re: Champions League 10/24

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I disagree.

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Fair enough. I don't think the mid to lower table teams in La Liga, Serie A or the Bundesliga offers much competition to the top 3 or 4 teams.

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2 years ago Borussia Dortmund barely survived relegation

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Don't you mean Gladbach?

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2 years ago Borussia Dortmund barely survived relegation. Last year they finished 4th and had the German player of the year leading them.

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OK. I don't really see the relevance.

Newcastle was relegated and spent 2009-10 in the second tier. Last year they finished top 5.

That's not really relevant to my premise either though.

Umm. I really don't see how you can argue with the Bundesliga being more competitive.

Since 03 5 different clubs have won the league.

since 03 3 different clubs have won the EPL.

Since 2002, Bundesliga winners:

Bayern Munich
Borussia Dortmund
Werder Bremen
VFB Stuttgart
VFL Wolfsburg

Since 2002, EPL winners:

Manchester United
Chelsea
Arsenal
Manchester City


We can also look at runners up and 3rd place finishers since that time too.

Bundesliga, since 2002:

Bayern Munich
Bayer Leverkusen
Stuttgart
Schalke 04
Werder Bremen
Hamburg

EPL, since 2002:

Liverpool
Arsenal
Manchester United
Chelsea
Newcastle



The EPL has been mostly dominated by Manchester United and Chelsea for the better part of the last 10 years. Arsenal won in 2002 and Man City won in 2012. Other than that, it's been all Man Utd and Chelsea and Chelsea looks poised to win it again.


Bayern Munich is dominating the Bundesliga this year, but look who's in 2nd place of the table: Eintracht Frankfurt, with Schalke in 3rd.


I just don't see how you can argue that there's not more parity in the Bundesliga.

If you're looking for parity, turn to MLS.

*ducks*

I also don't think there's a big gap between the EPL and any of the other top leagues. Man City is tied for 2nd in the EPL and they just got embarrassed by the 2nd place team in the Dutch Eredivisie and were dominated by the 4th place team in the Bundesliga but got a lucky penalty at the end of the game.


Plus Schalke just went into the Emirates and walked away with a 2-0 win.

I think the problem that people have is that we buy into the English telling us that their league is the only one that matters (not really talking about you here, just making an observation). Warren Barton almost cried on set after Ajax beat Man City. There is good soccer played all over the world, the thing that makes the EPL slightly better is that they have more squad depth on individual teams.

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I think the problem that people have is that we buy into the English telling us that their league is the only one that matters

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Yeah and it's perhaps less the ungrounded arrogance of many English commentators, per se, but the way that discourse has taken hold in the US that irks. Of course, this has a lot to do with FOX's huge investment and desire to paint the EPL as the end all be all league. English commentators and press have, for as long as I can recall, been way over board with their biases. I've usually found it merely humorous until recently discovering soccer bars in NY full of new American fans that will go out of their way to tell a group people watching Roma v Inter that they only watch EPL because the other leagues are shite.

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I also don't think there's a big gap between the EPL and any of the other top leagues. . .
the thing that makes the EPL slightly better is that they have more squad depth on individual teams.

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This is pretty much how I see it. The EPL's strength is that they've had recently had 4-5 clubs that can spend what's necessary to build the massive depth of talent necessary to compete in Europe while also maintaining table positions domestically. Over the past decade or so, only Bayern, Real, Barca, Juve, Milan and Inter have really had these kind of deep rosters with any consistency, with the three Italian giants recently falling behind at times.

However, that squad depth--combined with the press that EPL transfers get compared to some pretty comparable talent that's moving elsewhere-- often leads to an assumption that the best 11 of the EPL's top sides are that much better than clubs in the upper half of other leagues.

It takes actually seeing an European matchup featuring a Shaktar, Napoli, Athletic Bilbao, Porto, Shalke etc for some people to be "shocked" that those teams may field players just as good.


I'd also prefer Roma's path to qualifying for the CL to be paved with lower table teams filled with English players than Italian, Spanish or German ones (not to mention the tons of South Americans in Serie A and La Liga).

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I'd rather watch ManUre play the 16th place EPL team than Real Madrid play the 16th place La Liga team.

I'd also rather watch 2 mid table EPL teams than 2 mid table Serie A teams.

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It helps that you will understand what is written and said in every aspect of the EPL game. It's tough to get into a match where the only thing you can understand is the Enlgish announcer.

I think personally I'd go something like

LSU > USA > Arsenal/Saints > EPL game > good La Liga/Bundesliga game > Ranked CFB game > NFL game