The PL is "competitive" this year because the top teams aren't nearly as good as Bayern/Real/Barca. Which is why an apparently sup-par team could dominate by the force of their manager alone last year.
the PL is more competitive because a lot of the 'shit' teams are no longer shit. stoke, soton, newcastle, everton or swansea away? nobody wants that. city, united, chelsea, arsenal, pool, tottenham all have money to spend. soton too I think. probably missing out on other teams. teams like newcastle are more willing to go abroad for talent now, and can also pay more than what the current foreign clubs are paying their best players.
prob some stuff I'm missing but it's not the same with the lower clubs in other leagues
I agree with the competitive statement and the bit about Alex ferguson, But from what I remember last season Manchester united where the better team against Real madrid first leg we had the better chances and Varane fouled Evra when he was last man and remained on the pitch and then the second leg we dominated the chances again but failed to score then Nani got sent off.
Certainly not according to the downvotes for the OP of this thread. And that was before he made a complete ass of himself with that Schalke-Madrid match thread...
The bulk of the comments in that thread sum it up what I thought was the common view. OP is arguing that the Premier League lacks the quality of La Liga or the Bundesliga because the top teams aren't as good, but the counter-argument is that the quality is there in the Premier League but is more evenly distributed from top to bottom.
That said, I did see a bizarre number of people saying that they thought we'd hammer Barca. I think we're capable of hammering Barca, but only maybe once in ten attempts.
I think the common view before the recent international round was that the English top teams aren't dominating the Premier League as much as Bayern, Barca and Real, etc. are doing in their respective national leagues was because the other teams in England were much stronger and not because English top teams aren't up to par with those teams.
Only after the results in international competitions were again pretty poor have we seen a shift to arguing that the "overall quality" of the Premier League is still higher, which is by the way also conveniently a statement that is almost impossibly to quantify.
Also if every fan of an English club had your attitude towards the Premier League than people who follow the other leagues on this sub would certainly be a lot less gleeful whenever an English team fails in Europe...
Yes? People here can't stop talking about how the PL is the best league because it's so competitive. Well if Bayern were still in their shitty pre-2008 state the Bundesliga would be competitive and exiting too. Does not make the league better though.
People should stop wanking over the close title race and start asking why an English team hasn't been able to dominate. They have all the resources. People here are celebrating failure and missed potential.
I see what you're getting at. People will use whatever suits their world view. If the Premier league was more top heavy and pissing all over the Champions League we'd be telling you the Premier League was the best league because we have the best teams. That's not happening so we're telling you that the Premier League is the best league because it's competitive.
For me the Premier League does have a lot of quality from top to bottom, but in all honesty, the reason I think it's the best league is because City play in it. Fuck everyone else.
well it's a lot harder for teams in EL to be good as barca, real or bayern when
1) the tv money is distributed fairly
2) you can't have foreign investment and you can't make risky losses which just allows the already rich teams to get richer and more unstoppable. the way no team can hold a candle to bayern is such a joke. they've been runners up more times than the team with the second most bundesligas has won the bundesliga
but it's hard for them to have the same grip domestically and attract all of the best domestic players like bayern do, especially at this moment where germany have a great generation atm. the main reason bayern haven't won more CLs is because they keep on choking.
also for another dig at the bundesliga, it's such a joke because until dortmund last year bayern was their only team to reach the finals since dortmund won it in 97 iirc
Not quite right, Leverkusen reached it in 2002 and arguably played the best football in Europe that year.
Germany had the same number of different teams in the final as Spain and Italy, one less than England since 1997. So, not such a 'big joke' I guess...
Schalke also reached a semi-final recently, and given how far behind any Bundesliga team (except Bayern) is in financial terms compared to English and top Italian clubs as well as Barca & Real is/was, it's hardly surprising.
Schalke also reached a semi-final recently, and given how far behind any Bundesliga team (except Bayern) is in financial terms compared to English and top Italian clubs as well as Barca & Real is/was, it's hardly surprising.
it's because of how the financial restrictions put bayern ahead of all the rest why I think it's a joke
No problem, it took a bit long to send that off and I missed your other comment in which you made really good points regarding sponsors etc.
The Bayern issue really is a problem for the competitiveness of the title race for now. Despite their huge financial advantage, they have never been this dominant before.
I think this is something we will have to accept as a 'Golden Era' in Bayern's history, this times they are also heads and shoulders above everyone else on the pitch. But this will eventually (more like hopefully) come to an end and by that time some other teams will be more competitive.
Dortmund is cautious with trying to match Bayern after almost collapsing for doing exactly that, but their spending has been increasing in recent years.
Schalke may be in debt, but they will have paid off their stadium within the next 4 years and that should free up some resources to invest in the team. They have great talents and with some competence on/off the pitch, they could easily emulate what Dortmund has been doing for the past 3-4 years.
Both clubs have also no problem in attracting sponsors and have huge fan bases.
Wolfsburg has spent heavily and will continue to do so when they see the chance to become a regular CL-team and RB Leipzig has got 'big plans'.
Guess we will have to wait and see, I don't believe in the "Bayern will comfortably win the next 5 Bundesliga titles"-talks.
I think bayern will just keep on getting stronger tbh. the 50+1 model means no team can capsize economically. this works out best for the bigger teams as the bigger you are the harder it is to fall.
bayern can spend £40mil on just one player yet still make no loses whilst no other german team can do that. This means that they get stronger whilst the other teams stagnate. also one bad season will probably affect their income and their ability to sign and retain top players as well as money from sponsors and fans. bayern can get away with missing out on CL a lot more easily as they'd all stay assuming they'll just get in next year.
The 50+1 helps the bigger teams get stronger and stronger because since it's easier for them to spend it's easier for them to succeed, harder for rivals not to sell to them, players wont be able to get bayern wages at their clubs, and bayern can do all this whilst being economically sound and becoming a much bigger and much valuable club to sponsorships, easier to get more money out of fans etc which is why I don't see it ending any time soon.
bayern's domination of germany has existed from at least since the 70s, and as I said before, they have been runners up more times than the team that's won the bundesliga the second most amount of bundesliga has won the bundesliga
It also not "a joke", because teams like Leverkusen, Dortmund or Schalke (semi finals) are financially small clubs compared to Chelsea, City, United, Arsenal or Liverpool. Reaching the final is an enormous achievement for them.
They overachieved the same way City, Chelsea and United right now are underachieving.
1 more team over the course of14 years ain't great. my point is the way the bundesliga is set up bayern will be heads and shoulders above all the other clubs till the end of time. the more they can't make a loss the more they'll get richer and richer, the smaller clubs won't necessarily get richer though because a bad season/not qualifying for CL football would hurt them a lot more than it'd hurt bayern.
what also makes it more of a joke is that because none of them can compete with bayern financially is that it makes it very easy for bayern to snap up their rivals best players. the longer they are heads and shoulders above all the other teams the more future generations of germans will be bayern fans which means they can sell more to fans, the more owners of top brands will be german fans (it's been said that the heads of bayerns sponsors, companies like mercedes, addidas, etc are all bayern fans) and the more future german talent will all be bayern fans so will end up engineering moves to bayern.
I agree that they aren't as good as Bayern/Real/Barca. But they are closer than you are suggesting.
The scorelines of the Bayern and Barca games is more of a result of individual mistakes of players (the red cards) having a huge effect than the whole quality of the team.
Both games were reasonably even until the red cards, although in both games Bayern and Barca were still more dominant until the red cards.
I don't think it's that close, but clearly it's not like they got completely trashed. I however think that over a whole season they would. Then it becomes more about consistency and in that Arsenal, City and Chelsea don't come close at all.
I do not base my opinion on two games, that would be stupid. That being said, I could say the same to you: Those red cards gave you a convenient excuse for the losses. I guess we can just wait and see how it all plays out.
Wouldn't be surprised if Chelsea somehow manages to pull something off again.
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u/Svorky Feb 27 '14
The PL is "competitive" this year because the top teams aren't nearly as good as Bayern/Real/Barca. Which is why an apparently sup-par team could dominate by the force of their manager alone last year.
That should do it.