Both players finished last season with an astonishing 53 goals in all competitions and so far this season their stats already read: Ronaldo - 2 games 1 goal Messi - 3 games 4 goals I haven't ever seen such prolific scoring and I will watch intently this season to see if they can each top the 60 goal mark. By the way, I am not trying to turn this into yet another Ronaldo vs Messi debate, both are fantastic players, though it does highlight just how poor La Liga is currently.
If barcalona or real madrid were playing in the EPL i still think they'd come very close to 50 goals. that would prove the EPL is really poor.
The top teams In England have outperformed their Spanish rivals (with the exception of Barcelona) for the past few years. The quality outside of the top 2 in Spain is appalling. Ronaldo scored 40 goals in 34 La Liga matches last season. In his best season in the Premiership he managed 31 goals in 34 games. Real Madrid walk all over everyone in Spain bar Barcelona yet they have failed to perform in Europe for years.
And how many Real players are in the Spanish first XI? Casillas, Ramos? Any more? I think they'd both find it harder to score that quantity of goals in the league alone. But it depends on how they're used as well but there is so many different factors. I say just admire their respective abilities.
Barcelona are dominating Club football, Spain are dominating international football and who do most of the Spanish team play for? Barcelona.
I don't disagree. But you can hardly say the premier league is as far ahead as it was a few years ago. Last season was embarrassing and La Liga surpassed us by a mile in terms of quality.
How exactly did La Liga surpass the Premiership last season? The only Spanish team who surpassed the English sides were Barcelona. Arsenal went out to Barcelona, Man Utd lost to Barcelona while Chelsea and Man Utd met in the quarter finals so one English team had to miss out. What did the other Spanish teams do? Real Madrid managed to reach the Semi Final's for the first time in 7 years after beating a Spurs side with zero experience at that level and who had to play with 10 men for 80 minutes in Spain, while Valencia and Vilareal went out of the Champions League early on with a wimper after completely uninspiring performances.
I know you have an issue with Spanish football for some reason Berb. All i think is that the EPL was terrible last year, and although La Liga wasn't amazing, quality wise it pissed all over the EPL. And bringing up the CL is a poor argument considering a Spanish team won it
What Spanish team would that be? Oh yeah it's Barcelona again. Just because Barcelona beat everyone doesn't mean that La liga as a whole is better, hence the poor performances of all of the other Spanish sides in the Champions League. The gap between the top 2 and the rest in La Liga is ridiculous. A Real Madrid side who have managed just one Champions League Semi Final in 7 years walk over the rest of La Liga. There were 21 points between Real Madrid in second and Valenica in 3rd. Barcelona's C team won away at the 9th best team in La Liga last season for ****s sake.
Like I said I don't disagree. But the state of the premiership last season doesn't really offer a good argument in our favour. I would like to know what you have against Spanish football? I have seen numerous post by you slating La Liga - have you got deep seeded Spanish issues Berb?
What is quality? To most people it's pretty football, but it shouldn't be. Quality should be the best football, i.e the most effective. Barcelona play effective football. It just happens to be beautiful. I'd say the way we play football is beautiful as well, just (nearly) as effective as Barcelona's. But the way Stoke play is also effective, it's substance over aesthetics. For me anyway, I'd rather see a game that is direct and played at a high tempo rather than a generic La Liga game. That's why I've got no real urge to watch La Liga. I don't have many urges to watch Arsenal either, I watched Scunthorpe against Newcastle last night and it was very entertaining. The football played wasn't exactly Barcelona-esque but it was entertaining.
All im trying to say is the quality of the premier league was very poor last season, in comparison to other years. I could find numerous stats to back that up - but i can't arsed as im not one of these stats guys!
I'd agree with you in the fact that it seemed like most teams hardly hit top gear. But it depends on what you want, I know we won the league last year but plenty of teams beat each other and for entertainment value I'd say the Premier League is better. If you do what I said and equate quality to effectiveness, the best measure would surely be when teams of similar rank (for want of another word) against each other. Obviously us against Barcelona in the last 3 years would be the benchmark and you'd have to say that Barcelona are better than us (I'm going to argue that it isn't as much as some people make out but that's for another day). But what other matches have there been? Spurs and Real Madrid? Athletico vs Fulham?
If the top teams in the Premiership beat all of the "lesser" sides the league gets slated for being uncompetitive. If the top teams in the Premiership all drop points against the "lesser" sides the league gets slated for being of poor quality. La Liga lacks competitiveness at the moment, Barcelona and Real Madrid will again finish 20-30 points ahead of the rest, while in the Premiership there are 2/3 teams chasing for the title and 6 sides who could finish in the top 4.
The PL was pretty poor last year, but barring Barca, and to a lesser extent Real, La Liga was worse. In Europe last season: Barcelona were far and away the best side, way ahead of Utd or anyone else. Real Madrid got a 3-1 aggregate result against Barca, same as Utd. They did better than Chelsea, but not by a huge amount. Valencia went out to Schalke 04. Yes, the same Schalke who could barely string two passes together against Utd. They did worse than Arsenal in relative terms. Villareal made it to the semis of the Europa League. But still behind Spurs imo, who made it to the CL quarters. Sevilla didn't even qualify for the group stage of the CL and went out in the first EL knockout round, behind both City and Liverpool Getafe didn't even get out of their Europa League group, so again way behind City and Liverpool Atletico didn't even get out of their Europa League group. Better than Villa, but not by much So last season, Barcelona were way ahead of anyone else. Real Madrid were ahead of any PL team apart from Utd. But every other La Liga side was worse, and often a lot worse, than their corresponding PL side. And that was in a season where the top six or seven PL sides were all said to have performed very poorly.
I think Swarbs, has summed things up perfectly, whilst Barcelona are the best side in world football, the rest of La Liga isnt that strong. Sides like Valencia, Villareal, Atletico Madrid the 3rd, 4th and 5th best sides in Spain, are no where near as strong as the likes of Man City, Arsenal and Spurs. I'd also say Liverpool are better than any of those aswell. It seems to be that most Liverpool supporters like to run down the PL, by rating La Liga above it, and I can't help but thinking it has something to do with the fact Liverpool have never won the PL
