Into the Cincoverse - The Cinco de Mayo EU Thread and Wikibox Repository

Friday night also sees the first Play-In game, with Chargers RFC - who took the 14th position in the table for the second consecutive year - will hope that Pete Carroll, brought onboard in the winter break, can keep them up out of the Second Division through the Play-In once again. They will face off in the first Play-In match against fourth-placed Second Division Los Angeles Aztecs, making a short trip down the highway; while we'd probably rather be Chargers after they escaped the guaranteed drop, Aztecs are no slouch.

Saturday afternoon's matchup will be a very different affair, as Seattle heads out east to Boston in a rematch of the 2015 Championship Final. Redskins narrowly evaded the permanent drop and bid adieu thus to Green Bay, but if we're being honest, we'd probably rather be Seattle here. The Redskins look tired, old, and gassed, and a thirty-year run in the top division for a storied club looks to be drawing to a (hopefully for them, brief) end; Seattle supporters, meanwhile, will be ecstatic at a chance to face off against West Coast rivals Chargers the following weekend for a chance to return to the first flight after the humiliation of "First to Worst" two years ago.
I'm kinda missing how it works: the Chargers arrived third to last and are going to face the Aztecs which arrived 4th? Is there a playoff in the 2nd division to decide which teams are going to go to the play-ins? The way I understood it I thought the third to last in the 1st division were going to meet the 3rd placed in the 2nd division. Also, Seattle (how are they called, by the way?) is going to face the Boston Redskins which I suppose arrived second to last...and then they're going to face the Chargers? Why?
 
I'm kinda missing how it works: the Chargers arrived third to last and are going to face the Aztecs which arrived 4th? Is there a playoff in the 2nd division to decide which teams are going to go to the play-ins? The way I understood it I thought the third to last in the 1st division were going to meet the 3rd placed in the 2nd division. Also, Seattle (how are they called, by the way?) is going to face the Boston Redskins which I suppose arrived second to last...and then they're going to face the Chargers? Why?
So, here's how it works, with the 2024 teams used to illustrate. Inspired by the promotion playoff in the UK.

Championship

14. Chargers RFC (Play-In)
15. Boston Redskins (Play-In)
16. Green Bay RFC (Relegated)

Second Division

1. Philadelphia Federals (Promoted)
2. Cincinnati Bengals (Promoted)
3. Seattle (Play-in)
4. Los Angeles Aztecs (Play-in)

So the Play-In, essentially, is a fight for the third spot. It is guaranteed at least one of those two Championship teams gets dropped, just not which one; in some cases, both might drop if the 3 or 4 out of the 2nd Division wins the Play-In.

(And I unfortunately have yet to decide on the club name for Seattle; leaning Seahawks (Go 12s!) for simplicity but amenable to Mariners, too, since the baseball club is Rainiers ITTL)
 
Championship

14. Chargers RFC (Play-In)
15. Boston Redskins (Play-In)
16. Green Bay RFC (Relegated)

Second Division

1. Philadelphia Federals (Promoted)
2. Cincinnati Bengals (Promoted)
3. Seattle (Play-in)
4. Los Angeles Aztecs (Play-in)

So the Play-In, essentially, is a fight for the third spot. It is guaranteed at least one of those two Championship teams gets dropped, just not which one; in some cases, both might drop if the 3 or 4 out of the 2nd Division wins the Play-In.
Ooooohh, it make sense. I thought it was 14th-I div vs 3rd-II div and 15th-I div vs 2nd-II div.
 
Blix Fix New
The Blix Fix (Swedish: Blixfixet) was the colloquial and sarcastic name for a package of economic reforms and bailout provisions launched by the liberal-conservative government of Sweden's Prime Minister, Hans Blix, in June 1990 to arrest the continued collapse of the Swedish property markets and economy during the early 1990s Swedish financial crisis. The country had been struck in 1989 by the twin headwinds of the oil crisis following the 1988 Persian Gulf conflict and, exacerbating that, the deflating of a major property bubble that had begun building in 1984 and was accelerated by the deregulatory policies of the Blix government. While unemployment had crept up gradually in 1988, starting in January of the following year the Swedish economy began to enter a severe period of deflation with hundreds of businesses closing.

Blix, in office since the 1984 elections, introduced a program which would create a state-owned entity to absorb bad bank loans and underwrite new mortgages at a higher, fixed rate (Swedish home lending had tended to previously be on one or two-year variable rate mortgages, and the spike of global interest rates in the face of the oil crisis and high early 1990s inflation devastated Swedish homeowners). However, to pay for this, Blix also pursued a program of strict austerity, placing the Swedish economy in what became known as a "doom spiral" that ended with a run on the krona in November 1990 and Blix's resignation on December 11, following massive protests in Stockholm and Gothenburg that called into question the survival of the monarchy.

The Blix Fix's name was regarded as an example of dark humor as it did little to fix the underlying structural problems of the Swedish economy, which did not regain its 1988 GDP per capita level until 1995 nor its 1987 unemployment rate until 2000. The austerity programs introduced in the budget and only partially reversed in 1991 are thought to have contributed to a 70% rise in the crime rate over the next several years and the chronic youth unemployment of the decade that the Social Democratic government elected for the first time in Swedish history in 1992 was unable to entirely solve; it is also thought to have contributed to a general decline in Sweden's standard of living for most of the 1990s and a rise in its emigration rate for the first time in fifty years, particularly and disproportionately among educated professionals.
 
Hm.. Wonder who and why was this fought.
Wonder howlarge was this in compared to each of Saddam's three wars.
This made me think about the Iran-Iraq war, but it might be like the Gulf War, though with the lack of worldwide american surveillance, the actors will be different. When does the Ottoman Empire lose the Middle East again?
It’s much more like OTL Iran-Iraq than either of the US-led wars of coalition against Saddam, and I’ll leave it at that
Hans Blix! Talk about a throwback name to a bygone era!
Lol right? I couldn’t not.

Unfortunately for Herr Blix, a man well-respected in diplomatic and scientific circles, he will be forever be associated with “HANS BRIX!!?! Oh no!”
 
it is also thought to have contributed to a general decline in Sweden's standard of living for most of the 1990s and a rise in its emigration rate for the first time in fifty years, particularly and disproportionately among educated professionals.

Why do I suddenly see a 90s surge in Swedish immigration to the Upper Midwest, clashing with the more established descendents of earlier migrations - sort of similar to what was seen in the Polish-American community at about this same time in OTL. And, for some reason, I'm REALLY liking this idea.
 
Top