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169-492: The ECNL is divided by age groups from U-13 through U-19, and into nine (girls') or ten (boys') regional conferences of nine to 16 clubs. Clubs play regular season matches within their conferences, and top teams and wildcards can qualify for a post-season national round-robin champions' league competition. Winners of the group stage compete in a finals tournament for the title of national champion. ECNL clubs also compete in tournaments that invite clubs from other leagues, such as

338-557: A play-in game – the MLB Wild Card Game – the winner of which would then advance to the Division Series and play the team with the best record. The two teams with the best records outside of the division champions advanced to the wild card game. The two wild card teams could come out of the same division so there was no guarantee a team that came in second place in their division would make the playoffs. The system

507-535: A "fear-based" environment made by players against Aaran Lines for his tenure as head coach of the Western New York Flash , and the report also noted that Lines had remained a member of the Flash organization as director of its ECNL team. The Yates Report referenced an unnamed coach who had been sanctioned by the U.S. Center for SafeSport for making "sexually explicit remarks to high school players" but

676-499: A dramatic evening in Seville . Around this time, tensions began to arise between what was perceived as president Núñez's dictatorial rule and the nationalistic support group, Boixos Nois . The group, identified with a left-wing separatism, repeatedly demanded the resignation of Núñez and openly defied him through chants and banners at matches. At the same time, Barcelona experienced an eruption in skinheads , who often identified with

845-693: A final size of ten teams in two divisions, continued to restrict its postseason to division winners until the 1969 season, the AFL's last as a separate league. The change came largely in response to criticism from NFL loyalists following the New York Jets ' upset win in Super Bowl III , who argued that the Jets had an "unfair" advantage since, having won the Eastern Division outright, they were

1014-415: A final watched by more than 30,000 travelling blaugrana fans. The same year, Núñez began to invest in the club's youth programme by converting La Masia into a dormitory for young academy players from abroad. The name of the dormitory would later become synonymous with the youth programme of Barcelona. In June 1982, Diego Maradona was signed for a world record fee of £5 million from Boca Juniors . In

1183-516: A football club; a positive response resulted in a meeting at the Gimnasio Solé on 29 November. Eleven players attended – Walter Wild (the first president of the club), Luis de Ossó , Bartomeu Terradas , Otto Kunzle, Otto Maier , Enric Ducal, Pere Cabot , Carles Pujol, Josep Llobet , John Parsons , and William Parsons – and Foot-Ball Club Barcelona was born. FC Barcelona had a successful start in regional and national cups, competing in

1352-614: A fourth placed Eastern team was in mathematical contention for a Western cross-over berth late in the season. Cross-over teams have advanced as far as the Eastern Final, but as of 2023 have never advanced to the Grey Cup game. There is no provision for a fifth placed team in one division to cross over in place of the other division's runner-up, even if it has a better record; in 2018 the Edmonton Eskimos finished fifth in

1521-635: A free kick goal from Dutch international Ronald Koeman. They also won a Copa del Rey in 1990, the European Super Cup in 1992 and three Supercopa de España trophies. With 11 trophies, Cruyff became the club's most successful manager at that point. He also became the club's longest consecutive serving manager, serving eight years. Cruyff's fortune was to change, and, in his final two seasons, he failed to win any trophies and fell out with president Josep Lluís Núñez, resulting in his departure. Reacting to Cruyff's departure, an independent protest group

1690-477: A goal from Messi bringing comparison to Diego Maradona's goal of the century , but then lost the second leg 4–0. They took part in the 2006 FIFA Club World Cup , but were beaten by a late goal in the final against Brazilian side Internacional . In the Champions League , Barcelona were knocked out of the competition in the last 16 by eventual runners-up Liverpool on away goals . Barcelona finished

1859-624: A joint record two Latin Cups , and three FIFA Club World Cups . Barcelona was ranked first in the International Federation of Football History & Statistics Club World Ranking for 1997, 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2015, and occupies the ninth position on the UEFA club rankings as of May 2023 . The club has a long-standing rivalry with Real Madrid , and matches between the two teams are referred to as El Clásico . Barcelona

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2028-429: A new young president, Joan Laporta, and a young new manager, former Dutch and AC Milan star Frank Rijkaard , saw the club bounce back. On the field, an influx of international players, including Ronaldinho , Deco , Henrik Larsson , Ludovic Giuly , Samuel Eto'o , Rafael Márquez and Edgar Davids , combined with home grown Spanish players, such as Carles Puyol , Andrés Iniesta , Xavi and Víctor Valdés , led to

2197-523: A play-in game. As of the 2020–21 NBA season , the number of teams that qualified for the playoffs expanded to ten teams per conference and the NBA play-in tournament was adopted in its current format, which is similar to the first two rounds of the Page–McIntyre system for a four-team playoff. The #9 seed hosts the #10 seed in an elimination game. The #7 seed hosts the #8 seed in the double-chance game, with

2366-401: A player at the discretion of the organizers. All ATP and WTA tournaments have a few spots set aside for wildcards in both the main draw, and the qualifying draw, for players who otherwise would not have made either of these draws with their professional ranking. They are usually awarded to players from the home and/or sponsoring country (sometimes after a tournament where the winner is awarded

2535-434: A playoff berth. In 1981, even the fifth place Western team's record of 6–10 was good enough for outright possession of sixth place overall. In 1986, the playoff format was changed. The new format the fourth place team in one division to qualify if it finished with an outright better record than the third place team in the other division. The Eastern owners agreed in exchange for expanding the schedule to 18 games, and also with

2704-569: A poem titled "Oda a Platko ", which was written by a member of the Generation of '27 , Rafael Alberti , inspired by the heroic performance of the Barcelona goalkeeper , Franz Platko. On 23 June 1929, Barcelona won the inaugural Spanish League . A year after winning the championship, on 30 July 1930, Gamper committed suicide after a period of depression brought on by personal and financial problems. Although they continued to have players of

2873-488: A possible 15 in his three years at the helm of the club, becoming the all-time record holder of most titles won as a coach at Barcelona. In December, Barcelona won the Club World Cup for a record second time since its establishment, after defeating 2011 Copa Libertadores holders Santos 4–0 in the final thanks to two goals from Messi and goals from Xavi and Fàbregas. As a result, the overall trophy haul during

3042-557: A prelim-round byes. The playoffs had expanded to nine teams per conference. Curling Canada introduced wild card teams starting with the 2018 Scotties Tournament of Hearts and 2018 Tim Hortons Brier . The change was made as part of a wider set of changes which expanded the tournaments to 17 teams and eliminated the unpopular pre-qualifying tournaments. From 2018, the round robin stage of the Tournament of Hearts and Brier will consist of two seeded "pools" of eight teams as opposed to

3211-439: A record 77 trophies: 27 La Liga , 31 Copa del Rey , 14 Supercopa de España , three Copa Eva Duarte , and two Copa de la Liga titles, as well as being the record holder for the latter four competitions. In international club football , the club has won 22 European and worldwide titles: five UEFA Champions League titles, a record four UEFA Cup Winners' Cups , five UEFA Super Cups , a record three Inter-Cities Fairs Cups ,

3380-571: A record) of total votes. Rosell signed David Villa from Valencia for €40 million and Javier Mascherano from Liverpool for €19 million. At the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Barcelona players that had graduated from the club's La Masia youth system would play a major role in Spain becoming world champions. On 11 July, seven players who came through the academy participated in the final , six of whom were Barcelona players who started

3549-574: A right-wing separatism. The skinheads slowly transferred the Boixos Nois' ideology from liberalism to fascism , which caused division within the group and a sudden support for Núñez's presidency. Inspired by British hooligans, the remaining Boixos Nois became violent, causing havoc leading to large-scale arrests. After the 1986 FIFA World Cup , Barcelona signed the English top scorer Gary Lineker , along with goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta , but

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3718-521: A runner-up eventually won the league title. The NFL kept this principle in place by stipulating that a wild card team could never face its own division champion in the divisional round. Following the implementation of the AFL–NFL merger prior to the 1970 season, from 1970 to 1974 the NFL used a rotation to determine which teams hosted playoff games, and which teams played which other teams. From 1975 to 1977,

3887-465: A sixth-place finish was the best that he could manage. At the end of the season, Antić's short-term contract was not renewed, and club president Joan Gaspart resigned, his position having been made completely untenable by such a disastrous season on top of the club's overall decline in fortunes since he became president three years prior. After the disappointment of the Gaspart era, the combination of

4056-530: A stipulation that the qualifying fourth-place team would stay in its own division for the playoffs. As a result, the change introduced the possibility of a four team bracket in one division and a two-game total point series in the other (the two game total point format was nothing new in Canadian football – it was commonly used until the early 1970s). It also introduced the possibility of the first place teams losing their traditional byes based on results elsewhere in

4225-565: A team tied for first overall in the league to miss the playoffs (this happened once, in 1967, when the Baltimore Colts missed the postseason despite a .917 winning percentage after losing a tiebreaker to the Los Angeles Rams ). The AFL's 1969 playoffs were criticized by NFL purists for breaking with longstanding tradition, also, due to the fact that they allowed runners-up to qualify no matter how much disparity existed between

4394-455: A temporary basis, and managed to at least steer the club to the last Champions League spot on the final day of the season against Valencia via an exceptional performance from Rivaldo , who completed arguably the greatest hat-trick in history with an overhead bicycle kick winner in the final minute to secure qualification. Despite better form in La Liga and a good run to the semi-finals of

4563-584: A treble. In December 2009, Barcelona won the 2009 Club World Cup . Barcelona accomplished two new records in Spanish football in 2010 as they retained the La Liga trophy with 99 points and won the Supercopa de España for a ninth time. After Laporta's departure from the club in June 2010, Sandro Rosell was soon elected as the new president. The elections were held on 13 June, where he got 61.35% (57,088 votes,

4732-420: A wild card playoff format is used, the number of teams in a division that qualify is not fixed; a set number of teams from each division automatically qualify(ies), but (an) additional team(s) also qualify(ies), based either on league record or conference record. In Major League Baseball (MLB), the wild card teams are the three teams in each of the two leagues ( American and National ) that have qualified for

4901-606: A wild card team, the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs were the first non-division winner to win the Super Bowl . They finished second in the Western Division of the American Football League , and in that season, the last before the merger, the AFL went from having its two division winners meeting for the league title to adding a second round in which the second place team in each division qualified for

5070-685: A wildcard player sometimes becomes the top seed. The organizers of three of the Grand Slam tournaments —the Australian Open , French Open , and US Open — grant one wildcard nomination to each of the other two. Christopher Clarey described this practice as "nothing more than mutual back scratching" and "an outdated symbol of elitism". FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona ( Catalan pronunciation: [fubˈbɔl ˈklub bəɾsəˈlonə] ), commonly known as FC Barcelona and colloquially as Barça ( [ˈbaɾsə] ),

5239-624: A world record transfer fee from his previous club, PSV and delivered a cup treble , winning the Copa del Rey, UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and the Supercopa de España, with Ronaldo registering 47 goals in 49 games. Despite his success, Robson was only ever seen as a short-term solution while the club waited for Louis van Gaal to become available. Like Maradona, Ronaldo only stayed a short time before he left for Inter Milan in another world record transfer. However, new heroes emerged, such as Luís Figo , Patrick Kluivert , Luis Enrique and Rivaldo , and

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5408-500: A world-class club by giving it stability both on and off the pitch. His presidency was to last for 22 years, and it deeply affected the image of Barcelona, as Núñez held to a strict policy regarding wages and discipline, letting go of such players as Diego Maradona , Romário and Ronaldo rather than meeting their demands. On 16 May 1979, the club won its first European Cup Winners' Cup by beating Fortuna Düsseldorf 4–3 in Basel in

5577-505: Is a tournament or playoff berth awarded to a team or individual that does not qualify through an automatic bid. In some events, wildcards are chosen freely by the organizers. Other events have fixed rules. Some North American professional sports leagues compare the records of teams which did not qualify directly by winning a division or conference . In international sports, the term is perhaps best known in reference to two sporting traditions: team wildcards distributed among countries at

5746-512: Is a professional football club based in Barcelona , Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga , the top flight of Spanish football . Founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, Catalan, German, and English footballers led by Joan Gamper , the club has become a symbol of Catalan culture and Catalanism , hence the motto "Més que un club" ( "More than a club" ). Unlike many other football clubs,

5915-456: Is no tie-breaker advantage at all to finishing in any divisional rank lower than first – meaning (for example) that while a division winner will automatically win a tie-breaker over another division's runner-up, a division runner-up will not automatically win a tie-breaker over teams finishing third, fourth or fifth in other divisions. The new format means it is possible for an especially weak division to send no teams (not even its champion) to

6084-510: Is one of the most widely supported teams in the world, and the club has one of the largest social media following in the world among sports teams. Barcelona players have won a joint record twelve Ballon d'Or awards, with recipients including Johan Cruyff , as well as a record six FIFA World Player of the Year awards, with winners including Romário , Ronaldo , Rivaldo , Ronaldinho and Lionel Messi . In 2010 , three players who came through

6253-529: The 2007–08 season third in La Liga and reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League and Copa del Rey , both times losing to the eventual champions, Manchester United and Valencia , respectively. The day after a 4–1 defeat to Real Madrid, Joan Laporta announced that Barcelona B coach Pep Guardiola would take over Frank Rijkaard's duties on 30 June 2008. Barcelona B youth manager Pep Guardiola took over Frank Rijkaard's duties at

6422-430: The 2013 BWF World Championships . In North American professional sports leagues, "wild card" refers to a team that qualifies for the championship playoffs without winning their specific conference or division outright. The number of wild card teams varies. In most cases, the rules of the league call for the wild card team to survive an extra round or to play the majority of their postseason games away from home. Although

6591-917: The 2021 NWSL abuse scandal and led to two separate investigations into alleged abuses within the league, including Dames. US Club Soccer disqualified Dames from coaching in November 2021 following the NWSL reports. Dames also resigned as president of Eclipse Select. The Report of the Independent Investigation to the U.S. Soccer Federation Concerning Allegations of Abusive Behavior and Sexual Misconduct in Women's Professional Soccer , an independent report by Sally Yates commissioned by U.S. Soccer in 2021, noted that other ECNL club administrators were associated with other abuse allegations, either directly or indirectly. The report included complaints of

6760-574: The American Football League 's 1969 playoffs (qualifying the top two finishers from each division), the National Basketball Association 's 1967-through-1970 playoffs (top four finishers from each division) and 1971–1972 playoffs (top two finishers in each division), and the National Hockey League 's 1968–1974 and 1982–1993 playoffs (top four finishers from each division) are not true wild card formats. When

6929-678: The Campionat de Catalunya and the Copa del Rey . In 1901, the club participated in the first football competition played on the Iberian Peninsula , the Copa Macaya , narrowly losing to Hispania AC , but in the following year, Barça won the tournament, the club's first-ever piece of silverware, and then participated in the first Copa del Rey , losing 1–2 to Bizcaya (a combination of players from Athletic Club and Bilbao FC ) in

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7098-549: The Conference finals and Stanley Cup Finals . The NHL's current format is similar in some respects to the "cross-over rule" used by the Canadian Football League since 1997 in that it the format emphasizes intra-divisional ranking and brackets in the playoff structure and yet allows two teams from one division to qualify for the playoffs at the expense of the two teams finishing with worse records and in

7267-477: The European Footballer of the Year in 1960 , and two influential Hungarians recommended by Kubala, Sándor Kocsis and Zoltán Czibor , the team won another national double in 1959 and a La Liga and Fairs Cup double in 1960. In 1961, they became the first club to beat Real Madrid in a European Cup play-off. However, they lost 2–3 to Benfica in the final. The 1960s were less successful for

7436-492: The Italian Air Force , causing more than 3,000 deaths, with one of the bombs hitting the club's offices. A few months later, Catalonia came under occupation and as a symbol of the "undisciplined" Catalanism , the club, now down to just 3,486 members, faced a number of restrictions. All signs of regional nationalism, including language, flag and other signs of separatism were banned throughout Spain. The Catalan flag

7605-508: The National Football Conference (NFC). The decision to make the conferences equal in size meant they could not feasibly align into anything except three divisions of four or five teams in each conference. This led to a debate as to how the postseason of the merged league should be structured. Both the NFL and AFL playoff formats of 1969 had attracted fierce critics. The NFL format was criticized for its ability to cause

7774-539: The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). The ECNL expanded to 52 clubs in 2010 and 66 in 2011. The organization created a boys' league in 2017, adding 57 founding clubs. By 2019, the ECNL girls' league had 94 clubs and boys' league had 90 clubs. After the shutdown of the U.S. Soccer Development Academy in 2020, the girls' league expanded to 113 clubs and boys' league to 131 clubs. Public filings indicated that

7943-878: The Olympic Games and individual wildcards given to some tennis players at every professional tournament (both smaller events and the major ones such as Wimbledon ). Tennis players may even ask for a wildcard and get one if they want to enter a tournament on short notice. For Summer Olympic Games , some National Olympic Committees , whose nations are underrepresented after qualifications, may be granted wild card quotas, which are termed Universality Places , in some eligible sports. In Olympic and World Championship competitions in track and field and swimming , however, nations are automatically allowed to enter two competitors, so these instances are technically not wildcards. In some other Olympic sports, such as judo, archery, and badminton, wildcards are in use, and they are granted by

8112-529: The Santiago Bernabéu in front of dictator Francisco Franco , with coach Salvador Artigas , a former republican pilot in the Civil War. With the end of Franco's dictatorship in 1974, the club changed its official name back to Futbol Club Barcelona and reverted the crest to its original design, including the original letters once again. The 1973–74 season saw the arrival of Johan Cruyff , who

8281-706: The Super Bowl ; the closest that came to happening was in the 2010–11 playoffs , when the Green Bay Packers and New York Jets went on Cinderella runs after finishing as the second wild card team in each of their conferences (the NFC and AFC, respectively); the Packers won the NFC Championship Game and went on to win the Super Bowl, while the Jets' Cinderella story ended with a one-score loss to

8450-522: The Surf Cup operated by Surf Cup Sports , itself a licensee of several ECNL clubs. The ECNL is a nonprofit organization composed of member clubs, with an elected board of directors that approves budgets, competition rules, and the admission of new members. ECNL matches have been nationally broadcast by ESPNU and ESPN3 . ECNL matches are also streamed on Hudl . Costs to ECNL players can vary widely between clubs. Coaches not near ECNL clubs criticize

8619-602: The Winnipeg Blue Bombers (the West's easternmost team) to the Eastern Division. This balanced the divisions both in numbers as well as, to a considerable extent, in playing caliber, and the reduction in teams also caused the schedule to be changed to emphasize more divisional games. As a result, the three top finishers of the two divisions finishers always had the six best league records from 1987 up until

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8788-545: The club's youth academy — Lionel Messi , Andrés Iniesta and Xavi —were chosen as the three best players in the world in the Ballon d'Or ranking, an unprecedented feat for players from the same football academy. Additionally, players representing the club have won a record eight European Golden Shoe awards. Barcelona is one of three founding members of the Primera División that have never been relegated from

8957-481: The final . In 1908, Hans Gamper – now known as Joan Gamper – became club president in a desperate attempt to save Barcelona from extinction, finding the club struggling not just on the pitch, but also financially and socially, after not winning a competition since the Campionat de Catalunya in 1905. He said in a meeting, "Barcelona cannot die and must not die. If there is nobody who is going to try, then I will assume

9126-597: The postseason despite failing to win their division . Those teams in each league possess the three best winning percentages in their league after the three division winners . The wild card was first instituted in MLB in 1994, with one wild card team per league advancing to the Division Series in the postseason to face a division winner. In 2012, the system was modified to add a second wild card team per league and pit each league's wild card teams against each other in

9295-486: The supporters own and operate Barcelona. It is the third-most valuable football club in the world, worth $ 5.6 billion, and the world's fourth richest football club in terms of revenue, with an annual turnover of €800.1 million. The official Barcelona anthem is the " Cant del Barça ", written by Jaume Picas and Josep Maria Espinàs . Barcelona traditionally play in dark shades of blue and garnet stripes, hence nicknamed Blaugrana . Domestically, Barcelona has won

9464-421: The "Championship Pool." Unlike most tournaments which use a similar format, teams carry over their entire round robin records from the preliminary stage as opposed to only those results against teams that also qualify. This ensures that each Championship Pool team still plays eleven games that count for the purposes of determining playoff qualification. The format is designed to ensure that a competitive team fills

9633-402: The "wild card" was not initially referred to as such and was instead referred as the "Best Second-Place Team" (or sometimes simply as the "Fourth Qualifier"). The media, however, began referring to the qualifying teams as "wild cards". Eventually, the NFL officially adopted the term. For the 1969 AFL playoffs , a "crossover" format was used such that the division winners played the runners up in

9802-449: The #1 seeded team by giving it the most winnable matchups in the first two rounds, although this is not always the case in event of an upset because the NBA never re-seed teams following the first round. For instance, if the #6 seed upsets the #3 seed and the higher seed wins the remaining first round matchups within the conference, the #1 seed would face the #4 seed, while the #2 seed would face

9971-499: The #2 seed played the #3 seed. However, the rule that teams from the same division could not play each other in the divisional round continued, so if the #1 seed and the winner of the #4 vs #5 wild card game were in the same division, then the #1 seed played the #3 seed, while the #2 seed played the #4 vs #5 winner. To address the oddity of one wild card team per conference hosting a playoff game (albeit in an earlier round) while one division winner per conference did not automatically have

10140-409: The #4 & #5, and #3 & #6 seeds) in each conference played the #1 seed, and the next-lowest played the #2 seed in the conference semifinals. In 2019, the playoffs were expanded to the top seven teams in each conference, with only the conference regular season champion receiving a first-round bye. 2023 and hereafter sees only the eighth seed hosting the ninth-seed while the top seven seeds earned

10309-480: The #5 through #8 seeds. This change was made to ensure that the two best teams in each conference cannot meet until the conference final, and also (allegedly) to try and eliminate incentives for a playoff-bound team to deliberately lose games at the end of the regular season in order to "choose" a higher-seeded team that has won fewer games (and, due to the unique home-court rules of the NBA, possibly gain home-court advantage for that series). The notion of "wild cards"

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10478-481: The #6 seed in the conference semifinals. For the 2020 NBA playoffs , playoff qualification was complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic , as not all teams had played the same number of games at the time of the mid-season suspension of play . When play resumed as part of the NBA's bubble , teams already eliminated from contention did not resume, while teams not eliminated played eight games to determine final seeding. If

10647-486: The #8 and #9 seeds in either conference finished within four games of each other, the two seeds would play each other in a play-in game. If the #8 seed won the game, it would advance to the playoffs. If the #9 seed won, a second game would be played. Only if the #9 seed won the second game would it advance to the playoffs. This play-in occurred on the Western Conference, where #8 seed Portland beat #9 Memphis in

10816-588: The Bernabéu, making him the first Barcelona manager to win there twice. Ronaldinho's performance was so impressive that after his second goal, which was Barcelona's third, some Real Madrid fans gave him a standing ovation. In the Champions League, Barcelona beat English club Arsenal in the final . Trailing 1–0 to a ten-man Arsenal and with less than 15 minutes remaining, they came back to win 2–1, with substitute Henrik Larsson, in his final appearance for

10985-528: The CFL the NHL does not require the second wild card qualifier to have an outright better record than a superior-ranked team in the other division – in the event of such a tie at the end of the NHL season standard tie-breaking procedures are used to determine playoff qualification. From 1999 until 2013 , three division champions within each conference were given the #1–3 seeds based on their regular-season records. Among

11154-486: The Champions League, Rexach was never viewed as a long-term solution and that summer Van Gaal returned to the club for a second spell as manager. What followed, despite another decent Champions League performance, was one of the worst La Liga campaigns in the club's history, with the team as low as 15th in February 2003. This led to Van Gaal's resignation and replacement for the rest of the campaign by Radomir Antić , though

11323-478: The Championship Game. Since 2020 , it has been possible for a wild card team to host a Divisional Round playoff game. This requires that all three wild card teams (seeded 5–7) win their wild card games on the road since teams are re-seeded. The matchups in the divisional round would be: The 1980 Raiders, 2005 Steelers, and 1992 Bills tied for first in their division but lost a tiebreaker. While not

11492-473: The Chiefs are not included in the above list, but are recognized as the first team to win the Super Bowl without winning a division title. Although the National Basketball Association (NBA) includes wild card teams in their playoff structures, the term "wild card" is seldom used; instead, each playoff team is most commonly denoted by its seeding position within the conference. Before the 2006–07 NBA season ,

11661-525: The DA on April 15, 2020, citing financial difficulties related to the pandemic, and some of the former DA clubs joined the ECNL. The ECNL scheduled the start of its first season during the COVID-19 pandemic for August 1, 2020, for clubs in jurisdictions that allowed youth sports. In September 2020, ECNL medical director Drew Watson organized a nationwide study of member clubs to track the spread of COVID-19 among players returning to practice and better understand

11830-615: The ECNL allowed it. In 2019, top boys' and girls' clubs from the DA, all-star teams drawn from the ECNL and other domestic youth clubs, and youth clubs from FC Barcelona , Paris Saint-Germain , Atletico Madrid , and Manchester City F.C. competed in the second International Champions Cup Futures Tournament, staged by Relevent Sports Group alongside their senior professional 2019 Women's International Champions Cup . The tournament took place from December 11 to December 15, 2019, at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida . U.S. Soccer closed

11999-521: The ECNL announced that PUMA would sponsor the ECNL boys' league. The U.S. Soccer Federation designates US Club Soccer , a non-profit national association member of the federation, as overseer of the ECNL's girls' and boys' leagues as well as other youth leagues in the United States. The ECNL was founded as a girls' soccer league in March 2009 during a meeting of 40 founding clubs. Its founding

12168-556: The Gamper-led era, Barcelona won eleven Campionats de Catalunya, six Copa del Rey and four Pyrenees Cups. On 14 June 1925, in a spontaneous reaction against Primo de Rivera 's dictatorship, the crowd in the stadium jeered the Royal March . As a reprisal, the ground was closed for six months and Gamper was forced to relinquish the presidency of the club. This coincided with the transition to professional football, and, in 1926,

12337-425: The NBA playoffs, although as of the start of the 2022–23 season this has not yet occurred. In the NBA, the winner of the #1 vs. #8 series goes on to face the winner of the #5 vs. #4 series, while the winner of the #2 vs. #7 series faces the winner of the #6 vs. #3 series. The winner of the #1 vs. #8 series will usually play against a wild card team in the conference semifinals; this is arranged deliberately to reward

12506-437: The NBA seeded its teams with the division winners automatically receiving seeds 1–3. Until 2015, the NBA seeded the three division winners and the wild card team with the best record by regular-season record. This meant that the wild card with the best record got a seed as high as #2 (if that team is in the same division as the team with the best record in the conference); however, the next four wild card teams were still limited to

12675-457: The NBA. In the NHL, the highest-remaining seed of the first round played the lowest-remaining seed of the first round in the next round of the playoffs. For example, if the #1, #4, #6, and #7 seeds win their respective first round series, then the second round of the playoffs matched the #1 seed (highest) versus the #7 seed (lowest), and the #4 seed (2nd highest) versus the #6 seed (second lowest). Home ice advantage in each NHL playoff series prior to

12844-754: The NWSL permanently banned Riley and Dames from coaching in the league as a result of its joint investigation with the NWSL Players Association . In a report published by the Washington Post in November 2022, 24 current and former ECNL coaches raised concerns about a systemic lack of advancement opportunities for women working in ECNL, as well as discrimination and harassment. The report noted that 90 percent of directors of coaching at 129 ECNL clubs were male, and included claims by former Scotland and United Kingdom international Ifeoma Dieke , who had worked for an ECNL club and alleged that

13013-459: The Spanish football champions for the 22nd time, still with four games left to play. Ultimately, Barcelona ended the season 15 points clear of rivals Real Madrid, despite losing 2–1 to them at the beginning of March. They reached the semi-final stage of both the Copa del Rey and the Champions League , going out to Real Madrid and Bayern Munich respectively. On 19 July, it was announced that Vilanova

13182-524: The Stanley Cup Finals was granted by the higher seed, even if the "wild card" team had a better regular season record. For the Finals, the team with the better record will receive home ice advantage. Major League Soccer (MLS) used a wild card format starting in its 2011 playoffs . The top three teams from each of its two conferences automatically qualified for the conference semifinals, while

13351-677: The Steelers in the AFC Championship Game. From 2002 to 2019, the only way a wild card team could host a playoff game within their respective conference ( Super Bowls are considered neutral site games regardless of home venue) would be for both wild card teams to reach the Conference Championship Game by each winning two road playoff games: The No. 5 seeded wild card would host the No. 6 seeded wild card in

13520-605: The United States, and at times specifically the ECNL, is a subject of debate among high school athletes. The ECNL also facilitates collegiate coaches and scouts having access to recruit players, including those who haven't started high school, by accommodating them at ECNL tournaments. As of April 2023 The ECNL girls' league has been sponsored by Nike since 2010. The partnership includes Nike retail presences at girls' ECNL events and national training camps held at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon . In March 2019,

13689-469: The West with a 9–9 record and missed the playoffs while the Hamilton Tiger-Cats finished 8–10 and qualified as Eastern runners-up. Thus, it is theoretically possible (but it has not yet occurred) that all four Eastern Division teams could reach the playoffs, but not for all five Western Division teams. In professional tennis tournaments, a wildcard refers to a tournament entry awarded to

13858-416: The best records among the remaining teams in the conference. These teams are referred to as the wild cards. In the first round, the division champions play the wild cards, while the second and third placed teams in each division play each other; therefore the bracket is fixed, like the NBA. Home-ice advantage is given to the higher seed in the first two rounds, with the better regular season record being used in

14027-403: The best regular-season record is awarded a first-round bye and granted automatic berth in the "Divisional Round". The four division champions are seeded from #1 through #4, while the three wild card teams are seeded #5 to #7; within these separations, seeding is by regular-season record. In the "wild card Round", the #7 team plays the #2 team, #6 plays #3, and #5 plays #4. In the "Divisional Round",

14196-458: The changing room, though nothing was ever proven. Despite the difficult political situation, CF Barcelona enjoyed considerable success during the 1940s and 1950s. In 1945, with Josep Samitier as coach and players like César , Ramallets and Velasco , they won La Liga for the first time since 1929. They added two more titles in 1948 and 1949. In 1949 , they also won the first Copa Latina . In June 1950, Barcelona signed László Kubala , who

14365-586: The club as a staunch defender of rights and freedoms . Coach Ferdinand Daučík and László Kubala led the team to five different trophies including La Liga, the Copa del Generalísimo, the Copa Latina , the Copa Eva Duarte , and the Copa Martini & Rossi in 1952. In 1953, the club won La Liga and the Copa del Generalísimo again. With Helenio Herrera as coach, a young Luis Suárez ,

14534-585: The club became European champions again, winning five trophies. This Barcelona team, which won fourteen trophies in just four years under Pep Guardiola , is considered by some in the sport to be the greatest team of all time. By winning their fifth Champions League trophy in 2015 under Luis Enrique , Barcelona became the first European football club in history to achieve the continental treble twice. On 22 October 1899, Swiss Hans Gamper placed an advertisement in Los Deportes declaring his wish to form

14703-495: The club conducted a logo contest the following year. Carles Comamala won the contest, and his suggestion became the crest that the club still wears – with some minor changes – as of the present day. The stadium is regarded as the main element that helped the club grow in the 1910s and become a dominant team, winning three successive Campionats de Catalunya between 1909 and 1911, three Copa del del Rey in four years between 1910 and 1913 , and four successive Pyrenees Cup between

14872-471: The club win the 1973–74 season for the first time since 1960, defeating Real Madrid 5–0 at the Santiago Bernabéu en route. He was crowned European Footballer of the Year in 1973 during his first season with Barcelona (his second Ballon d'Or win; he won his first while playing for Ajax in 1971 ). Cruyff received this prestigious award a third time (the first player to do so) in 1974, while he

15041-473: The club's first full-time coach in 1917. During the same period, the club changed its official language from Castilian to Catalan and gradually evolved into an important symbol of Catalan identity. For many fans, participating in the club had less to do with the game itself and more with being a part of the club's collective identity. On 4 February 1917, the club held its first tribute match to honour Ramón Torralba , who played from 1913 to 1928. The match

15210-493: The club's return to success. Barcelona won La Liga and the Supercopa de España in 2004–05 , and Ronaldinho and Eto'o were voted first and third, respectively, in the FIFA World Player of the Year awards. In the 2005–06 season , Barcelona repeated their league and Supercopa successes. The pinnacle of the league season arrived at the Santiago Bernabéu in a 3–0 win over Real Madrid. It was Rijkaard's second victory at

15379-602: The club's seventh all-time top-scorer, and in 1917, Gamper also recruited Jack Greenwell as the first full-time manager in Barcelona's history. After this hiring, the club's fortunes began to improve on the field and soon enjoyed its first "golden age". Along with Alcántara, the Barça team under Greenwell also included Sagibarba , Ricardo Zamora , Josep Samitier , Félix Sesúmaga , and Franz Platko . This team won 9 out of 10 Campionats de Catalunya between 1919 and 1928 and two Copa del Rey titles in 1920 and 1922 . In total, during

15548-401: The club, setting up goals for Samuel Eto'o and fellow substitute Juliano Belletti , for the club's first European Cup victory in 14 years. Despite being the favourites and starting strongly, Barcelona finished the 2006–07 season without trophies. A pre-season US tour was later blamed for a string of injuries to key players, including leading scorer Eto'o and rising star Lionel Messi . There

15717-433: The club, this time as manager and he assembled what would later be dubbed the "Dream Team". He used a mix of Spanish players like Pep Guardiola , José Mari Bakero , Jon Andoni Goikoetxea , Miguel Angel Nadal , and Txiki Begiristain while signing international players such as Ronald Koeman , Michael Laudrup , Romário , and Hristo Stoichkov . It was ten years after the inception of the youth programme, La Masia, when

15886-461: The club, with Real Madrid monopolising La Liga. The completion of Camp Nou , finished in 1957, meant the club had little money to spend on new players. The 1960s saw the emergence of Josep Maria Fusté and Carles Rexach , and the club won the Copa del Generalísimo in 1963 and the Fairs Cup in 1966. Barcelona restored some pride by beating Real Madrid 1–0 in the 1968 Copa del Generalísimo final at

16055-574: The conclusion of the season. Guardiola brought with him the now famous tiki-taka style of play he had been taught during his time in the Barcelona youth teams. In the process, Guardiola sold Ronaldinho and Deco and started building the Barcelona team around Xavi, Andrés Iniesta and Lionel Messi. Barça beat Athletic Bilbao 4–1 in the 2009 Copa del Rey final , winning the competition for a record-breaking 25th time. A historic 2–6 victory against Real Madrid followed three days later and ensured that Barcelona became 2008–09 La Liga champions. Barça finished

16224-697: The costs of playing for the league as a barrier for development in the sport and a factor in reducing the racial and economic diversity among elite United States soccer players. Since its founding and continuing as of June 2015, the estimated average cost to play for an ECNL team was $ 3,000 to $ 10,000 per year. The ECNL doesn't prohibit its club players from also playing for high school soccer teams, and its season doesn't overlap with high school seasons. However, players and clubs alike reported challenges with players attempting to play for both, including scheduling conflicts, costs, injury risks, and strains on players' performances. The highly competitive nature of club soccer in

16393-421: The crowd. The next three years saw the club in decline, and managers came and went. Van Gaal was replaced by Lorenzo Serra Ferrer who, despite an extensive investment in players in the summer of 2000, presided over a mediocre league campaign and a first-round Champions League exit, and was dismissed late in the season. Long-serving Barcelona deputy coach Carles Rexach was appointed as his replacement, initially on

16562-514: The directors of Barcelona publicly claimed, for the first time, to operate a professional football club. On 3 July 1927, the club held a second testimonial match for Paulino Alcántara , against the Spanish national team . To kick off the match, local journalist and pilot Josep Canudas dropped the ball onto the pitch from his aeroplane. In 1928, victory in the Spanish Cup was celebrated with

16731-415: The divisional playoffs featured the #1 seed hosting the "wild card" team, and the #2 seed hosting the #3 seed unless the #1 seed and wild card team were divisional rivals; in that case, the #1 seed hosted the #3 seed and the #2 seed hosted the wild card team. The "wild card" team in each conference was the team with the best record in its conference excluding the #1–3 seeds. The number of wild card qualifiers

16900-651: The divisions, the AFL playoff structure could allow a mediocre team to qualify – this did occur when the Houston Oilers , a .500 team, finished second in the Eastern Division – the Oilers were throttled in the playoffs 56–7 by the Western champion Oakland Raiders . Despite Kansas City's upset wins over the Raiders and Minnesota Vikings , some purists argued for the tradition of having only division champions contest

17069-401: The entire Spanish Civil War began in 1936, several players from Barcelona enlisted in the ranks of those who fought against the military uprising, along with players from Athletic Bilbao. On 6 August, Falangist soldiers near Guadarrama murdered club president Josep Sunyol , a representative of the pro-independence political party. He was dubbed the martyr of barcelonisme , and his murder

17238-417: The exact rules among the leagues differ, they all generally agree that the wild card team (or teams, as in MLB, NFL, and NHL) are the ones with the best records among the teams that did not win their divisions; these teams usually finish as the runner-up to their division winners. The term "wild card" does not apply to postseason formats where a set number of teams per division qualify. Former examples include:

17407-433: The expanded round robin schedule, the playoffs will revert to the old three team, two game format thus eliminating the page playoff and quarter-final round. Beginning in 2024 wild card teams are no longer designated "Wild Cards" in the draw or standings and have the right to represent their member associations on the same basis as the team advancing from playdowns. While the Canadian Football League does not officially use

17576-426: The fans when compared to that of Luís Figo, then club vice-captain. Figo had become a cult hero and was considered by Catalans to be one of their own. Barcelona fans, however, were distraught by Figo's decision to join arch-rivals Real Madrid, and, during subsequent visits to Camp Nou, Figo was given an extremely hostile reception. Upon his first return, a piglet's head and a full bottle of whiskey were thrown at him from

17745-484: The following season, under coach César Luis Menotti , Barcelona won the Copa del Rey, beating Real Madrid. Maradona's time with Barcelona, however, was short-lived and he soon left for Napoli . At the start of the 1984–85 season, Terry Venables was hired as manager and he won La Liga with noteworthy displays by German midfielder Bernd Schuster . The next season, he took the team to their second European Cup final , only to lose on penalties to Steaua București during

17914-473: The four remaining teams with the highest point totals in league play, without regard to conference, earned "wild cards" into the playoffs. The wild card matches were single games, with the #7 seed hosting the #10 seed and the #8 seed hosting the #9 seed. The lowest surviving seed then played the Supporters' Shield winner (i.e., the team with the highest point total), while the other surviving wild card played

18083-675: The inaugural year in 1910 and 1913, which was one of the earliest international club cups in Europe since it consisted of the best teams of Languedoc , Midi and Aquitaine (Southern France), the Basque Country and Catalonia; all were former members of the Marca Hispanica region. The contest was the most prestigious in that era. Notable figures of Barça's first great team include Carles Comamala, Alfredo Massana , Amechazurra , Paco Bru , and Jack Greenwell . The latter became

18252-508: The league's board of directors, of sexual harassment and verbal abuse of youth players, and other abuses of power. The report also alleged that Dames hired a coach for Eclipse who had previously been sanctioned by the U.S. Center for SafeSport for sexual harassment of youth players. Dames denied the allegations through his attorney. The report followed a separate media report alleging similar behavior by Dames in his role as head coach of senior NWSL pro club Chicago Red Stars , which became part of

18421-418: The league's exclusion of women from leadership roles was "a systemic problem". The ECNL and several of the clubs named in the report responded by denying the allegations or dismissing the complaints, and the league's chief operating officer Jennifer Winnagle stated that more than half of the league's front office staff was female. US Club Soccer responded to requests to comment with a statement indicating pride in

18590-629: The league's revenue grew from $ 500,000 in 2010 to $ 3.4 million in 2019. In 2017, the United States Soccer Federation announced the launch of a 74-club girls' academy within the U.S. Soccer Development Academy (DA) organization, in addition to its boys' academy. This program competed directly with the ECNL, which launched its own boys' academy in the same year and brought the ECNL and DA into direct nationwide competition for youth soccer clubs. The Development Academy prevented players from playing high school soccer, while

18759-401: The league. This occurred in 1986, when the 11–7 Calgary Stampeders qualified in place of the 4–14 Montreal Alouettes . The Alouettes folded before the start of the following season. Although it is highly questionable whether a 1986 playoff appearance would have saved the floundering Montreal franchise, the CFL quickly re-instated the traditional playoff format for the 1987 season. It also moved

18928-480: The lowest-remaining seed plays the #1 seeded team, while the other two wild card winners face-off against each other, with the higher seed hosting. The higher-seeded teams have home-field advantage in both rounds and the "Conference Championships". The NFL was the first sports league to use the wild card format. The decision to implement a wild card coincided with the completion of the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. Prior to

19097-412: The main draw, which expanded to pools of nine teams each. Additional wild card berths are granted if the defending champion does not play and/or a member association does not enter a team (this occurred, for example, in the 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts when Nunavut withdrew) As a result, teams that advance to the championship pool will play twelve round robin games instead of eleven. To accommodate

19266-627: The match, with Iniesta scoring the winning goal against the Netherlands. In November 2010, Barcelona defeated their main rival Real Madrid 5–0 in El Clásico . At the ceremony for the 2010 FIFA Ballon d'Or in December, Barcelona's La Masia became the first youth academy ever to have all three finalists for the Ballon d'Or , with Messi, Iniesta and Xavi being named the three best players in

19435-518: The merger, the right to compete in the postseason for the NFL title was restricted to division/conference champions. Until 1967, a tiebreaker game was played to resolve a deadlock for first place in either of the two conferences. When the league expanded to 16 teams, it realigned into four divisions and expanded the playoffs to two rounds. Tiebreaker games were eliminated in favor of the use of performance-based criteria to determine division champions. The rival American Football League (AFL), which reached

19604-511: The nine teams played each opponent once at home and once on the road), this disparity (made even worse by the fact the West had one more team than the East) was fully exposed in the standings – in each of the first three seasons of the new format, the fourth place team missed the playoffs with records as good as 9–7 in the West, while in the East records as bad as 3–13 were good enough for third place and

19773-423: The number of wild card qualifiers was reduced to two per conference. In 2020 , the playoffs returned to three wild cards per conference, or 14 teams total. The term "Wild Card Round" continues to be used for the opening round of the playoffs, even though this round has involved both division winners and wild card teams since 1990. As of the 2021–22 playoffs , there has never been a meeting of two wild card teams in

19942-406: The old format consisting a single group of twelve teams. This allows the main tournament to include "Team Canada" (either the defending champions or, when the champions decline to or are unable to defend their title, the runners-up) and teams representing all fourteen constituent associations representing the ten provinces and three territories plus Northern Ontario . The remaining two participants in

20111-431: The old-line NFL owners, who still expected their teams to dominate the merged league for at least the first half of the 1970s, thought a repeat of the 1967 Colts-Rams fiasco would be very likely under the new alignment combined with a six team format. Furthermore, the modern principle that home field advantage and byes should be awarded to the teams with the best records had still not yet been firmly established – tradition at

20280-606: The only pro team with a bye in the divisional round (the Western Division title having been determined by a traditional tiebreaker, played the same weekend as the NFL's divisional round, between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders ). The AFL later agreed to expanded their playoffs to include division runners-up and implemented tiebreakers, thus in 1969 the runners-up played the winners of

20449-427: The opposite division. This was done in part because division rivals had already played each other twice in the regular season and also in part because the AFL did not want the playoff games to be confused as "division championship games" – by keeping division rivals separate in the opening playoff round, the league left fans in no doubt that the regular season division winners were the only true division champions, even if

20618-555: The opposite divisions for the right to contest the AFL Championship Game. The Chiefs, despite being AFL West runners-up, nevertheless won the last Super Bowl prior to the merger. In 1970, the merged league realigned into two conferences of thirteen teams each, with three "old-line" NFL teams joining the AFL teams in the American Football Conference (AFC), and the remaining NFL teams forming

20787-405: The playoffs to continue. Had they prevailed, the post-merger NFL playoffs would have consisted of six teams and might have eventually evolved to closely resemble the playoffs of the modern Canadian Football League , with the regular season champion of each conference earning the right to host the championship game against the winner of a game between the champions of the other two divisions. However,

20956-600: The post-season. These teams played cross-division in the semifinal round. Thus the Chiefs, who finished second in the West, defeated the East Division champion New York Jets in the AFL semifinals and then defeated the West Division champion Oakland Raiders to advance to Super Bowl IV , where they beat the Minnesota Vikings . Because the term "wild card" was not instituted until the following year,

21125-458: The potential risks of transmission. The study encompassed 90,000 players and reported a positive case rate of 310 per 100,000 children. In a separate study, Watson suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic had also increased rates of anxiety and depression reported by athletes. In a Washington Post report published February 2022, several former players of ECNL founding club Chicago Eclipse Select accused its coach Rory Dames , who also served on

21294-425: The previous year's tournament or their respective provincial or territorial championship. The top ranked of these two teams receives the hammer (last rock) to start the game. The CTRS standings are also used to determine the seeding of all teams in the main tournament, with one important caveat – for the purposes of seeding the round robin pools and so as to allow the main round robin schedule to be drawn up prior to

21463-494: The reign of Guardiola was further extended and saw Barcelona win their 13th trophy out of a possible 16. Considered by some in the sport to be the greatest team of all time, with Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson stating, ”They mesmerise you with their passing”, their five trophies in 2011 saw them receive the Laureus World Sports Award for Team of the Year . In the 2011–12 season , Barcelona lost

21632-431: The remaining teams within each conference, five additional teams with the best records are awarded seeds #4 through #8. The division champions (first-third seeds) and the non-division winning team with the best record (fourth seed) were given home ice advantage in the opening playoff series, in which they face the eighth-seeded through fifth-seeded teams, respectively. However, the playoff format differed slightly from that of

21801-452: The respective sport federations. On rare occasions, a competitor who had gained entry by wildcard succeeds in winning a medal or the championship. For example, Kye Sun-Hui won gold in judo at the 1996 Summer Olympics , Ding Junhui won the 2005 China Open snooker championship, Goran Ivanišević won the 2001 Wimbledon Championships , Kim Clijsters won the 2009 US Open , and Lin Dan won

21970-457: The responsibility of running the club from now on." Club president on five separate occasions between 1908 and 1925, he spent 25 years in total at the helm. One of his main achievements was ensuring Barça acquire its own stadium and thus generate a stable income. On 14 March 1909, the team moved into the Camp de la Indústria , a stadium with a capacity of 8,000. To celebrate their new surroundings,

22139-479: The right to host a playoff game, the playoffs were expanded again to three wild cards per conference in 1990 (for 12 teams total) with the lowest-ranked divisional winner losing its bye but gaining the right to host a playoff game. Following the addition of the Houston Texans in 2002, the league added a fourth division to each conference. The league decided not to change the number of playoff teams, and thus

22308-438: The same divisional ranks in another division. The main difference is that the CFL only allows the lowest ranked playoff qualifying team from a division to cross over into the other division's playoffs, whereas in the NHL it is possible for either wild card team to "cross over" to the other division, or even (in cases where four teams qualify from each division) for the wild card teams to swap divisional playoff brackets. Also, unlike

22477-557: The season by beating Manchester United 2–0 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome , with goals from Eto'o and Messi, to win their third Champions League title, and complete the first ever treble won by a Spanish team. The team went on to win the 2009 Supercopa de España against Athletic Bilbao and the 2009 UEFA Super Cup against Shakhtar Donetsk , becoming the first European club to win both domestic and European Super Cups following

22646-580: The second leg, beating Barcelona 11–1. According to football writer Sid Lowe , "There have been relatively few mentions of the game [since] and it is not a result that has been particularly celebrated in Madrid. Indeed, the 11–1 occupies a far more prominent place in Barcelona's history. This was the game that first formed the identification of Madrid as the team of the dictatorship and Barcelona as its victims." It has been alleged by local journalist Paco Aguilar that Barcelona's players were threatened by police in

22815-439: The semi-finals of the Champions League against Chelsea . Guardiola, who had been on a rolling contract and had faced criticism over his recent tactics and squad selections, announced that he would step down as manager on 30 June and be succeeded by assistant Tito Vilanova . Guardiola finished his tenure with Barça winning the Copa del Rey final 3–0, bringing the tally to 14 trophies that Barça had won under his coaching. It

22984-450: The standing of Josep Escolà , the club now entered a period of decline, in which political conflict overshadowed sports throughout society. Attendance at matches dropped as the citizens of Barcelona were occupied with discussing political matters. Although the team won the Campionat de Catalunya in 1930, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1936, and 1938, success at a national level (with the exception of the 1937 disputed title ) evaded them. A month after

23153-489: The start of the league's U.S. expansion experiment , which started in the 1993. The current rule was adopted after the league re-activated the Alouettes and reverted to an all-Canadian alignment in 1996. It allows the fourth place team of one division to "cross over" and take the place of the third place team in the other divisional bracket, provided the fourth place team has more points (i.e. an outright better record) than

23322-463: The team could not achieve success, as Schuster was excluded from the team. Terry Venables was subsequently fired at the beginning of the 1987–88 season and replaced with Luis Aragonés . The season finished with the players rebelling against president Núñez, in an event known as the Hesperia mutiny, and a 1–0 victory in the Copa del Rey final against Real Sociedad . In 1988, Johan Cruyff returned to

23491-496: The team won a Copa del Rey and La Liga double in 1998. In 1999, the club celebrated its centenari , winning the Primera División title, and Rivaldo became the fourth Barcelona player to be awarded European Footballer of the Year. Despite this domestic success, the failure to emulate Real Madrid in the Champions League led to van Gaal and Núñez resigning in 2000. The departures of Núñez and Van Gaal were hardly noticed by

23660-590: The term "wild card" to denote any playoff qualifier, its crossover rule acts similar to a wild card in many respects. Calls to change the CFL's playoff format came about soon after the CFL finished its evolution from two regional conferences, which were originally the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union in the East and the Western Interprovincial Football Union in the West. Although the CFL

23829-464: The third place team. Since the cross over team enters as the third place team, it never receives home field advantage in the playoffs, even if its record is better than that of one or both of the qualifying teams in the other division. As of 2023, all teams to qualify under this rule have crossed over from the Western Division to the Eastern bracket, although there have been a handful of occasions where

23998-404: The time dictated that home field advantage rotate between divisions and/or conferences regardless of record. In any event, most owners in both conferences wanted to keep the even four-team playoff field in each conference. This was established by having the three division champions in each conference joined by the best second-place finisher in the conference. As with much of the NFL's nomenclature,

24167-518: The top division since its inception in 1929 , along with Athletic Bilbao and Real Madrid . In 2009, Barcelona became the first Spanish club to win the continental treble consisting of La Liga , Copa del Rey and the UEFA Champions League , and also became the first European football club to win six out of six competitions in a single year, by also winning the Spanish Super Cup , UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup . In 2011,

24336-473: The top seed in the other conference. The playoff format was revamped for the 2012 season, with all seeding done entirely in-conference, therefore eliminating any true wild card qualifiers. From 2012 to 2018, the top six teams from each conference qualified for the playoffs, with the #1 & #2 seeds in each conference automatically qualifying for the conference semifinals, and seeds #3–6 in each conference being wild cards. The lowest-seeded winner (played between

24505-495: The tournament are the wild cards, which compete in an MLB-style play-in game prior to the main tournament to determine the sixteenth team in the main tournament. Just as is the case with MLB division titles, the format is designed to give teams an incentive to win their provincial championships. The wild cards are the top two teams in the Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) standings that did not win either

24674-425: The tournament. As is the case with Team Canada, the wild card retains that designation even if the team that is representing the same province or territory as the wild card team is eliminated prior to the wild card team. With the introduction of pools, the round robin portion of the Tournament of Hearts and Brier now consists of two stages. The top four teams in each pool qualify for the second stage, formally known as

24843-402: The wild card game, the ranking of the top wild card team is the ranking that is used for seeding purposes regardless of who wins the game. Whereas teams in the Tournament of Hearts and Brier are traditionally referred to by their respective province or territory (other than Northern Ontario and Team Canada), the team that wins the wild card game is referred to as the "wild card" for the duration of

25012-541: The wild card slot – due to the significant disparity in playing caliber between the top teams of Canada's fourteen member associations, it is widely expected that the wild card will consistently come from one of the provinces with the toughest fields in the playdowns, and that it will consistently be a championship contending team. The format was changed for the 2021 curling season due to the COVID-19 pandemic . For at least that year, tournaments will expand to eighteen teams each. Three wild card teams will gain direct entry into

25181-437: The wildcard), promising young players, players that are likely to draw a large crowd, or have won the tournament earlier or players who were once ranked higher and are attempting a comeback (for instance, following a long-term injury). High-ranked players can also ask for a wildcard if they want to enter a non-mandatory tournament after the normal entry deadline; for example, because they lost early in another tournament. This means

25350-450: The winner advancing as the #7 seed. The loser of this game then hosts the winner of the elimination game between the 9th and 10th place teams to determine the #8 seed. The NBA's regular playoff format then proceeds as normal. In the National Hockey League (NHL), the first, second, and third place teams in each division qualify for the playoffs automatically, and two additional teams, regardless of divisional alignment, also qualify by having

25519-690: The work of US Club Soccer and its member organizations for female youth soccer. From 2017 to 2022, 70 percent of players selected in the NWSL Draft to play in the United States's top professional women's league were ECNL club alumni. As of November 2019, more than 60 percent of rostered players in the combined Atlantic Coast Conference , Big Ten Conference , Big 12 Conference , Southeastern Conference , and Pac-12 Conference of NCAA Division I women's soccer were ECNL alumni. Wild card (sports) A wild card (also wildcard or wild-card and also known as an at-large berth or at-large bid )

25688-617: The world for 2010. In the 2010–11 season , Barcelona retained the La Liga trophy, their third title in succession, finishing with 96 points. In April 2011, the club reached the Copa del Rey final , losing 1–0 to Real Madrid at the Mestalla Stadium in Valencia . In May, Barcelona defeated Manchester United in the 2011 Champions League Final 3–1 held at Wembley Stadium , a repeat of the 2009 final, winning their fourth European Cup. In August 2011, La Masia graduate Cesc Fàbregas

25857-410: The young players began to graduate and play for their first team. Pep Guardiola, the future coach of Barcelona, was one of the first graduates and would go on to receive international recognition. Under Cruyff's guidance, Barcelona won four consecutive La Liga titles from 1991 to 1994. They beat Sampdoria in both the 1989 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final and the 1992 European Cup final at Wembley , with

26026-614: Was a defining moment in the history of FC Barcelona and Catalan identity. In the summer of 1937, the squad was on tour in Mexico and the United States, where it was received as an ambassador of the Second Spanish Republic . The tour led to the financial security of the club but also resulted in half of the team seeking asylum in Mexico and France, making it harder for the remaining team to contest for trophies. On 16 March 1938, Barcelona came under aerial bombardment from

26195-443: Was against local side Terrassa where Barcelona won the match 6–2. Gamper simultaneously launched a campaign to recruit more club members, and by 1922, the club had more than 20,000, who helped finance a new stadium. The club then moved to the new Les Cortes , which they inaugurated the same year. Les Cortes had an initial capacity of 30,000, and in the 1940s it was expanded to 60,000. In 1912, Gamper recruited Paulino Alcántara ,

26364-479: Was allowed to be hired as director of coaching for an unnamed ECNL team. The report also covered the founding and coaching directing of ECNL club Albertson Soccer Club by Paul Riley until April 2020, who was also accused of sexual and verbal abuse of professional senior players during his tenures coaching in multiple leagues. The NWSL club North Carolina Courage subsequently fired Riley, and U.S. Soccer subsequently suspended Riley's coaching license. In January 2023,

26533-466: Was announced in summer of 2012 that Tito Vilanova, assistant manager at Barcelona, would take over from Pep Guardiola as manager. Following his appointment, Barcelona went on an incredible run that saw them hold the top spot on the league table for the entire season, recording only two losses and amassing 100 points. Their top scorer once again was Lionel Messi, who scored 46 goals in La Liga, including two hat-tricks. On 11 May 2013, Barcelona were crowned as

26702-455: Was banned and the club were prohibited from using non-Spanish names. These measures forced the club to change its name to Club de Fútbol Barcelona and to remove the Catalan flag from its crest. In 1943 , Barcelona faced rivals Real Madrid in the semi-finals of Copa del Generalísimo (now the Copa del Rey). The first match at Les Corts was won by Barcelona 3–0. Real Madrid comfortably won

26871-525: Was bought for a world record £920,000 from Ajax . Already an established player with Ajax, Cruyff quickly won over the Barcelona fans when he told the European press that he chose Barcelona over Real Madrid because he could not play for a club associated with Francisco Franco. He further endeared himself when he named his son "Jordi" , after the local Catalan Saint George . Next to champions like Juan Manuel Asensi , Carles Rexach and Hugo Sotil , he helped

27040-668: Was bought from Arsenal and he would help Barcelona defend the Spanish Supercup against Real Madrid. The Supercup victory brought the total number of official trophies to 73, matching the number of titles won by Real Madrid. Later the same month, Barcelona won the UEFA Super Cup defeating Porto 2–0 with goals from Messi and Fàbregas. This extended the club's overall number of official trophies to 74, surpassing Real Madrid's total amount of official trophies. The Super Cup victory also saw Guardiola win his 12th trophy out of

27209-514: Was changed in 2022 to add a third wild card team from each league, along with replacing the play-in game with two three-game series in each league. In the National Football League (NFL), since 2020 , each of the two conferences sends three wild card teams along with four division champions to its postseason. The first round of the playoffs is called the "wild card round". In this round, each conference's division champion with

27378-404: Was essentially abolished in the 2015–16 NBA season , as changes made prior to the season meant the top eight teams in each conference qualified regardless of divisional rank, with the seeded teams ranked by percentage. The only particular advantage to winning a division now was that a divisional title served as the first tiebreaker for qualification seeding purposes. Unlike some other leagues, there

27547-414: Was expanded to two per conference in 1978 – the divisional winners were granted a bye week while the wild card teams, seeded #4 and #5, played each other in a "wild card game" with the #4 seed having home field advantage. Since there were two wild card games, one per conference, the phrase "wild card round" came into use. During this time, the #1 seed hosted the winner of the #4 vs #5 wild card game, while

27716-737: Was inspired in part by frustrations experienced by clubs and coaches with older volunteer-driven organizations, such US Youth Soccer and the American Youth Soccer Organization , in favor of a more professionalized approach. Christian Lavers is a league founder, and as of November 2022 served as both president and CEO of the ECNL, executive vice president of US Club Soccer, vice president of US Club Soccer management services client C2SA, and owner and club director for Wisconsin ECNL club FC Wisconsin . Lavers also served as director of sport and chief soccer officer of top-flight women's professional club Kansas City Current in

27885-402: Was officially founded in 1958, its constituent sections did not fully merge until 1981. At the time, it was agreed that three teams from each division would qualify, regardless of overall league standings. This quickly proved controversial, as a wide disparity in playing caliber had emerged between the East and West divisions. Since the league had also implemented a fully balanced schedule (each of

28054-460: Was open feuding as Eto'o publicly criticised coach Rijkaard and Ronaldinho. Ronaldinho also admitted that a lack of fitness affected his form. In La Liga, Barcelona were in first place for much of the season, but inconsistency in the New Year saw Real Madrid overtake them to become champions. Barcelona advanced to the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey, winning the first leg against Getafe 5–2, with

28223-435: Was organised by Armand Caraben, Joan Laporta and Alfons Godall. The objective of the group, called L'Elefant Blau , was to oppose the presidency of Núñez, which they regarded as a corruption of the club's traditional values. Laporta would later take over the presidency of Barcelona in 2003. Cruyff was briefly replaced by Bobby Robson , who took charge of the club for a single season in 1996–97. He recruited Ronaldo for

28392-399: Was still with Barcelona. In 1978, Josep Lluís Núñez became the first elected president of FC Barcelona, and, since then, the members of Barcelona have elected the club president. The process of electing a president of FC Barcelona was closely tied to Spain's transition to democracy in 1974 and the end of Franco's dictatorship. The new president's main objective was to develop Barcelona into

28561-520: Was to be an important figure at the club. On a rainy Sunday of 1951, the crowd left Les Corts stadium after a 2–1 win against Santander by foot, refusing to catch any trams, and surprising the Francoist authorities. The reason was simple: at the same time, a tram strike was taking place in Barcelona, receiving the support of blaugrana fans . Events like this made CF Barcelona represent much more than just Catalonia and many progressive Spaniards saw

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