EFL Do we miss the “tinpot trophy”?

[SteMerritt]

Surely any of their 'genuine' prospects at age of 19/20/21 would be on loan at a Championship club, or a League One club, anyway? That's assuming they aren't kicking around the first team squad at their parent club.

 

[The Voice Of Reason]

It's the first step on a slippery slope of the EFL accepting Premier League B teams as equal in value to the other clubs. Some larger Series A and La Liga clubs have their "B" teams playing in lower divisions of their respective pyramids, and I'd say the majority of us wouldn't want to see the same thing here. It would allow for big club player hoarding, and also diminish the chance of us being able to get players like Will Lankshear on loan because he would be playing regular "men's football" for Spurs B.

2nd teams on league won't happen as we have a much larger pyramid than spain

 

[m]

2nd teams on league won't happen as we have a much larger pyramid than spain

We're well behind Egypt though.

 

[tonyw]

2nd teams on league won't happen as we have a much larger pyramid than spain

Agreed.

What the EFL Trophy has shown - and the National League Cup even more so - is that the Premier League U21 sides can't hack it against teams of seasoned pros.

At the moment, with one round of fixtures to go, all eight of the qualifying spots for the knockouts in the National League Cup are being held by Conference sides.
Meanwhile only 1 of the 16 U21 sides in the EFL Trophy (West Ham, of all people!) made it to the 32 team knockout stages (and that was on goal difference, knocking out Reading after beating S***don, so we can forgive them).

If they are currently getting turned over (and they are) by the likes of Truro and Brackley, the Premier League kids' sides would rapidly end up in Tiers 6 or 7.

Nah, the issue with the Premier League U21s for me is less the fear of B teams joining the league pyramid, and more just the pointlessness of it all. Why bother expanding a competition to allow in a bunch of new sides that have no chance of winning it, just to further clog up the fixture calendar*

(*obviously I know the answer is because the Premier League clubs want to, and they're willing to pay.......but that doesn't make it any less pointless from a competitive perspective)

 

[Emilio]

2nd teams on league won't happen as we have a much larger pyramid than spain

Italy have a very big pyramid, and they have B teams.

 

[Steve Gilbert]

If they really want to develop talent in this country then they should allow these young players to go on loan to league clubs and any player U21 on loan doesn’t count towards your squad size, in line with the U21 rule now for players such as GOD, Johnson etc.
It would mean that Luke Harris wouldn’t need to be sent back in January for us to then bring in another loan. Ok he hasn’t got the game time he might have wanted so far but I would say he is still getting valuable experience at this level and learning more at OUFC than he would be back at Fulham in their U21/23 side.

 

[The Voice Of Reason]

Italy have a very big pyramid, and they have B teams.

Fair play just saying it won't happen

 

[holdsteady]

Italy have a very big pyramid, and they have B teams.

They regionalise a lot earlier in the pyramid than in English football don't they? That creates more leagues within a level so more spaces. I don't know if any other country goes 5 levels and 136 teams before splitting them somehow.

 

[Emilio]

They regionalise a lot earlier in the pyramid than in English football don't they? That creates more leagues within a level so more spaces. I don't know if any other country goes 5 levels and 136 teams before splitting them somehow.

The leagues split in the 3rd tier, into Serie C 1, 2 and 3 - essentially North, Central (including Sardinia) and South (including Sicily) with 20 teams in each.

There are probably other teams, but just off the top of my head there are clubs like Atalanta U23, Inter U23, and Juventus "Next Gen" mixed in there.

The playoffs for promotion from Serie C to Serie B is a pretty wild system.

 

[holdsteady]

The leagues split in the 3rd tier, into Serie C 1, 2 and 3 - essentially North, Central (including Sardinia) and South (including Sicily) with 20 teams in each.

There are probably other teams, but just off the top of my head there are clubs like Atalanta U23, Inter U23, and Juventus "Next Gen" mixed in there.

The playoffs for promotion from Serie C to Serie B is a pretty wild system.

Similar to Spain then, with further regions as you go down. Remember going to the friendly games in Spain and trying to figure out what level the first team we played at was equivalent to, bigger country so while they were fourth division there were a hell of a lot of teams at that level.

 

[Emilio]

Similar to Spain then, with further regions as you go down. Remember going to the friendly games in Spain and trying to figure out what level the first team we played at was equivalent to, bigger country so while they were fourth division there were a hell of a lot of teams at that level.

When you have 60 clubs playing at what is technically the same tier, the standard is going to vary so so much, both within the regions and between one another. So it's really tricky to say (for example) Serie C is League One standard, as really it will be a mix of Leagues One, Two and the Conference, probably even lower.

 

[38yearsofpain]

I went to the chelsea match with the longest penalty shoot out ever! All meaningless as we had already qualified but a box had to be ticked!

Remember that night Wes Thomas shanked one penalty into the top tier of the shed.