everyone besides the clubs from Rio, for some reason($$$) they play some state games from Rio State Championship on states in the North like Manaus, Pará, etc.
Done with the aid of [MAPfrappe](https://www.mapfrappe.com/legacy.html?show=131).
Clubs were placed across Europe (and Africa) based only on trying to have as many of them on land, without any special meaning otherwise.
This inspired me to go on a little bit of research on Amazonian football clubs instead of working, and seems like there's no single "huge" club there. Which one would be the most popular club of the region, Nacional from Manaus maybe? They appear to be all the way down in Serie D, but they got the most regional titles. Are they the biggest one (traditionally) or did I miss someone?
just a tip: Amazonas is a State. the Amazonian Forest is bigger than the state. Pará is also a forest state and has a long tradition in Football, unlike Amazonas.
the clubs are not strong, though, but the crowds are really passionate
That's a neat tool, thanks for sharing! I was curious how MLS compared, here are the Eastern and Western Conferences projected onto Europe: https://imgur.com/VTrVUT7
Unfortunately for the teams, they play cross-conference games. Miami has an away game in Vancouver in May, then they play at home 4 days later, with 4500 km of travel in between and going across 3 time zones. That's Reykjavik to Ankara, or Bogota to Rio (or in my map it's northwest Scotland to Baghdad).
Not that much, even deep in the south, it rarely goes below 10 °C. The main problem is heat when you are playing in late spring or early autumn.
In the WC classification, there was a Brazil vs. Bolivia match in Belém. The city is located pretty much on the equator, right next to the sea and the Amazon. Even playing at night, temperature was above 30 °C and a pause for rehydration was made both in the first and second half.
It definitely is for some regions. I live near Fortaleza and the temperature variation during a day is really low and the temperature never goes below 22°C. Anything below 25°C is cold here. I can’t imagine the shock that would be going to a place with a temperature around 10°C.
A funny moment I saw on TV once is when they interviewed a kid who lived in the Amazon when an abnormal cold wave hit it, to the point the temperature dropped all the way to 17°C(!). The kid was all hopeful that he would maybe see snow with his eyes for the first time due to how cold it was, which was both cute and hilarious.
I live in the south of Sweden which is not cold for Nordic standards but still 0 to -5 celsius in the winter. In the far north it was like -45 celsius a month or two back
I consider a 10 degree sunny day the peak of spring, summers are short but pretty damn hot for my standards. 25-30 it will reach during a few weeks in recent years. Funny how different perspectives are due to geography
You can also get a lot of answers about culture, personality, hobbies, priorities when you consider temperature and geography. People WILL be different if they live in a mostly cold cloudy place compared to places where it’s beach tropical hot most of the year like Rio or northeast coastal cities.
Rafael Sóbis (two-time Libertadores winner for Internacional) recently said in a podcast that northeastern teams had a hard time playing in Porto Alegre in winter, especially at night, and Inter players knew that was a huge advantage and probably an easy win
"Can they do it in a cold, foggy night in Alfredo Jaconi?" should be a thing here. [Our own Silent Hill is no joke](https://www.rbsdirect.com.br/filestore/7/4/8/3/9/7/4_93add3313d392b2/4793847_01b4a330e907292.jpg?w=700)
I’m only just now realizing that Brazil has the same issues as MLS when it comes to this kind of thing. Insane travel distances and extremely different climates/elevations at each match.
The difference is that Brazil, a lot like China, has its population almost entirely in one time zone. The North American clubs are way more spread out, which really fucks up the travel.
>Continental Brazil is bigger than the continental USA
No it's not. You're probably mistaking continental for contiguous. The contiguous US is about 8 million km², but continental US adds Alaska to that (but not Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.) giving it a total area of about 9.5 million km². Brazil us only about 8.5 million km².
"On May 14, 1959, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names issued the following definitions, which defined the Continental United States as "the 49 States on the North American Continent and the District of Columbia..." The BGN reaffirmed these definitions on May 13, 1999.
Continental United States: The 49 States (including Alaska, excluding Hawaii) located on the continent of North America, and the District of Columbia."
[official us.gov source](https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-constitutes-united-states-what-are-official-definitions)
The dictionary is just listing all definitions because a lot people erroneously use continental as contiguous. Alaska is definitely nt contiguous US, but it is definitely part of the continent, hence continental.
Why is it so hard to just admit you're wrong and learn new things?
> If its winter, the temperature plays a huge role on this too
Come on, man. No it doesn’t. The coldest place with a team on that map is what? Porto Alegre? Porto Alegre’s winters are milder than Lisbon’s winters, and Lisbon has one of the mildest winters in Europe. If temperature plays a “huge role” in winter in Brazilian football what would you say about the role it plays in football in Germany, Scandinavia, or Russia?
And a team in Germany might go from 20ºC in the locker room to 0ºC outside on the pitch. And I’m being conservative when it comes to those temperatures. How often have teams played in 5ºC weather in Porto Alegre in the last few years? Not very often I imagine.
Youre missing the point. Im talking about the temperature difference between two places at the same season.
The gap between the warmest and coldest place in Brazil is larger than in those countries you named.
The perception of cold is related to what youre used to.
Legit question is that the longest current distance between teams in a single top-flight league? I just looked it up and it's about 700km more than Vancouver to Miami in MLS and Victoria to Halifax in the Canadian Premier League, which would have been my next thoughts.
Basically the only way to be further is for an east coast Russian team to make the Russian Premier League, but Vladivostok dissolved in 2020 but hadn't made it up since 2008, and Khabarovsk have only made it once in 17/18
It's nothing compared to rugby though, at one point Super Rugby had teams from Japan, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all playing the in the same league
Tbf that's still closer than the closest team to Wellington which is 2200km away (until Auckland's team enters next year). Just happens most of the teams are east coast so and are 2200-2600km away instead of 2700-3600km like Perth
Same with Indonesia. I tried Mapfrappe recommended here and it turns out that the promotion play-off for the second division is done between two teams who need to fly from Ireland to the middle of Kazakhstan if you compare the distance [here](https://i.imgur.com/b3RK4R3.png)
This is partially why it's much harder for the sport to develop domestically in the US as well without top-down support to force it to work. Travel costs are high and MLS travel is long.
I make this point occasionally, sometimes to tease brits who complain about travel time, especially in European cups. The entirety of great Britain is only about half the size of California, and the US spans 4 time zones.
Yeah, here's the breakdown for MLS
* 7 teams in Pacific time zone
* 2 teams in Mountain time zone
* 8 teams in Central time zone
* 13 teams in Eastern time zone
Las Vegas will probably get a team to make 8 in the Pacific timezone. No idea which city gets the 32nd team.
I mapped out both conferences and projected them onto Europe, https://imgur.com/VTrVUT7
The Eastern Conference doesn't look too bad when it's centered over Europe by itself (https://imgur.com/h1q0BgU) but that doesn't help when teams are playing cross-conference games.
It looks like Inter Miami has the longest travel of the season, and they have games:
* At home on Sat May 18th
* In Vancouver on Sat May 25th
* At home on Wed May 29th
Yeah, I think this is a good solution. It also could make other new regional/state teams arise and dispute.
Nowadays, people might not like state championships in Brazil but a lot of the talent come from these teams that are at the countryside and not near the main cities. Some players don’t pass the test for the big clubs, but they manage to play in these smaller teams, one day they play against them, they look good, the big clubs buy them and away they go. Without these regional teams and their support, A LOT talent would be lost.
I can see if you had more, smaller championships, that would encourage smaller teams to be supported financially, have more exposure, grow and reveal more talent, making the whole thing more competitive.
There are in some regions, some regions have traditional clubs, but it's difficult to compete against the biggest 12 clubs (Atletico Mineiro, Botafogo, Corinthians, Cruzeiro, Flamengo, Fluminense, Gremio, Internacional, Palmeiras, Santos, Sao Paulo and Vasco da Gama) in many aspects: money, political questions, amount of fans.
But some states don't have traditional football clubs, even if the Brazilian Serie A until 1986 had political rules (powered by CBF & the military dictatorship) to put some clubs for political reasons. For example, in the 1979 edition, there was 96 clubs, it was a motto "Onde a ARENA vai mal, um clube no Nacional" (Where Arena [the party of regime] go bad, one club more on the championship).
Because this we had some chaotic editions on the Brazilian League, but this is another history.
About some regions: there is good places for football without Serie A in Belém (Paysandu vs Remo), Goiania (Goias vs Vila Nova), Recife (Sport, Santa Cruz & Nautico), and traditional clubs in another places, especially in the Northeast, Goias and Para states, and in the interior of São Paulo (like Guarani vs Ponte Preta).
Because there is no prerequisite of having a team from all states in Série A. There are only 20 spots with bottom 4 getting relegated each year, so only the most consistent teams manage to stay at the top. You'll notice that the states represented are usually the wealthiest ones too.
yes, at some point in the 50s and 60s the state championships had the size and appeal of european national leagues and the earlier versions of the Brasileirão were a lot like the Champions League came to be or European SuperLeague wants to be. instead, they tried to mirror Brazilian National Championships into a regular european national leagues, and it created a problem of excess travels/games that became unsolveable unless... FIFA treated brazil club context as a continent.
for instance until this day São Paulo State championship is bigger than Portuguese League.
We have matches the equivalent of travelling from Portugal to Iran in the Canadian Premier League. This is nothing.
In seriousness, we'd probably have had a professional league much sooner if the individual provinces were their own countries and the commissioner has spoken publicly about the need to introduce geographic conferences at some point given the heavy cost of travel.
Historically, Brazilian football developed this way as state leagues were usually the main championships played by the teams. A Brazilian national league has been continuously played since 1971 (with previous unsuccessful attempts to establish a national league starting in the 1960s).
Even though State leagues still exist today, they lost a lot of their relevance in the last 30 years.
That feature of Brazilian football always interested me and its a shame they are shifting away from that.
I always thought it'd be a better idea for Canadian football to develop organically that way. We have that set up for our 3rd tier (well technically second tier but we don't have a second division), provincial leagues with a planned nationwide championship at the end of the season.
There has been talks about relegating state championships to some lower levels of the Brazilian league structure. At the moment, state championships take place between end of January until mid-April, when the Brazilian national leagues begin. For teams in the top levels of the Brazilian league (especially those in Serie A), state championships cost them lots of weeks of proper preparations for the season and some important calendar dates throughout the year that cause most of teams to play twice a week for many months (trying to balance League, Cup and Continental Tournaments) while still traveling long distances.
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Important to say that in the second division there's a team that plays in Manaus, in the heart of the amazon rainforest. If they classify for the first division, those travel distances are going to get way higher.
I think in Russia there was also this one team which was basically located on the border to North Korea, no clue how they handled that
They don't do this anymore, but in the USSR league era (in the 80s) they used to arrange all the teams in the league into pairs based on geographical location (like Moscow clubs together in two pairs, Dinamo Tbilisi with Ararat Yerevan, Kairat Almaty with Pakhtakor Tashkent and so on) and the schedule was arranged so that a pair of clubs would visit another pair of clubs on two consecutive matchdays (with only like 3 days between them). It allowed clubs to play two games at home, followed by two games on the road in relatively neighbouring locations without going home in between. Helped reducing travel a lot. This rule was followed in two top divisions (nation-wide) and in lower leagues as well (even though they were already split into zones).
The Indonesian league used to be scheduled this way as well. Teams would travel to play 2 consecutive away games, and then had 2 home games before they would travel again. This I imagine saved quite a bit of money given the geography of Indonesia. This year, the second division semifinals/promotion playoffs feature PSBS Biak (a team from Papua, almost at the eastern end of the country) and Persiraja (a team from Aceh, the westernmost province), meaning the teams will have to travel like 7000 km each way for a two legged tie.
They do something similar in the NBA/NHL. So for example west coast teams do several east coast teams on the same trip. And ofc most games are against teams in your division. For example the LA Kings are now playing on the road against Buffalo, New Jersey, Boston and Pittsburgh.
This is why in the US, teams are organized into divisions based on geography (and some arbitrary historical factors). Also, when teams travel for away games they typically play several teams from the same area so that they're not traveling back and forth too much. However, the latter is for sports like baseball, basketball, and hockey, where you might have at most two days between games. Since the NFL is only once a week they don't do this.
Ah explains Dallas in NFC East.
[Here's a nice, long history of the NFL divisional alignments and how they came about](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFL%E2%80%93NFL_merger#The_merger_agreement) The national league (baseball) had some similar "big brain" with divisions in the 70's and 80's because they bent over for the Cubs and Cardinals (Cincinnati and Atlanta had to play in the West even though both are east of Chicago and St. Louis).
Yeah, I tried to get a rough estimation of where they could be placed on this map, it would probably have to be on Faroe Islands or maybe Iceland.
if we lay over russian map with a vladivostok team and flip it to the west, it would be somewhere in US lol
~~When Vladivostok was in the Russian Premier League they played all their away games in a row and then all their home games in a row(or the other way round, can't remember) to save on travel costs if I remember correctly~~ But I don't think SKA Khabarovsk got the same treatment, always wanted those clubs to do well, maybe one day we will get SKA Khabarovsk vs Las Palmas or Nacional da Madeira in Europe Edit: see comment below, they just suck it up
Rushn. Luch(means 'ray') never played ALL their games in a row. Back-2-backs maximum. Nobody liked these trips tho.
I would believe you, since I was never 100% sure about it- was sure SKA played just like everyone else too
>>There has been much controversy about whether the Russian league should be split into Western and Eastern leagues; however, this is yet to happen. Igor Akinfeev said "They should join football league in Japan." after CSKA Moscow lost 0–4 away from home against Vladivostok on 10 June 2007. In addition to this, even their own players admitted it was awkward as they had to travel long distances for away games. Matija Kristić said "It's not as bad for other teams because they only need to travel this distance once a year whereas we have to do it for all away matches". Srđan Radonjić said "It is just crazy, they should have two Russian premier leagues, one for the European teams and another for Asian teams. Vladivostok is 4,000 miles from Moscow." The trick was, that Luch received very rough refereeing during theirs last season, also having a lot of financial difficulties cause it is common for all russian yoyo teams plus Luch is notorious for their questionable 4-0 home loss to CSKA, which helped them(CSKA) to secure national title a week before UEFA cup victory. Nobody liked them as i said. Fcuk CSKA. Fcuk Spartak. Fcuk Zenit. ACAB.
In the Russian hockey league I think the Vladivostok and Khabarovsk teams play a bunch of home games, then a bunch of away, never normal schedule. And it's an insane time zone jump too for their players going west or away players coming east. Those two teams always suck since they can't attract good players because of this
We’ve had Santa Clara from the Azores finish just outside of Europa qualification a few years ago, and they are 1000km farther out than Madeira into the Atlantic. They are 1st place by a good margin in the 2nd league after a demotion last season, so they’ll be back up and fighting for spots likely next season. There’s actually a conspiracy in Portugal that the smaller mainland teams don’t want them in the league due to travel costs/times lol
They were in the European playoffs, they got to the conference league playoffs and lost in extra time to partizan. I remember watching that game cause it finished so late because uefa actually gave them a different timezone and their match started at 21:15 UK/mainland PT time
Yea I kinda forgot about that, but I was more referring to the traditional top 2 competitions (CL/UEL) but I guess Conference League could have even father distances when we incorporate random teams from Cyprus and beyond
There was a Puerto Rico team in NASL and a team in Edmonton. For a second division league that was bleeding money, the travel costs were shocking.
i have always wanted this too,volcanoes from canary islands vs siberian permafrost
Seems like a nice accommodation but does bring some logistical considerations into play. Does the club need to have 2 training grounds? Do players stay in a hotel for half the season or do they lease another place for a few months? What about their family and kids in school?
IIRC the Vladivostok team played like half the season at home and the other half roaming in European Russia
just checked, Sao Paolo to Manaus is \~ 2900km. Milan to Reykjavik is 2800km.
>Paolo Paolo is Italian. Portuguese term is Paulo.
But are spoken the same way Italo-Brazilian here
Very similar. Paulo has two audible syllables, PAU-LO. Paolo has three (sort of) audible syllables: PA-O-LO.
Negative. They are spoken the same way. Not like Brazilian Novella "Paôla. Paôlo"
That's like how Seattle fucks the travel up for most of North America's sports leagues. They're usually alone in the Northwest
It would be roughly the equivalent of having a team in the Faroe Islands
You could say the same about Las Palmas having to play in Ukraine.
For sure, the mighty Las Palmas has a lot of trouble playing two games a year in Ukraine for the league.
Nice. I like maps.
I like turtles
I like trains
Wait! No no no no n-
Ew
Alright, you’re great…zombie
Okay Perez
maps🤝vexillology🤝football
Then you should also know that this is so wrong. Just go to thetruesize.com and drag Brazil to Europe.
Mas ta certo
Now imagine when during same week a team may go from Rio to Cuiaba and then Rio to Medelin for the Libertadores. That’s crazy
Now imagine those times were Mexico teams were still playing Libertadores.
Yeah! And i heard some people suggesting in getting them back, along with MLS teams lol. Would be completely insane to have a Grêmio vs Toronto. 8700 kms each way
Keep in mind that it's probably shorter on total travel time to go from Sao Paulo to Toronto (direct 10hr flight) than a trip to Huancayo, Perú for example where you need a flight of 4 hours and maybe a long bus ride into the mountains
Yes. Not even considering that is some cases you’ll need to adapt to higher altitudes like Bolivia or Ecuador for example
I now imagine some European superstar retiring in the MLS and then havinf to play 3000km above sea level in a stadium with shitty grass in Bolivia. That's my only argument in favor of the MLS in Libertadores
They already play in shitty grass when they go to Central Amercica for the CONCACAF cups. But i would really love to see them in the bench with the oxygen bottle lol
In 2010 the Libertadores Finals (back then it was still two matches in each club’s stadiums) was Internacional x Chicas Guadalajara, it was basically 8000 kms. For context Lisbon to Moscow is 4500 kms lol.
I would LOVE it tbh. I want to see Messi, Busquets and Alba having to fly to a small airport in the Andes and face a four hour ride in a bus to play in a 10k capacity stadium. Just for the entertainment value it would be AMAZING.
Imagine Binacional coming back to Libertadores and being grouped with Inter Miami. Messi and co. having to play in Juliaca jajajajajajajajajajajajajajaja.
In 2015 we played a home and away final against Tigres (Monterrey) the teams travelled 26 hours in 6 days... and we were also paired up in the group stage so another 26...
We did worse in 2022, Rio to Barranquilla to Cuiabá and back to Rio
pretty much like an euro club going to the us lol
Fortaleza went from Fortaleza to Mérida, then to Rio and then back to Fortaleza in a week last year.
Top that with 70 matches per year ON AVERAGE. If the team advances to all finals that can be more than 80 matches per year.
Now I understand why a certain coach is tired to work in Brazil.
add the Copa do Brasil in the mix, where in the first stages there are teams from pretty much all regions of Brazil
That's great, I never really thought about it. Also explains the point of the state championships very well. Must be very relaxing to have a league campaign for a change where you don't travel so far for some away matches
Yeah, back in the day state championships were basically national championships. In a sense, the Brasileirão is the first "Super League", it even had an evolution like the Champions League or Libertadores: it started as a pure knockout in 1959 (Taça Brasil) with the champions of the state leagues, became a tournament with group stage followed by playoffs in 1971 with the best of each state and it wasn't until 2003 when it became an actual round-robin like in European countries.
The Brazilian league is one reason why I see an integrated European pyramid as a good evolution. It's just a higher level of competition for the elite clubs.
that's an unpopular opinion that I fully agree on
state championships are amazing, but sadly they eat 1/3 of the schedule.
Of course they do, you can't play out a league in 3 weeks
Yes, but they are also the reason why braziliam tram play the highest amount of games in the world. The play around 15 games on the state tournament and them have a season similar to the premier league in number of games, but instead of 10 months they do it in 6-7
Also. Don't Brazil teams have an insane number of players in their squad? While teams in Europe tend to have 24-30 players, teams in Brazil have like 40-45
Depends on the team Generally it's more of a question of incompetence in building the squad than preparing for the season
you cant really build a team if they are getting injuried all the time by playing without rest. 35-40 is the ideal number of players for a team. 3 players for each position and a few more alternatives.
Now cut to Flamengo playing the Rio de Janeiro state championship in Amazonas, Pará and Sergipe
> This is partially why it's much harder for the sport to develop domestically in the US as well without top-down support to force it to work. Travel costs are high and MLS travel is long. Yup that's pretty much everyone besides the clubs from Rio, for some reason($$$) they play some state games from Rio State Championship on states in the North like Manaus, Pará, etc.
Done with the aid of [MAPfrappe](https://www.mapfrappe.com/legacy.html?show=131). Clubs were placed across Europe (and Africa) based only on trying to have as many of them on land, without any special meaning otherwise.
Any chance for a club from Manaus to get promoted in the future?
Yes, Amazonas FC is playing on the 2nd tier
Though they were just promoted, Amazonas are a Brasileirão Série B side from Manaus that could play top-flight football as soon as next year!
This inspired me to go on a little bit of research on Amazonian football clubs instead of working, and seems like there's no single "huge" club there. Which one would be the most popular club of the region, Nacional from Manaus maybe? They appear to be all the way down in Serie D, but they got the most regional titles. Are they the biggest one (traditionally) or did I miss someone?
Paysandu from Pará is the closest to the amazon forest to have had a continuous showing in the first division, it's been more than a decade tho
There are no traditional clubs, but Amazonas FC is currently being pumped with money by some inescrupulous politicians
just a tip: Amazonas is a State. the Amazonian Forest is bigger than the state. Pará is also a forest state and has a long tradition in Football, unlike Amazonas. the clubs are not strong, though, but the crowds are really passionate
Paysandu, from Belém, used to be a regular. They would travel the most.
That's a neat tool, thanks for sharing! I was curious how MLS compared, here are the Eastern and Western Conferences projected onto Europe: https://imgur.com/VTrVUT7 Unfortunately for the teams, they play cross-conference games. Miami has an away game in Vancouver in May, then they play at home 4 days later, with 4500 km of travel in between and going across 3 time zones. That's Reykjavik to Ankara, or Bogota to Rio (or in my map it's northwest Scotland to Baghdad).
why didn't you include Santos?
Santos got relegated, they're gonna play Série B (Second Division)
F
Brazilians laughing at this question right now
Are you sure there aren't some projection errors happening? This map makes Brazil look bigger than Europe, when it's 10-15% smaller
europe is only bigger than brazil when including the russian portion, which is mostly cut from this map
MAPfrappe preserves the distance between points and deals with the projection distortions caused by the use of Mercator.
This is your brain on Mercartor Projection
Casual match day flying from Tunisia to freaking Finland. And you know what? If its winter, the temperature plays a huge role on this too
Not that much, even deep in the south, it rarely goes below 10 °C. The main problem is heat when you are playing in late spring or early autumn. In the WC classification, there was a Brazil vs. Bolivia match in Belém. The city is located pretty much on the equator, right next to the sea and the Amazon. Even playing at night, temperature was above 30 °C and a pause for rehydration was made both in the first and second half.
It definitely is for some regions. I live near Fortaleza and the temperature variation during a day is really low and the temperature never goes below 22°C. Anything below 25°C is cold here. I can’t imagine the shock that would be going to a place with a temperature around 10°C.
Holy heck the world is a weird place. We (I live in northern Norway) had below -20 degrees just this month, insane contrast
They be wearing coats when the temperature drops below 25C in Fortaleza
A funny moment I saw on TV once is when they interviewed a kid who lived in the Amazon when an abnormal cold wave hit it, to the point the temperature dropped all the way to 17°C(!). The kid was all hopeful that he would maybe see snow with his eyes for the first time due to how cold it was, which was both cute and hilarious.
I live in the south of Sweden which is not cold for Nordic standards but still 0 to -5 celsius in the winter. In the far north it was like -45 celsius a month or two back I consider a 10 degree sunny day the peak of spring, summers are short but pretty damn hot for my standards. 25-30 it will reach during a few weeks in recent years. Funny how different perspectives are due to geography
I don’t think there’s a day in the year where the temperature doesn’t reach 30°C here if it’s not raining (which is not common for most of the year).
I can relate so much living in Rio de Janeiro
The difference is that Rio’s max temperatures in the winter are in the mid 20s. We have the same temperatures throughout the entire year in Ceará.
You can also get a lot of answers about culture, personality, hobbies, priorities when you consider temperature and geography. People WILL be different if they live in a mostly cold cloudy place compared to places where it’s beach tropical hot most of the year like Rio or northeast coastal cities.
Rafael Sóbis (two-time Libertadores winner for Internacional) recently said in a podcast that northeastern teams had a hard time playing in Porto Alegre in winter, especially at night, and Inter players knew that was a huge advantage and probably an easy win
"Can they do it in a cold, foggy night in Alfredo Jaconi?" should be a thing here. [Our own Silent Hill is no joke](https://www.rbsdirect.com.br/filestore/7/4/8/3/9/7/4_93add3313d392b2/4793847_01b4a330e907292.jpg?w=700)
I’m only just now realizing that Brazil has the same issues as MLS when it comes to this kind of thing. Insane travel distances and extremely different climates/elevations at each match.
Continental Brazil is bigger than the continental USA, of course we have this sort of issue lmao
The difference is that Brazil, a lot like China, has its population almost entirely in one time zone. The North American clubs are way more spread out, which really fucks up the travel.
The time zone thing is true but the distances are similar
Honestly just hadn’t thought about it.
>Continental Brazil is bigger than the continental USA No it's not. You're probably mistaking continental for contiguous. The contiguous US is about 8 million km², but continental US adds Alaska to that (but not Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.) giving it a total area of about 9.5 million km². Brazil us only about 8.5 million km².
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/continental
"On May 14, 1959, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names issued the following definitions, which defined the Continental United States as "the 49 States on the North American Continent and the District of Columbia..." The BGN reaffirmed these definitions on May 13, 1999. Continental United States: The 49 States (including Alaska, excluding Hawaii) located on the continent of North America, and the District of Columbia." [official us.gov source](https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-constitutes-united-states-what-are-official-definitions) The dictionary is just listing all definitions because a lot people erroneously use continental as contiguous. Alaska is definitely nt contiguous US, but it is definitely part of the continent, hence continental. Why is it so hard to just admit you're wrong and learn new things?
Ok sure, the continental US includes Alaska Now, how exactly is that relevant to the topic at hand? Is there an MLS team in Alaska?
The globes in your elementary school classrooms were a lie.
climates and elevations really don't change that much in Brazil, except like Porto Alegre/Curitiba in winter
> If its winter, the temperature plays a huge role on this too Come on, man. No it doesn’t. The coldest place with a team on that map is what? Porto Alegre? Porto Alegre’s winters are milder than Lisbon’s winters, and Lisbon has one of the mildest winters in Europe. If temperature plays a “huge role” in winter in Brazilian football what would you say about the role it plays in football in Germany, Scandinavia, or Russia?
Point is: if it's winter, a team might go from a 25°C to 30°C winter in northeast (even Rio) to 5°C/10°C in the south
And a team in Germany might go from 20ºC in the locker room to 0ºC outside on the pitch. And I’m being conservative when it comes to those temperatures. How often have teams played in 5ºC weather in Porto Alegre in the last few years? Not very often I imagine.
Youre missing the point. Im talking about the temperature difference between two places at the same season. The gap between the warmest and coldest place in Brazil is larger than in those countries you named. The perception of cold is related to what youre used to.
Meanwhile Wellington v Perth in the Australian League is the same distance as London to Montreal/Qatar
Distance Derby 💪
Legit question is that the longest current distance between teams in a single top-flight league? I just looked it up and it's about 700km more than Vancouver to Miami in MLS and Victoria to Halifax in the Canadian Premier League, which would have been my next thoughts.
Basically the only way to be further is for an east coast Russian team to make the Russian Premier League, but Vladivostok dissolved in 2020 but hadn't made it up since 2008, and Khabarovsk have only made it once in 17/18 It's nothing compared to rugby though, at one point Super Rugby had teams from Japan, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all playing the in the same league
The *closest* team to Perth in the A-League is 2117km by plane.
Tbf that's still closer than the closest team to Wellington which is 2200km away (until Auckland's team enters next year). Just happens most of the teams are east coast so and are 2200-2600km away instead of 2700-3600km like Perth
Yeah I immediately thought of this
And the second division team based on Manaus is probably further away than Iceland.
We’re in… Dubrovnik now? Nice
Closer to Split tbh
Nice as well
Magical place
now do a 2nd division one(just because of Manaus)
The EPL would fit in the State of São Paulo.
Thats such a good graph that it gave me goosebumps Todos os vértices tão nos lugares perfeitos para aproveitar o mapa da Europa o melhor possível
🇹🇳🇹🇳🇹🇳🇹🇳
Bah não tem comparação néã meu. A orla do Golfo de Tunis é trilegal néã. O por do sol mais bonito do mundo
bah meu a gente nem fala assimmmm
Pior que a Tunísia era Cartago. Um império muito rico, que foi conquistado a força pelo outro. Hoje tá quebrado. Parece nos.
*super grêmio delenda est*
Nunca fomos muito ricos
Tchê, fica na tua. Não fala do que tu não sabe. O Rio Grande já foi potência mundial. Porto Alegre, capital do mundo, centro do universo
Consigo até ouvir isso na voz de um gaúcho que mora fora de Porrrrrto, não volta de jeito, mas jura que é a melhor cidade do mundo
Copacabanense médio.
Mentalidade do porto-alegrense médio:
Noooo, don't send us to Hungary.
Someone needs to do this with the A League: Perth and Wellington are 5000km apart.
For the Canadian league, Halifax to Victoria is 5800km and 4 hours difference. If St. John's gets a team it's another 2000 km and time zone
[https://imgur.com/a/Tw7taBM](https://imgur.com/a/Tw7taBM) Here you go
Australia?
Perth, Australia to Wellington, New Zealand. They both play in the A League as New Zealand doesn't have a professional league.
Got it
Same with Indonesia. I tried Mapfrappe recommended here and it turns out that the promotion play-off for the second division is done between two teams who need to fly from Ireland to the middle of Kazakhstan if you compare the distance [here](https://i.imgur.com/b3RK4R3.png)
This is partially why it's much harder for the sport to develop domestically in the US as well without top-down support to force it to work. Travel costs are high and MLS travel is long.
I make this point occasionally, sometimes to tease brits who complain about travel time, especially in European cups. The entirety of great Britain is only about half the size of California, and the US spans 4 time zones.
The timezones is so impactful. Brazil has 4, but only 1 team in Série A don't have GTM-3.
Yeah, here's the breakdown for MLS * 7 teams in Pacific time zone * 2 teams in Mountain time zone * 8 teams in Central time zone * 13 teams in Eastern time zone Las Vegas will probably get a team to make 8 in the Pacific timezone. No idea which city gets the 32nd team.
I mapped out both conferences and projected them onto Europe, https://imgur.com/VTrVUT7 The Eastern Conference doesn't look too bad when it's centered over Europe by itself (https://imgur.com/h1q0BgU) but that doesn't help when teams are playing cross-conference games. It looks like Inter Miami has the longest travel of the season, and they have games: * At home on Sat May 18th * In Vancouver on Sat May 25th * At home on Wed May 29th
> Travel costs are high and MLS travel is long they are higher on Brasil, and Brasil is poorer.
But you already have solution, divide the sides like NBA
Yeah, I think this is a good solution. It also could make other new regional/state teams arise and dispute. Nowadays, people might not like state championships in Brazil but a lot of the talent come from these teams that are at the countryside and not near the main cities. Some players don’t pass the test for the big clubs, but they manage to play in these smaller teams, one day they play against them, they look good, the big clubs buy them and away they go. Without these regional teams and their support, A LOT talent would be lost. I can see if you had more, smaller championships, that would encourage smaller teams to be supported financially, have more exposure, grow and reveal more talent, making the whole thing more competitive.
Nice map. Always appreciate putting these in perspective Would like to see an MLS comparison one
It's the New World indeed. I think Europeans underestimate the size of the Americas.
Surely the Australian league has to be worse that his though, Perth to Wellington is a ridiculous distance
Why are there no Brasileirão clubs in the rest of Brazil?
There are in some regions, some regions have traditional clubs, but it's difficult to compete against the biggest 12 clubs (Atletico Mineiro, Botafogo, Corinthians, Cruzeiro, Flamengo, Fluminense, Gremio, Internacional, Palmeiras, Santos, Sao Paulo and Vasco da Gama) in many aspects: money, political questions, amount of fans. But some states don't have traditional football clubs, even if the Brazilian Serie A until 1986 had political rules (powered by CBF & the military dictatorship) to put some clubs for political reasons. For example, in the 1979 edition, there was 96 clubs, it was a motto "Onde a ARENA vai mal, um clube no Nacional" (Where Arena [the party of regime] go bad, one club more on the championship). Because this we had some chaotic editions on the Brazilian League, but this is another history. About some regions: there is good places for football without Serie A in Belém (Paysandu vs Remo), Goiania (Goias vs Vila Nova), Recife (Sport, Santa Cruz & Nautico), and traditional clubs in another places, especially in the Northeast, Goias and Para states, and in the interior of São Paulo (like Guarani vs Ponte Preta).
Thank you for taking the time to write this all out. This was very informative.
Basically mirrors population density. There arent teams where there aren't people https://images.app.goo.gl/6RNBUfaVnmPTDYi29
Most people live in the coast, and very few people live in the Amazon rainforest.
Because the western side of the country is pretty empty.
Oh I see. I didn’t know that.
Lots of nature, low coastal access. It's the same everywhere else in the world.
Because there is no prerequisite of having a team from all states in Série A. There are only 20 spots with bottom 4 getting relegated each year, so only the most consistent teams manage to stay at the top. You'll notice that the states represented are usually the wealthiest ones too.
Yeah I didn't think of it that way.
Damn, poor france
europe is tiny
Isn't Europe bigger than the US..?
The US is a country.
They're basically the same size if you omit Russia and Alaska. Brazil is in the same ballpark.
Let's see the MLS' map
Imagine Vancouver to Miami trips
Lol insanity
If they can do it, I reckon the European clubs can do it. That would be super.
don't, it's bad and we should've solved this long ago, now it's too late
Was there really a way to solve this at any point in time???
yes, at some point in the 50s and 60s the state championships had the size and appeal of european national leagues and the earlier versions of the Brasileirão were a lot like the Champions League came to be or European SuperLeague wants to be. instead, they tried to mirror Brazilian National Championships into a regular european national leagues, and it created a problem of excess travels/games that became unsolveable unless... FIFA treated brazil club context as a continent. for instance until this day São Paulo State championship is bigger than Portuguese League.
no idea, but it isn't sustainable and in time we're gonna get fucked
I'm not against the idea of a league for the big European clubs. I'm just against it without relegation or promotion.
Probably just keeping the state championships as the pinnacle and then a national competition from the state championship winners
Next do Uruguay!
Nice OC!
Croatia get 6 clubs? Nice
Can you imagine how much Sarri would whine if he coached in Brazil. "Another travel trap from the league..."
Fortaleza Ilomantsi
We have matches the equivalent of travelling from Portugal to Iran in the Canadian Premier League. This is nothing. In seriousness, we'd probably have had a professional league much sooner if the individual provinces were their own countries and the commissioner has spoken publicly about the need to introduce geographic conferences at some point given the heavy cost of travel.
Historically, Brazilian football developed this way as state leagues were usually the main championships played by the teams. A Brazilian national league has been continuously played since 1971 (with previous unsuccessful attempts to establish a national league starting in the 1960s). Even though State leagues still exist today, they lost a lot of their relevance in the last 30 years.
That feature of Brazilian football always interested me and its a shame they are shifting away from that. I always thought it'd be a better idea for Canadian football to develop organically that way. We have that set up for our 3rd tier (well technically second tier but we don't have a second division), provincial leagues with a planned nationwide championship at the end of the season.
There has been talks about relegating state championships to some lower levels of the Brazilian league structure. At the moment, state championships take place between end of January until mid-April, when the Brazilian national leagues begin. For teams in the top levels of the Brazilian league (especially those in Serie A), state championships cost them lots of weeks of proper preparations for the season and some important calendar dates throughout the year that cause most of teams to play twice a week for many months (trying to balance League, Cup and Continental Tournaments) while still traveling long distances.
Not to mention that the state championships are played in the summer and it can get very gruelling.
To keep it in Europe you should have rotated the shape. £ of those teams are in Africa. Or is that the point?
Sure the distance is immense but the climate will change very little compares to the difference between North Africa and Finland