The two leagues I follow the most in professional league soccer are the English Premier League and Mexico's Liga MX. The main reasons are that they are regularly available on television, with the English play broadcast Saturday and Sunday mornings and early afternoons on NBCSports and the Mexican matches on Univision and Galavision Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons. We're getting close to the final stretch in both leagues' regular seasons: in England they've finished 30 out of their 38-game schedule, while in Mexico...which uses a split-season system, this winter/spring season called "Clausura", they have gone through 11 out of their scheduled 17. There are no playoffs in the English Premier League: the regular season winner is the outright champion and Manchester City is running away with it. In the Liga MX the top eight finishers participate in the Liguilla championship playoffs, which according to its rules reward teams for higher regular season finishes. As for relegation...these are the teams at the bottom of the standings that are demoted to the next lower league...England has three spots reserved for this and Mexico one...in Mexico performance over a three-year period is evaluated, so it's a bit more complicated: Veracruz is currently the team in that league's "hot seat". On one hand, if the teams are financially strong and viable, relegation is a good system that keeps interest across the league high throughout the season...unlike here where teams are often accused of "tanking" in order to be awarded with a higher draft status for finishing lower. In leagues with relegation, nobody tanks because finishing at the bottom means you're booted out of the league! However, especially in Mexico, being relegated has caused on a number of occasions the relegated team to fail financially, as was the case with Chiapas last year and sometimes the teams promoted up from the lower league are financially incapable of assuming a more competitive role in the higher league...so relegation has its pros and cons...
Here are the standings...or "tables", with each team (or "side") followed by its accumulated points (three for wins, one for draws, zero for losses)...
*****English Premier League*****
1 MANCHESTER CITY 81
2 MANCHESTER UNITED 65
3 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 61
4 LIVERPOOL 60
5 CHELSEA 56
6 ARSENAL 45
7 BURNLEY 43
8 LEICESTER CITY 40
9 EVERTON 37
10 WATFORD 36
11 BRIGHTON & HOVE ALBION 34
12 BOURNEMOUTH 33
13 NEWCASTLE UNITED 32
14 SWANSEA CITY 31
15 HUDDERSFIELD TOWN 31
16 WEST HAM UNITED 30
17 SOUTHAMPTON 28
18 CRYSTAL PALACE 27
19 STOKE CITY 27
20 WEST BROMWICH ALBION 20
*****Mexican Premier League (Liga MX)*****
1 SANTOS LAGUNA 23
2 AMERICA 21
3 TOLUCA 21
4 UANL TIGRES 21
5 MORELIA 19
6 PUEBLA 17
7 TIJUANA 16
8 MONTEREY 15
9 UNAM PUMAS 15
10 NECAXA 14
11 PACHUCA 14
12 LEON 14
13 QUERETARO 13
14 CRUZ AZUL 11
15 GUADALAJARA 11
16 VERACRUZ 9
17 BUAP 8
18 ATLAS 7
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