Three, one, nil
A win is worth three points, a draw one, a loss nothing. Every club plays every other club twice, once at home and once away, and the club with the most points at the end of the season is champion. There are no playoffs and no final. The title is decided by the table.
When clubs finish level on points, the tiebreaker is usually goal difference: goals scored minus goals conceded across the whole season. This is why a team already winning 4-0 keeps attacking, and why a heavy defeat hurts twice.
If you follow U.S. sportThe regular season is the whole season. Imagine the team with the best record in the NBA being handed the championship in April, with no playoffs at all.
The bottom is the part to watch
Finishing last does not get you the first pick of next year's young players. It removes you from the league. The bottom two or three clubs are relegated to the division below, and the same number are promoted up to replace them.
This is the most important structural fact about European football and it has no American equivalent. It means a match between two clubs near the bottom in May can be worth tens of millions of pounds and decide whether a club survives in its current form.
If you follow U.S. sportThere is no draft, no salary cap and no tanking. A badly run club does not rebuild through the lottery; it falls out of the league and has to climb back.
The top is worth more than the trophy
Finishing in roughly the top four or five qualifies a club for the Champions League, the continental competition played midweek alongside the domestic season. For most clubs that qualification is worth more money and more prestige than winning a domestic cup.
So a club can have a season considered a success without winning anything at all, simply by finishing fourth. That sounds strange until you understand what fourth place pays for.