EPL, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A would be my order at this point. But it's very fluid. For a long time, the Bundesliga was very distant fourth. In the 1990s, you could easily say Serie A was the best league. Parma, Lazio, Roma, Juve, Inter, and AC Milan were all very competitive, and Fiorentina had some strong squads as well. The Juventus scandal of 2006 has definitely had a huge negative impact on the league. Also, they have had the least foreign ownership of the major leagues outside of Germany, so we haven't seen teams rise out from nowhere. Additionally, Parma and Fiorentina were badly managed, and I believe Parma, Fiorentina, and Lazio executives all ended up in jail. WM72 might know more than me about this.

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Second, are the two giant Spanish clubs THAT much more prestigious than any other? They seem to get to cherry pick just about anyone and even seem to be a step above the big English teams. The only exception seems to maybe be Bayern.

They have a ton of history and ton of money. However, Man City and Chelsea can cherry pick just as much when it comes to who they want.

Paris St Germain is also full of cash, but since they are in the French league, they have to pay more to bring stars over since they get so much less global exposure.

I would say Liverpool, Man U, Bayern Munich, and definitely Arsenal spend less money than those teams.

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st, have any teams recently risen from the ranks of being smaller clubs to "big clubs"? They were talking about PSG having more money during the match yesterday and I was wondering if it was common. It seems like there seems to be a pretty substantial ceiling for most clubs unless deep pockets them over. How often does this happen or has it been the same players for years?

All of the teams I am about to mention were at least mid-tier clubs. THey didn't go from being minnows to giants, but they definitely didn't have this kind of clout a few years ago.

Chelsea is probably the most well-known example, with Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich taking over in 2003. Man City and PSG are both owned by wealthy Arabs (from Abu Dhabi and Qatar, respectively), but that has only been the case for a few years. Some teams have completely flamed out with their new owners, either because they lost interest or they weren't that wealthy to begin with.

Malaga had an Arab owner and they were almost bankrupted. I think Hearts had a guy from Lithuania and Portsmouth had a French-Russian guy.

Monaco is the new one. They've been owned by a Russian billionaire for 2 years, and they are really going places. Lots of big bids and potential.

For the most part, the American owners haven't been nearly that extravagant, but there haven't been massive flameouts, either.