Don’t you just hate those end of season matches where both teams having nothing to play for? It is even worse if your side are scrapping for their lives yet your relegation rivals have an easy game against a team whose season is over.
The end of Serie A this year was a classic example. Five teams were in danger of falling into the final relegation place on the last day and unfortunately for strugglers Chievo and Catania, they had to play each other.
Meanwhile Reggina, Parma and Siena had home games against Champions League-weary Milan, Empoli and Lazio who all had nothing to play for. Reggina, Parma and Siena all won and Chievo were condemned to Serie B after losing to Catania. Chievo have moaned that Carlo Ancelotti picked a second string side against Reggina while they were unhappy with Lazio’s casual defending for Siena’s 85th minute winner which kept them up.
But is there a way to avoid such occurrences? Some bright spark wrote to Gazzetta dello Sport this week with an idea to combat the problem: the points gained in the last five games of a season will count towards your total in the next season, meaning every team must try their hardest to win.
Although no one in official circles has mentioned such a scheme, I suspect there’d be plenty of supporters around the globe who would like to see it introduced. What do you think?
Mark Meadows is a Reuters sports correspondent based in Milan
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Sheffield, Charlton and West Ham fans were complaing when Liverpool played at Fulham at the end of the season. Liverpool made 9 changes and narrowly lost, which gave Fulham enough points to escape from relegation. That’s life I’m afraid, Liverpol had already qualified for the Champions league so there was nothing riding on it for them.
- Posted by JimI think the season is one of the untouchables, like the size of the goals and a game of two halves. In fact I think these two will come under more pressure because of the TV influence. Nice idea but can’t see it happening.