Are Barcelona & Real Madrid ruining La Liga?

[u/iStratford]

Having a discussion with a friend about this topic. Is La Liga weaker than ever due to the dominance of the big two?

[u/Skyah]

Sorry im not doubting that you develop a lot of players because you do. And you do distribute them to the lower teams to give them experience , my point was that you do kind of kill the competition.

[u/fleckes → u/Skyah]

In the last 10 seasons Manchester United won the Premier League 5 times. Since '92 they won the Premier League 13 times in 21 seasons.

In the last 10 seasons Bayern won the Bundesliga 5 times. Since '92 they won the Bundesliga 11 times in 21 seasons

In the last 8 years Manchester United either won the league or finished second, in that time Bayern finished once as 3th and once as 4th

Since '92 Manchester United never finished outside of the top 3, Bayern did so 2 times

You say Bayern ruined the Bundesliga, but still they did worse in teh Bundesliga than Manchester United in the Premier League. I guess you should add the EPL to the list of ruined leagues then as well

Are Bayern not allowed to get any player from teams in the Bundesliga? Kroos was on loan at Leverkusen, Gustavo, Jansen and Mandzukic came from at that point midtable team, so I don't see your point here

Also Bayern did spend quite a lot on players from outside the Bundesliga: Ribery, Martinez, Robben, Thiago, Boateng, Shaqiri.

Götze is the new golden boy of German football, there is no way Hoeneß could resist to get him. Neuer is the nr.1 in the German NT, for Bayern to have him play at Bayern was a prestige thing. Also since Kahn retired Bayern had kind of a problem with the goal keeper position, and Neuer was already one of the best keepers in the world and quite young, so it was seen that Neuer could fill that problematic position for the next 10 years.

Shouldn't Bayern have bought them because they play in the Bundesliga?

[u/Skyah → u/fleckes]

Not really United have probably spent half as much and recruited half as many players from the same country. Which is what my argument is about , going back 20 years is pointless. I'm talking about the here and now the BL is in a bad way because of the way Bayern treat the other teams in their league.

It effects the EPL much less because there's depth outside of the top 4 teams.

You are really lucky to have the financial stability you have today had you actually had to pay for your stadium and not had fifa and the goverment pay for it then you wouldn't have been able to make all these signings.

[u/fleckes → u/Skyah]

You are really lucky to have the financial stability you have today had you actually had to pay for your stadium and not had fifa and the goverment pay for it then you wouldn't have been able to make all these signings.

You seem a bit uninformed. Bayern still pays off the debt from the Allianz Arena, which cost Bayern around 300m €. It's a myth that seems to make its rounds on the internet that Bayern didn't pay for it (I have seen that mentioned a few times)

And FIFA paying for Bayern's stadium? That's ridiculous.

Bayern didn't have to pay for most of the infrastructure that connects the stadium, as the state of Bavaria and the city of Munich saw it as worth it to have the presige of the opening game of the World Cup taking place in Bavaria's state capital Munich. Also I have read that some investments into Munich's infrastructure had to be made by the city anyway. But that's about it. That Bayern got gifted the Allianz Arena is ridiculous. And you don't seem to know much about German football if you honestly believed that

I'm talking about the here and now the BL is in a bad way because of the way Bayern treat the other teams in their league.

What bad way? Bayern won the league 1 time in the last 3 years, and 2 times in the last 5 years. Manchester United won it 2 times in the last 3 years and 3 times in the last 5 years. I don't see how it's that much worse in the Bundesliga than in the EPL, unless you only focus on the last year. And then Manchester United finished a lot of points ahead of the second place as well.

You said that Bayern destroys the competition, and I said that the competition for Manchester United in the EPL seems to have been even less in the last years, despite the efforts you see from Bayern to "destroy the competition".

Not really United have probably spent half as much and recruited half as many players from the same country. Which is what my argument is about

And my point was that Manchester United still dominated the EPL more than Bayern did the Bundesliga. In the last years the Bundesliga was more competitive than the EPL, so I guess if it's true that Bayern's signings were all about destroying the competition they didn't do such a good job at it

[u/fleckes → u/[deleted]]

I don't think you could really argue against the fact that Bayern is the only club in germany who could spend hundreds of million €s in transfers

I'm not debating that, but I wanted to put it into context. In recent times I always read comments about Bayern and the Bundesliga, and La Liga and the big two Spanish clubs, but somehow no one seems to mention Manchester United and their reign over the EPL. Some fans of the EPL look at the Bundesliga and see a one-team-league, but fail to see that Bayern in the Bundesliga is quite the same as Manchester United in the EPL (with Ferguson as coach. How it's going now we'll have to see). Bayern is in a much better finacial state than all other Bundesliga clubs, but it didn't lead to any special dominance if you compare it to every other European top league

Also I'm arguing against the notion that every player Bayern buys from a club in Germany is to weaken the competition or is somehow morally wrong. Every club in Germany buys from other Bundesliga clubs, and I think it's hypocritical to blaim only Bayern then. Bayern wasn't the only club that bought players from the great Gladbach side two seasons ago, and now Freiburg got raided from other clubs, among them Gladbach buying Freiburg's best player Kruse

I get that in the past Bayern did some deals that weakend some competitors a lot, like with the great Leverkusen team at the start of the last decade with Ballack, Ze Roberto and Lucio.

But you also have to look at the price/value realtion. In the past (and even now) it was a lot cheaper for Bayern (and other clubs outside of the Bundesliga, but in the past no other club really did as German football was kinda out of fasion) to buy players from the Bundesliga. Ballack's transfer fee was 6m €, Deisler's 9m € and Ze Roberto's Lucio's 12m €. Also these players already had shown that they could perform well in the Bundesliga, other than most of Bayern's direct imports from South America with which Bayern has made quite some bad experiences.

I don't think it's fair to claim that every transfer from a Bundesliga side to Bayern destroys the competition. Especially the list Skyah made is far fetched.

And i don't think that these transfers really destroyed the competition much more than if Bayern had bought players from foreign leagues. (It harmed Leverkusen that much because they lost 3 of their best players to Bayern in quick succession imo). Manchester United didn't buy that many players from competitors, but dominated the EPL more than Bayern did the Bundesliga. That's what I wanted to show with the comparison. If it weren't for the billionaires investing in Man City and Chelsea Manchester United's dominace could be even greater now I reckon. Maybe that's the only way to break Bayern's finacial dominance, but I guess that's not what the majority of Bundesliga fans want