re: Rank the top 10 football leagues in the world

My point is until the MLS can get more than over the hill former Euro stars to come and play the league will remain average. Unless like yall were saying about the academies ability to nurture and produce more and better talent.

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Well, arguing any point about MLS with you is useless. I'm done.

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If your points were more substantive than simply saying MLS teams are somehow more competitive than random teams in random leagues with no basis for comparison, perhaps the discussion would be more fruitful for you. There are too many factors to consider when discussing competitiveness, like tactics, form, and style. There's absolutely no way I could say a team from the MLS is better than a team from Japan (or vice versa) definitively because these teams don't exist in vacuums. Yet the overall strength of the league is determined, in general, by the quality of the players that league produces, or the quality of players brought into the league. The J-League has seemingly won the former, while the MLS has the edge in the latter.

Saying America hasn't produced players on par with Japan in the last 5 years isn't a slight on the MLS, since again, youth development doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Is it too late to change my vote to tiers?

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With that said, what would your list look like?

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Depending on the year, it would be the EPL/La Liga/Serie A/Bundesliga in some order.

Then the French/Russian/Portuguese/Ukrainian/Dutch leagues.

Then the Belgian/Swiss/Croatia/Greek/Turkish leagues. At this point, you are only talking about good teams in poor leagues. You would have random good teams from all over Europe that would push their leagues into this tier.

I'd have to include the Mexican/Argentinian/Brazilian leagues in their own tier, as they are the best in the Western Hemisphere, but tactically they are behind Western Europe. MLS will eventually be on par with these leagues, but it needs to do a better job with youth development.

The J-League and K-League are the best in Asia, with perhaps Iran behind them. The Egyptian League is regarded as the best in Africa, though Africa seems to be a continent of good teams and poor leagues.

What about the SA Premiership in Africa? The Chiefs and the Pirates have put out a few EPL players in years past. How far behind are they from Egypt?

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My point is until the MLS can get more than over the hill former Euro stars to come and play the league will remain average.

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That's a horrible point. A vast majority of the over-the-hill players brought in to MLS have struggled to cope with the speed and physicality of the league. It took Henry and Beckham multiple seasons to adjust to the rigors of the league, despite both of them arriving directly from a top European league. Denilson, Freddie Ljungberg, Kris Boyd, amongst many others failed to adjust to the physicality of the league.

The league is far better because of the emergence of quality domestic and international players, who aren't quite good enough to make it to their respective national teams. Players with starring roles for their MLS clubs like Chris Wondolowski, Brad Davis and Steven Lenhart would have double digit caps for the national team just six years ago. Fredy Montero is a supremely talented player, yet has struggled to get a shot at featuring for a average-until-last-week Colombian national team.

Look at Freddy Adu's return to MLS. Seven years ago he was one of the best players in the league, now he's not even good enough to start for one of the league's worst teams.


As for the J-League, I hear so much about their talent production, but I can only recall a few decent Japanese players who play for major European teams (Kagawa, Nagatomo, Miyachi...) and a bunch of Bundesliga players. I'm probably missing quite a few, but I wouldn't say the league is that much better at producing talent than MLS.

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For a while there I thought you were saying that the J-League or the Croatian League was better.

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Definitely not.

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t I think that established players are better for a league's prestige than young guys that they put out for the big leagues. I was leaning toward players that have already proven to be quality in the big leagues over the guys that may eventually get to that level.

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A league that produces a player that can make it in a more prestigious league will have a higher chance to attract foreign talent to replace that departed player and a higher chance to replace that player from within the league. The departing player requires a fee which can be reinvested into the club.

We know the MLS is clearly a richer league than most leagues in the world, which makes it able to attract foreign talent, but few players would choose to go to America (or Japan for that matter) in their prime. At the same time, the MLS has aspirations to be a top league, hence it keeps players in the league longer than they should. It's a conundrum, which is compounded by the fact that there are a handful of American players who could help the league, but choose to go abroad and try out for European teams, instead of establishing themselves in the MLS first.

I honestly think the period from 2008-2011 was a missed opportunity for the MLS because exchange rates were so good (for European clubs) that American players were bargains to buy. It would have been a great opportunity for the league to sell players, and reinvest that money into either youth or other players. At the same time, the jump in quality from 2008 to 2012 has been stark, with teams developing styles and advancing on a tactical level. So perhaps the goals of MLS are different from the goals of other countries with similar national pedigrees, which is why the MLS does what it does.

The previous point was that over-the-hill players Euro players will make MLS better. I said that many of those players failed because they couldn't adjust to the physicality and speed of the league. MLS refs are also notoriously lenient towards hard tackles. They weren't just brought in to sell tickets. Freddie Ljungberg was signed to help Seattle win an MLS Cup. His brand name meant little.

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As for the J-League, I hear so much about their talent production, but I can only recall a few decent Japanese players who play for major European teams (Kagawa, Nagatomo, Miyachi...) and a bunch of Bundesliga players. I'm probably missing quite a few, but I wouldn't say the league is that much better at producing talent than MLS.

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Kagawa, Honda, Nagatomo, Miyachi, Usami play for better (read prestigious) teams than any American, save Dempsey and Bradley. That's not to say that we can't have more players on top teams in top leagues, but for the moment we don't.

Then you have players like Uchida for Schalke, Sakai and Okazaki for Stuttgart, and Makato Hasebe for Wolfsburg, who are all more or less established in the Bundesliga. Then you have players like Takashi Inui and Hiroshi Kiyotake who could have breakout seasons in the Bundesliga.

All this is related to Japan's 100 year plan, which was hatched in 1992, where the country's FA stated that they wanted 100 professional clubs by 2092. The emphasis was on development, and Japan will reap the benefits of that in the international game. Nearly all those players mentioned were groomed in Japan. All signs point to it being Japan's golden generation, which isn't a slight on the MLS. At the same time, a league started in 1993 has been able to produce starters or extremely promising players for some of the top teams in Europe. Japan has a third of our population, hardly any of our athletic proclivities (in terms of size) and started their league three years before us. I'd say that they are doing something we should be looking at closely, at the very least.

Not that it's that important but Usami is no longer with bayern. He's with Hoffenheim (which is terrible).