Come on baby, let’s do the split
By: Ian Rose | April 4th, 2007It’s time once again for that unique Scottish football tradition, the end-of-the-season split. Now that St. Mirren v. Hibs is over (with the Saints taking a well-earned draw and keeping Hibs in the 6th position, much to the joy of Killie), there is one game remaining in the regular season for the Scottish Premier League. There are, however, still five games left after that. Playoffs? Nah. Nothing as normal as that.
See, the regular season in the SPL makes all kinds of sense. Each team plays each other team exactly three times, for a total of 33 matches for each team. It’s simple, and it works. But, 33 weeks is hardly a football season. More like hockey or American football, and no one wants that, so after the regular season is over, the SPL splits into two separate leagues. The top 6 and the bottom 6 separate, then play one game against each of the other teams in their half, for the remaining five matches. This gives the relegation side, in this case Dunfermline, one last shot to get out of the hole by playing them against only the bottom-half sides, plus it gives the teams at the top a chance to fight it out over those European qualifying spots.
Perhaps the weirdest thing about the split is that it allows for the possibility that the seventh-place side actually has significantly more points at the end of the season than the sixth-place side. Last season, my beloved Caley Thistle dominated the bottom half after the split, and ended up with more points than the fourth-place team, Hibs. But, because of the rules of the split, we were stuck in the bottom half, and remained seventh.
Oh well, at least it’s unique.
Category: Scottish Premier League
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