The English Premier League has always been considered the toughest and most competitive one in the world, as it garners a wide number. The relentless set of games, cancelling out the winter break, shows the nature of fixtures at certain points, could be over the point.
Having gathered the answers let’s compare the English top flight with other leagues across Europe and the world to find out which country has the trickiest schedule of all. We’ll surface past France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the United States, talking about the league system and the amount of games played.
Premier League
Since the foundation was made the league adapted to time and began the 22-team 1992/93 season, where four teams were relegated and only two were promoted. Later in the 1995/96 season, the Premier League was reduced to 20 teams. This format is followed to date and three sides are relegated each season, while one side wins the title and the remaining top four qualify for the Champions League.
Each Premier League side plays the other twice (home and away), making every team play a total of 38 league fixtures in one season, that is 19 home and 19 away.
It’s a jam-packed campaign, as apart from their league, every team also has multiple cup competitions to play in like the FA Cup and the Carabao Cup (or League Cup) followed by European competitions such as the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League and Europa Conference League
There will be a total of 380 games, in a full Premier League season.
Those games will take place from August to May, with a break at the start of summer for players to recuperate.
La Liga
The Spanish top division is La Liga consisting of big names such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Atletico Madrid.
The top-flight football in Spain features 20 teams, each playing once at home and once away for 38 games, similar to the Premier League. This format has been solid since 1997.
Clubs also participate in two domestic trophies, the Copa Del Rey and the Supercopa de Espana, while teams like Real Madrid and Barcelona compete in the continental tournament as well.
Serie A
Italy has always been a glittering country famous for its football, having four World Cups and two European Championship wins to its name. A nation that not only produced famous philosophies and concepts such as catenaccio, trequartista, and regista, but also a huge domestic league featuring some massive giants like Juventus, Inter, Milan, and Napoli.
The Italian top division better known as Serie A, follows the same pattern as La Liga and the Premier League, with 20 teams and three teams getting relegated to the second tier. The number of games for each team in the league is 38 as usual.
Bundesliga
Germany has always been a football hub and the Bundesliga has just added more emotion. With high-profile names like Jörg Albertz, Anthony Baffoe, Bum-Kun Cha, Steven Cherundolo, Makoto Hasebe, Jürgen Klinsmann, Philipp Lahm, Lothar Matthäus, Jay-Jay Okocha, Yasuhiko Okudera, Pavel Pardo, Claudio Pizarro, Lukas Podolski, Robert Lewandowski, Manuel Neuer, Thomas Müller and recently Harry Kane who has been an absolute revelation for the game.
The Bundesliga is not just about Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund as each season it produces some fascinating and inspiring stories, including the rise of underdog sides such as Union Berlin and Bayer 04 Leverkusen, who recently made history become the first undefeated champions in the league.
Compared to the other leagues the German top flight has slightly fewer clubs with 18 sides playing in the competition. This brings the overall count to a fewer fewer games each year as every team will play 34 fixtures in a campaign and 306 league games across the whole season.
Relegation and promotion in the German top flight and Bundesliga 2( second division) is also different compared to the other top leagues. At the end of the season, there is a relegation play-off between the top division and the second division between 3rd from bottom teams from their respective leagues. It’s a two-leg fixture giving the 16th-placed team in the Bundesliga their top-flight status removed by a new team from the league below. Similar systems exist even in the Scottish professional league.
Ligue 1
Even though the land of world-class players such as Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele, and Jonathan David player Ligue 1 could not change its perspective in Europe and PSG’s domination of the division labeled the Ligue 1 a “farmer’s league” due to lack of competition.
Paris Saint Germain in recent success has made it hard for sides such as Lille, Monaco, and Marseille in the last decade.
The league comprises 18 teams in the top division, just like the German Bundesliga, so the same number of games played is 306.
At the end of the season, just like in Germany, the team that finishes 16th in the league table will play against the 3rd-placed club in the league below, in the play-offs. At the top of the table, there is a slight drop in quality between the French league and competitions like the Premier League and La Liga meaning that only the top two sides each year will qualify automatically for the Champions League, and the third-placed team will go to Champions League qualifier.
MLS
Now let’s change direction, and move to Major League Soccer which has experienced buzz since the arrival of 8-time Ballon’d’Or winner Lionel Messi.
The US soccer system is not as conventional as the other leagues on the planet, rather having a fixed membership system instead of having relegation and promotion. Unlike England, Italy, or Brazil, teams do not move between divisions as there is no pyramid to follow.
The geography of the United States has caused the MLS to split into an Eastern Conference (competed in by franchises on the Eastern side of the USA and Canada) and the Western Conference (competed in by teams on the Western side of the continent).
One key format in Major League Soccer is that the league season has two sections: the regular season and the post-season knockout tournament.
Teams participate in 34 regular-season games playing all clubs in their conference twice—home and away. Additionally, they also play eight matches against teams from the opposite conference, with four home and away fixtures. Because the Western Conference has one fewer club (15 teams in the East and 14 in the West), Western teams play two games within their conference.
FAQs –
Why are there 38 games in the Premier League?
The top division in England, the Premier League, is played on a double round-robin basis where each team plays twice
How many games are in total in a Premier League season?
A total of 380
How many matches does each team play in the Premier League?
28
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