[talk2pool]

another fact in uefa cup england is represented by 4-7 teams whras from spain u wud generally find teams wich are 3-6 so technically a team in 4th/5th position in la liga plays a team in 7th/8th position in pl........

[abhish1]

Wow, seems like I opened a Pandora's box here . Now I would normally refrain from poking my nose on passionate topics like these and I would let everyone's opinion stand, but there are a few facts which have been, shall I say, mis-represented here, and I would like to correct them as much as possible.

Again, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion.

Originally Posted by nareshunited

The top 4 from EPL always make it to the quarter finals whereas from la liga one can only take barca and madrid seriously..villareal are good only in the group stages and valencia are going the LEEDS way..

I have never doubted the quality of the EPL top 4 in the recent years. But my point is, you cannot judge the quality of a league just by looking at the top 4, especially when so much of a difference exists between the top 4 and the rest. (Facts on this in the reply to the next person's statement)

And if you see the recent years, there have been other cases of "dominance"...Italy dominating it in 2003 (all Italian final) and Spain dominating UEFA cup (all Spanish final). But the media didn't make egotistical statements about the "dominance" of Italy or Spain in Europe. I blame the British media and Ten Sports for giving out such biased views. No doubt the current EPL Top 4 crop has been performing well in the last 2 years, but there has been a long long lean period where no English team won the Champions league.

Originally Posted by PSL

As far as somebody saying that the top 4 positions in the EPL are almost decided. I, as an Arsenal fan, can vouch for the fact that nothing could be further from the truth. The top 7 clubs are always there with a chance. Can't say the same about La Liga.

Fact check:
From the 2005 season onwards, not a single team outside the "big four" have finished in the top 4. Can you tell me the last time Manchester United or Arsenal finished outside the top 4?
Compare this with La Liga.....Where a lowly team like Valencia won it (won it, not just entered the "top 4") not so long ago, and the top 4 always shuffles....the league is so competitive that erstwhile top 4 finishers like Deportivo find it hard just to survive (get a top 17 ) in the next season.
Compare the same aspect of EPL with Bundes Liga.....do some searching and you will be surprised with the variance in the winners and the top spots (in spite of the perception of a "Bayern dominance"). By the way, this year in Bundes Liga there were 6 different league leaders, and the ultimate winner was a team that was placed 9th after the first half!

Originally Posted by PSL

The regularity with which English clubs reach the Champions League Semis, and the fact that there's been a English team in the final for the last five years in a row does say a lot about the English league.

Once again, the top 4 doesn't define the entire league.....and once again, just rewind a little....Milan were consistently in the semi final (and reached the final 3 times) for 5 seasons in a row...so by that logic does that make Milan singularly better than all EPL teams taken together?

Originally Posted by talk2pool

another fact in uefa cup england is represented by 4-7 teams whras from spain u wud generally find teams wich are 3-6 so technically a team in 4th/5th position in la liga plays a team in 7th/8th position in pl........

UEFA Champions League 2008?09 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Associations 1-3 (Spain, England and Italy) each have four teams qualify
Which means that the top 4 of Spain also qualifies for the Champions league and ranks 5-7 form the part of UEFA cup, but as is the case, rank 3 and rank 4 teams of such countries have to play a final qualifier against the champions of other countries (the likes of Ajax and Sofia in the last few years), and if they don't make it, they are not in the part of the final 32. So if you see only 3 Spanish teams in the last 32, it just means that one of the rank 3 or 4 team lost in the qualifier. Just like Everton was 4th in the EPL in the 2005-2006 season but they didn't qualify for the last 32 of the UCL 2006-2007 (lost to Villareal). So it is 5-7 of England vs 5-7 of Spain and Italy in UEFA cup. Still they don't live up to the expectations generated by the English media.
Besides, if a rank 5 Spanish team is "supposed to" beat a rank 7 English team, by your reasoning that means that the gap in the quality of top 4 in EPL is much wider than the clubs just below and this gap is much smaller in La Liga....so you will be defeating your own argument.

Finally some statistics:
European Cup and Champions League records and statistics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Spain and Italy are ahead of England by the no of wins. So does that mean that Spanish clubs are the best in the world? You decide....rather...you opine

[polpot]

Originally Posted by abhish1

I have never doubted the quality of the EPL top 4 in the recent years. But my point is, you cannot judge the quality of a league just by looking at the top 4, especially when so much of a difference exists between the top 4 and the rest.
And if you see the recent years, there have been other cases of "dominance"...Italy dominating it in 2003 (all Italian final) and Spain dominating UEFA cup (all Spanish final). But the media didn't make egotistical statements about the "dominance" of Italy or Spain in Europe. I blame the British media and Ten Sports for giving out such biased views. No doubt the current EPL Top 4 crop has been performing well in the last 2 years, but there has been a long long lean period where no English team won the Champions league.

There is a reason why English clubs could not win the European Cup.
1. English Clubs banned
2. 1994: United harboured hopes of becoming European champions but – hampered by the rule that restricted foreign players and classed non-English players from the British Isles as such – they were put firmly in their place by Romario, Stoichkov and Co.
3. Franco FC (READ: Real Madrid)- Read up on the poaching when they won those record run of European Cups.

In fact UEFA have a history of supporting La Liga and SerieA and going against English clubs. Where was Sepp Blatter when these spanish clubs and Italian Clubs had 2-3 clubs in the semis every year? Blatter wants to re introduce quotas and yet everyone was quiet in 1994.

Infact after slating Man City and English clubs after the Kaka bid in Jan, Sepp went onto support Madrid's 80 million pound bid for Ronaldo under "it shows a healthy market" pretext.

Fact check:
From the 2005 season onwards, not a single team outside the "big four" have finished in the top 4. Can you tell me the last time Manchester United or Arsenal finished outside the top 4?
Compare this with La Liga.....Where a lowly team like Valencia won it (won it, not just entered the "top 4") not so long ago, and the top 4 always shuffles....the league is so competitive that erstwhile top 4 finishers like Deportivo find it hard just to survive (get a top 17 ) in the next season.
Compare the same aspect of EPL with Bundes Liga.....do some searching and you will be surprised with the variance in the winners and the top spots (in spite of the perception of a "Bayern dominance"). By the way, this year in Bundes Liga there were 6 different league leaders, and the ultimate winner was a team that was placed 9th after the first half!

But we weren't talking about the bundesliga were we? Nor are we talking about competitveness. We're talking about which one actually has better players and quality.
FACT Check: Valencia, by no means, are a small team. Just like Deportivo struggle(in mid table and not relegation), there are clubs such as Newcastle who have actually gone down.
But in case you wanted variance on winners,
In the last 25 years the Laliga has been won 21 out of 25 times by Real or Barcelona. And apart from these 2, only Valencia, Deportivo and Athletico have won it.
Meanwhile the Premier League or The football League has been won by Leeds, Blackburn, Everton, Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal

Once again, the top 4 doesn't define the entire league.....and once again, just rewind a little....Milan were consistently in the semi final (and reached the final 3 times) for 5 seasons in a row...so by that logic does that make Milan singularly better than all EPL teams taken together?

At that moment in time, yes. Just like how, last season, no team in La Liga apart from Barca would've bothered any of the top 4.

UEFA Champions League 2008?09 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Associations 1-3 (Spain, England and Italy) each have four teams qualify
Which means that the top 4 of Spain also qualifies for the Champions league and ranks 5-7 form the part of UEFA cup, but as is the case, rank 3 and rank 4 teams of such countries have to play a final qualifier against the champions of other countries (the likes of Ajax and Sofia in the last few years), and if they don't make it, they are not in the part of the final 32. So if you see only 3 Spanish teams in the last 32, it just means that one of the rank 3 or 4 team lost in the qualifier. Just like Everton was 4th in the EPL in the 2005-2006 season but they didn't qualify for the last 32 of the UCL 2006-2007 (lost to Villareal). So it is 5-7 of England vs 5-7 of Spain and Italy in UEFA cup. Still they don't live up to the expectations generated by the English media.
Besides, if a rank 5 Spanish team is "supposed to" beat a rank 7 English team, by your reasoning that means that the gap in the quality of top 4 in EPL is much wider than the clubs just below and this gap is much smaller in La Liga....so you will be defeating your own argument.

Finally some statistics:
European Cup and Champions League records and statistics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Spain and Italy are ahead of England by the no of wins. So does that mean that Spanish clubs are the best in the world? You decide....rather...you opine

Read reason of English clubs above. Also, it is quite well known that English Clubs rarely take the UEFA Cup seriously, DUE to the competitiveness in the Premier League.
The very fact that Premier League has more monety, attracts a larger scale of better players due to better wages means that the quality is better


finally, one point on your Ten Sports Conspiracy of hyping up the PL. Infact, there is also an incredible amount on hype about the passing game played by teams in La Liga which is so technical and more football than any ne else. Which is honestly quite rubbish. Playing the long ball and with pace is equally an art.

[abhish1]

Originally Posted by polpot

But we weren't talking about the bundesliga were we? Nor are we talking about competitveness. We're talking about which one actually has better players and quality.

That's where I said everyone's opinions stand. For you a better league means better players and quality (which by the way is very hard to assess when all teams of different league can't play against each other), for me it means competitiveness throughout the league and not a boring dominance by a set of teams. I think anyone here can say with enough confidence that even the next season the EPL top 4 will remain the same. For me the EPL is actually two different leagues, one with the 4 and the other with the rest.

For me it is about the technical play more than physical play, and I have seen the differences in the different leagues (including the Brazilian league, which was aired on Star Sports a few years ago, which I found, surprisingly, very physical), which was enough to satisfy me. I have friends who believe that Serie A is the best league in the world because it is so "ruthless". I have friends who believe the pace of Bundesliga is unmatched (even by League 1). Here since we get a beautiful coverage of EPL (marketed so very well by BSkyB) and the timings of EPL suit us, we tend to be more biased towards EPL. Channels like NEO don't do justice to Serie A (even though I don't rate it so highly). The last time I got a chance to see NEO I found that the matches of big teams are not shown live! If you have seen other leagues and only then say that EPL is better, I will still trust you, but I have seen so many forums and so many people talking trash about other leagues without even knowing basics about them.

Originally Posted by polpot

Just like Deportivo struggle(in mid table and not relegation), there are clubs such as Newcastle who have actually gone down.

Deportivo was just one example I gave. Spain has had many teams, namely Celta Vigo, Real Sociedad, Mallorca, Betis, Athletic Bilbao who have reached Champions League one year but struggled the next.
Spain has had 12 teams representing them in the CL, many of whom have qualified only in recent years. Compare this with EPL, where only 7 teams have represented England, that too, the teams apart from the top 4 had qualified long long back. Once again, for me that represents a better quality league where it is possible for small teams to perform at a bigger stage.

Originally Posted by polpot

But in case you wanted variance on winners,
In the last 25 years the Laliga has been won 21 out of 25 times by Real or Barcelona. And apart from these 2, only Valencia, Deportivo and Athletico have won it.
Meanwhile the Premier League or The football League has been won by Leeds, Blackburn, Everton, Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal

So that means that both leagues don't have much room for new 'winners'. Because only 3 teams apart from the dominating team have won it in both cases. Now take a look at the top 4 results in the last few years and you will see what I mean by variance. Same thing with Serie A. You don't even need to go far back to see teams like Lazio

Originally Posted by polpot

At that moment in time, yes. Just like how, last season, no team in La Liga apart from Barca would've bothered any of the top 4.

At least we agree here

Originally Posted by polpot

The very fact that Premier League has more monety, attracts a larger scale of better players due to better wages

and here

Originally Posted by polpot

finally, one point on your Ten Sports Conspiracy of hyping up the PL.

When did I say it was a conspiracy to hype up EPL? Ten Sports s***s with their biased view, that even my ManUtd fanatic friend admits this (Ambujesh here on PG). The way they slate "Non English" oppositions before the match even begins, the way they discard other teams as trash makes them appear all the more stupid when the result goes against their "predictions". They prefer to show ManUtd vs a team which has no chance of winning against them during group stages when we have other interesting matches involving teams like Inter/Bayern/Madrid which would be much much better from a neutral's point of view.
I mean, even ESPNSTAR are favoured towards EPL (it is their bread and butter after all) but they do it cleverly. They don't give an impression that they are blatantly against any "non EPL" team. Whereas Ten Sports will predict an all English final even before the group stages begin!

Originally Posted by polpot

Infact, there is also an incredible amount on hype about the passing game played by teams in La Liga which is so technical and more football than any ne else. Which is honestly quite rubbish. Playing the long ball and with pace is equally an art.

This is your view, and I can't refute it. But just to give a perspective, even inside EPL, I have seen ManUtd and Arsenal fans bemoaning the "lack of passing game" in Chelsea and Liverpool and Chelsea fans claiming "defending is the best art"

[abhish1]

I see that quite a few people have been stirred by the opinion of a few (in minority) that EPL is not the best league. My final thoughts on this topic are as follows.

1> If you are a true football fan then make it a point to watch as many leagues as you can. Including south american football (Libertadores, Copa America etc). The passion, the difference in the style, new talents etc will make your eyes open. You might then consider EPL as the best league based on your criterions, but please don't turn a blind eye towards others, rather, don't judge something without trying it. Football is much more than just EPL. Remember that stars like Ronaldinho, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Messi, Torres, Zidane etc all came from relatively unknown places (Who follows PSG and PSV in their leagues? Who watches international matches of Algeria?)

2> Don't trust Ten Sports and the British media blindly. They are all wearing England-tinted glasses, and if you go by their words only, you will suffer from "footballing myopia" (lol, not a bad phrase to coin ).

Just like Steve Slater wants only a British Lewis Hamilton or a Jenson Button to win (don't make qualms, but I am a McLaren fan in F1), so do the British media want the world to believe that it's only English football which is the best. With the amount of hype they create over the English national team before EURO and World Cup, you should also be aware that England has not won on a big stage in 40+ years, and didn't even qualify in last EURO. But like Spain broke their jinx last year, they could also do it in near future. But then the British media will again go on and on about how England is the best team in the world etc.

So please keep an open mind. Football is about passion, and you can't really convince a Mohun Bagan fan that East Bengal is the "best club" in India and vice versa

Finally ending this topic (at least from my side), let me continue the summer transfer talks.....

Originally Posted by ande_ka_funda

But i wonder why no one mentions Forlans name in the same breath as Benzema. Surely he is right up there with the best!

A brilliant point. Even I am a huge fan of Forlan (I rate him higher than Eto'o, with no offence to Barca fans). In fact one of my status messages on a few sites recently was "Messi for FIFA player of the year, Forlan for European Golden Boot".
My hunch is that the reason for this is the flop season of Forlan at ManUtd

[polpot]

Dude, noone here is "stirred". Its just been too long since a proper semblance of a discussion. Turn back this thread a few hundred pages and you'd see what stirring, kicking and abusing is like.

[PSL]

abhish1: Well sumarized posts. Arguments such as these are not meant to have winners. Leaving both parties even more convinced about their stance and feeling sorry for the other for their apparrent incredulity. No one is 'stirred', I can assure you. As polpot rightly pointed out, you'd have to go back quite a few pages to sample some real hositility.

cheers..

[PSL]

Originally Posted by abhish1

I have never doubted the quality of the EPL top 4 in the recent years. But my point is, you cannot judge the quality of a league just by looking at the top 4, especially when so much of a difference exists between the top 4 and the rest. (Facts on this in the reply to the next person's statement)


Fact check:
From the 2005 season onwards, not a single team outside the "big four" have finished in the top 4. Can you tell me the last time Manchester United or Arsenal finished outside the top 4?
Compare this with La Liga.....Where a lowly team like Valencia won it (won it, not just entered the "top 4") not so long ago, and the top 4 always shuffles....the league is so competitive that erstwhile top 4 finishers like Deportivo find it hard just to survive (get a top 17 ) in the next season.
Compare the same aspect of EPL with Bundes Liga.....do some searching and you will be surprised with the variance in the winners and the top spots (in spite of the perception of a "Bayern dominance"). By the way, this year in Bundes Liga there were 6 different league leaders, and the ultimate winner was a team that was placed 9th after the first half!

Just a harmless observation.. But is the ' competitiveness ' of a league a valid indicator of its 'greatness' ? I mean look at the Coca Cola league. Its really competitive. Any team beats any team. Teams that were once playing in the Champions league have now even been relegated from here to 2nd division. Does this make it a great league or does it simply mean that all the teams are pretty much crap?

The put things in another perspective; if there was to be a league consisting of the top ten teams from both the EPL and the La Liga, what do you think would be the final standing at the end of the year?

Again i will ready concede that i am no savant as far as the spanish league is concerned.

Cheers as always..

[senbakar]

I somewhat agree with Abhish1.
Also i feel that a good league should reflect country's footballing potential as well. Which is so untrue in case of England. How many English nationals come from best teams in EPL(the top 4)?

Whereas in Spain, Italy, Germany best players play in the best clubs (Ofcourse if they are not playing for clubs in EPL ). In that aspect i feel the latter are far better that EPL.

[PSL]

Originally Posted by senbakar

I somewhat agree with Abhish1.
Also i feel that a good league should reflect country's footballing potential as well. Which is so untrue in case of England. How many English nationals come from best teams in EPL(the top 4)?

Doesn't the fact that the English team is comprised of player who hail from many different clubs say a lot about the level of competition. Doesnt it say a lot about the spread of quality players across the league, which I think is one of the most important indicators of a good league.

What's the use if all the quality players are concentrated between a couple of top teams. Why would I as a neutral be interested in watching any of the matches of the average clubs. The same would not be the case in the EPL now.

Not to say at any point that the English National side is any good. They're quite trite if you ask me. But then, that's another discussion altogether.

cheers..