re: Soccer Boards Guide For Soccer Noobs

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Can someone explain how the Mexican First Division works. Someone tried to explain it to me and I got a headache. Season split in half, points for relegation

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The full season is split in half into two tournaments, the Apertura (fall/winter) and Clausura (spring/summer the next year). Each team plays another at least once in each tournament (reversing who is home and away for the other tournament), and at the end of the each tournament, the Top 8 teams play in a playoff (with seeding!), at least a Home-Home fixture with each team through the whole season. A part that may be confusing is that there is a playoff at the end of both the Apertura and another one at the end of Clausura.

After the Clausura they relegate the team (one) that has the lowest points per game ratio over the past three years. Contrasting with European leagues, there's math involved with calculating who goes down. And not the easy kind of math like sorting by points. Hard shite, like division. On the positive side, if you did fantastic two years ago it can make up for having a crappy season this year. The flip-side is true too though, and having a crappy year two years ago could put the pressure on for a must win tournament. The plus here is that you won't relegate a nationally beloved perennial powerhouses on a single bad season, or are likely to relegate your reigning champion the very next season (looking at you Leicester).