BALTIMORE, Maryland January 21, 2014 - The English soccer season is so very long. The 24 team Championship League features each side playing a home and home series with each other side. Add that up and it is a 46 game schedule. Add to that schedule the two tournaments that each league team plays in, and it means that those players are going to go at it some 50 times each season.
Burnley is having a good season, so far. They have only lost three games. And yet they have slipped just a bit from the level they maintained over the first 15 games. Last Saturday, at Turf Moor, the Claret were matched up against one of the sides who inhabit the bottom fifth of the league. Sheffield Wednesday went into he match just one point ahead of the 23rd place team. That is a bad place to be, because, come the first week in May when the season ends, the teams in 23rd and 24th place are demoted to League 1. It is a scary prospect. And yet keen observers had detected a rejuvenation underway on the Owl side. It continued Saturday, when Sheffield Wednesday scored late to earn a road tie and an all-important point. Burnley, too, earned a single point but it wasn't enough to keep them ahead of Queens Park, which won its match. As a result, the Claret are now in third place. Were the season to end this way, Burnley and three other teams would play a single elimination tournament and only the winner would be promoted. The teams finishing first and second are automatically promoted to the Premier.
The Claret now have ten days to rejuvenate themselves before playing again at Turf Moor against Brighton. Five days after that they travel to Queens Park.
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