What are all the different competitions within Association Football?

Manchester United FC is the best: What are all the different competitions within Association Football?
I’m starting to get into Association Football. I’ve been doing some research on wikipedia.org and so far I have learned that there are six confederations. There’s a Confederation of Africa, Confederation of Asia, Confederation of Europe, Confederation of North, Central America, and the Caribbean, Confederation of Oceania, and Confederation of South America.

Within each confederation are nations. Each nation has its own Football Association that controls its own football clubs and national football team.

The only competition that I’m familiar with is the FIFA World Cup, which consists of 32 national football teams that compete during a four week period, which happens every four years.

So my question is, what are alll the different competitions within Association Football besides the FIFA World Cup?

Answers and Views:

Answer by AB
Well, there are continental competitions, too. In Europe there’s the European Championship, called EURO, taking place every four years (in even years that have no World Cup). There are also the Asian Cup, the African Cup of Nations, the Copa America (South America), The Gold Cup (North America) and the Nations Cup (Oceania) happening around the same time. Winners of those competitions are entitled to play in the FIFA Confederations Cup, taking place in the year after the last continental competitions and before the next World Cup.

In the two years leading up to those competitions, every continental association determines the particpants of those tournaments by having all member states play a number of qualifiers. At the moment, for example, qualifying for the FIFA World Cup 2010 is entering its final phase.

Club football has a more avid following, though, especially in Europe. Players “belong” to clubs and only play in the national team if they are called up. Every country has a league system and a variety of national cups. The best teams of each country are also eligible to play in continental club competitions like the Champions League and the Europa League in Europe and the Copa Libertadores in South America. There is also a lot of qualifying for this.

It’s all very complicated to explain, really. Maybe it becomes a bit clearer if I explain it from a player’s view. Let’s take Steven Gerrard. He plays for Liverpool FC in England, and he is usually also called up to play for his country England’s national side.

In a normal season, Steven will compete in the following competitions with Liverpool FC:
– Premier League (highest English club league)
– FA Cup (most important English cup competition)
– League Cup (second most important English cup competition)
– a couple of other small local cups if his team takes an interest
– Champions League (most important European competition)

Depending on how well his club did in the previous season, he might also participate with Liverpool in:
– The Community Shield (Premier League winner versus FA Cup winner)
– Champions League qualification
– Europa League (second most important European competition)
– Club World Cup (tournament of each continent’s club competition winners)

With England, if called up, he will participate in:
– various friendly games so the team, made up of many different players from many different clubs, develops a sense of unity
– World Cup qualification
– the World Cup (if England qualify)

In Europe, a normal season goes from August/September to May/June. All those tournaments and competitions are usually all happening at the same time, hitting their crucial stages and coming to an end in May/June. For example, a team might play a league game on Saturday, a qualifier for the Champions League on Wednesday and an FA Cup game the Saturday after that. Only the World Cup and the other national team competitions are held in the summer after the league season.

I’m sorry for being so very confusing, maybe you should do a bit more wikipedia research at your own pace to try and make sense of it. Beware, though: once you get involved in this crap, you’ll never be able to stop caring. 😉