EFL’s “Stairway to Heaven”

Since early childhood, if you had a chance to enter a competition regardless of its subject, you could hear the famous words of Pierre de Coubertin: “The important thing in life is not to triumph but to compete.” However, these words are accepted only by the ones who fail to succeed in their field of expertise.

On the other hand, some people are only interested in winning. After all, isn’t it true that, among many competitors, someone just does it better than someone else? Exactly this crushing fact led to the creation of a system that would be used for measuring one’s skills and knowledge. 

That’s why nowadays in sports, among many other things, we have a system that consists of smaller parts ranked by success. Let’s put it this way — imagine a pyramid. Now, the pyramid is divided into several levels. The better you are in what you do, in this case, football, the higher your position in the pyramid is.

Every year, there are speculations about the way things will unfold. Even the athletes themselves sometimes take a look into specialists’ prognosis on the possible outcome and use them as a motivation tool to get better and surprise the opponent. 

This is an interesting way to check your knowledge regarding football, like a Fantasy League. Those of you who are still unsure about the English football league system and the way it works, just keep scrolling.

Premier League

All EFL players’ dream, first and foremost, is the Premier League. This is the top of the already mentioned pyramid where all the teams seek to get and stay as long as possible. Needless to say, this is not an easy task, considering the harsh competition. 

The most popular league in England incorporates 20 teams. During a season that lasts from August until May, each team has to play a game with all the other teams, both home and away. This makes a total of 38 games per season, after which the team with most games won receives the title of the Premier League Champion for that particular year.

To monitor each team’s progress, we use a table that shows the standings throughout the season. When the season ends, some teams will inevitably be lower ranked than others. Here the terms called promotion and relegation jump into the picture.

The three lowest-ranked teams in the Premier League are doomed, and now have to be pushed one step down into a bit easier competition known as the Championship. This process is called relegation. Simultaneously, the three best-ranked teams from the Championship League get a chance to hit a home run by being promoted to the Premier League. 

EFL Championship

This is the second-rated league in the system, after the Premier League. Although the operational pattern is the same, the Championship has four more teams in the competition. Some people even prefer watching the Championship rather than the Premier League because of the unpredictability it carries within. 

Other Leagues

After the first two leagues, there are several more parts of the pyramid. The third place belongs to League One, followed by League Two. Then we’ve got the National League and the bottom of the pyramid which is divided into two parts: National League North and National League South. 

Now you have an insight into the way this system functions, as well as what is the ultimate goal despite the league you are currently a part of. Let’s be honest — everyone likes winning. Coubertin’s words serve well as a consolation prize, but we can agree that no one competes in anything with a desire to lose. To find out who will take the crown(s), stay tuned!