So as I sit here at 5am watching an all german CL final, I am reminded of what was previously said by many (English) football fans.. When we had Manure, Chelski, Liverpool floating around the final 4 positions and losing, we were told by all our supporters that the prem was the best league in the world. The fact that English clubs made the finals or top 4 every year proved this and the press promoted this un-reservedly...apparently!! So; with this in mind. Am I now to believe that the Bundesliga is the best in the world...even though La Liga has been the best league for years.? Because 2 German sides playing in the CL league surely means they have the best league doesn't it? Or like I argued long ago..It doesn't meant s**t. Its a cup competition and anyone can win it,,ala Wimbledon, Portsmouth, Wigan etc.. Was I actually correct in stating that the prem isn't the best league in the world & a lot of followers have been brainwashed with the sky coverage bull**it..or did I miss something Just a thought..be interesting to see if those who disagreed can put their hands up now...doubt it.. Lets see shall we? Over to you....thoughts!!
Take Bayern and Dortmund out of the Bundesliga and you're left with a very ordinary league. Spain still has more teams capable of reaching the latter stages of the Champion's League followed by the Premier League and Italy's Serie A, I'd rank the Bundesliga 4th overall...
i dont think the title really has any thing to do with the thread. not your best work mate D-. i think you need that beer with farflung
Sorry ....havin a ****e time right now and just decided to do a stan and start an argument.....! Sooper...100% right mate Farflung..when, where and you're buying !
to be fair you take about six teams out of the premiership and there are not many good teams the bottom ten teams were all awful
Wow. An aussie expat Messiah. All I need to know is whether you are in the wilderness or made it to the promised land. No the prem is not the best league in the world and anyone can win the FA Cup but all that proves is that over 90 minutes anyone has a chance and that football in this country is poisoned by money with the corrupt influence that over the length of a season only those clubs with immense financial resources realistically have any chance to win the big prizes. Hope you're not claiming credit for that profound insight as well. Anyway. Back down to earth for you. GRANERO. Now that I do remember you waxing lyrical about.
The Prem is the most exciting league in the world I would say. Bayern won their league by 25 points and Dortmund are a decent side but other than that the German sides are pretty poor.
The Premier League is definitely on the slide and has been for the last few years. From and including West Brom down this is the weakest EPL in decades with a massive lack of quality below the top six or seven. The fact that possibly the worst Manchester Utd squad in the last 5 years were able to walk it while they were outclassed in Europe (not to mention Man City's antics) shows how uncompetitive the EPL is. It can still be unpredictable which makes it exciting, but long gone are the days when it was exciting because we had the world's best playing in front of us. The german league is definitely the best I have seen live in terms of atmosphere and overall enjoyment. Cheap tickets, packed stadiums (even in the 2nd division clubs attract full houses of 40k), free transport, cheap beer and food allowed, standing sections and competitive games with very little absolute dross involved. At the other end of the spectrum Serie A is an abomination. I've seen quite a lot of games out there and all of them have been dreadful. 1/16th full stadiums (season tickets are cheap but are only usually bought by ultras and people wanting to watch the big games or derbies, so regular games are deserted) terrible football with no attacking intent, unusual late evening kick off times with a lot of stadiums difficult to get to with no effort put into public access (the new Juventus stadium is fantastic though, completely opposite to most others in the country). There is also a massive lack of talent pool in the country now with most teams too poor to buy in the big foreign players and a lack of quality of home grown talent, Italy is going through a poor run domestically of late. I would put the EPL somewhere in the middle. Atmospheres are hit and miss and ticket prices are an absolute joke which means the average fan cannot afford them. Stadiums are good though and the clubs put a lot of effort into fans enjoyment. However the overall match day experience is far from fantastic when you consider how much money is involved and the quality of action on the field. A game like Wigan v QPR or Villa v Norwich (no offense to the clubs) is no where near what you would see from similarly placed teams in the German 1st or even upper German 2nd in terms of absolute quality and enjoyment. These things do ebb and flow though but the FA really do need to have a look at English football quite urgently though as the slump in the last few years (which had coincided with the bigger clubs getting richer and 'mega owners' coming in) has been quite alarming and almost crept up on the league.I think next season if Mourinho goes back to chelsea then you will see them in at least the semi finals of the UCL, but i dont in visage manchester Utd or Arsenal doing anything of significance and Man City will be an unknown quantity again but will be in pot 4 for the group draw so face a difficult task from day 1.
In my opinion, leagues can be like developing countries; there can be a huge gap between the rich and the poor. There are many leagues where we can see extremely high quality at the top and much lower quality at the bottom. You can have a look to see which leagues this would apply to. Our top league has a bit less of a gap in quality from top to bottom, in my opinion. Which doesn't mean that our top is better than other league's top teams. One thing I feel confident of is that our professional football is of a higher quality than the others because our second league, the Championship, is surely better than anyone elses second league. What are your opinions on that? So, I still feel that England is at least one of the best countries for football in the World, seeing as the quality doesn't diminish so quickly the further you trace your finger down the leagues. But whether or not our top teams can compete with the rest of the World is another question. Which raises another point: Have these huge European cups created a kind of European elite which has in turn created an imbalance within the domestic leagues? Oh, and one more point: Any of the top teams in any league have a plethora of foreign players. Can we really praise a domestic league for simply having the money and image to attract the World's best? What makes a league 'good' or 'bad?' ONE FINAL POINT: Sometimes lower league football can be damn exciting, even with the absence of high skill level.
I think the bottom line is the 'quality' of a league is really down to it's competetiveness. Many European Leagues have a huge imbalance between top, middle and bottom, the Premier League is no different in that score. Go back to the 70s and the old Division One was really a competetive league with any one of 8-10 teams in with a chance, Forest, Derby, Ipswich, Villa, even little old QPR all mounted serious challenges for the title and some succeeded. Clough's wins with Derby and Forest from the depths of the 2nd Division, without multi millions, will never be repeated and the game is a lot poorer for that...
