Playoffs? Who needs playoffs

The American style of sports league always culminates into some kind of playoff, knock-out system. Everybody is always working to get to one game, be it the Super Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Grand Final; or maybe a final series, like the World Series, the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup finals.

And it's all well and good. Attendance, viewership, the quality of the games is usually high (you are pitting the two best teams together). And yet I cannot stress enough how fantastic a climactic finish to a normal European league can be. Teams involved in championships play in different venues at the same time, but everyone has their ears on what happens in other stadia.

• Dutch eredivisie national championship 2006-2007: Before the day's matches AZ Alkmaar, Ajax and PSV are all level on points, but AZ has the clearly better goal differential. AZ loses unexpectedly away from small-time club Excelsior; Ajax beats Willem II 2-0, but PSV beats Vitesse 5-1, and achieves a better goal differential (50 over 49) to win the Dutch eredivisie.
  
• German Bundesliga national championship 2000-2001: Bayern Munchen held a three point advantage over Schalke 04 before the last game, and just needed a tie against Hamburg to win the Bundesliga title. Schalke however beat Unterhaching 5-2 and heard Bayern losing 0-1 to Hamburg, leaving Schalke virtual champions. There was however still stoppage time to play and a last gasp free kick gave Bayern the necessary goal to edge out a draw and win the Bundesliga.
• Spanish La Liga Primera Division 1993-1994: Deportivo La Coruna led Barcelona by two points by the final day of competition, but Barca had the better goal differential. Coruna played Valencia but couldn't score the goal that would give them the title. Barcelona beat Sevilla 5-2, and were virtual champions, until Valancia conceded a penalty kick in the last minutes of their game. Djukic took the penalty, hoping to score and give Deportivo their first title in history, but missed.