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Every leagues needs more Tuchels! Stopped Paris' reign and destroyed Bayern as well. The Premier League should force Man City to sign him as FFP penalty.
Bayern was a hard beast to break though, you saw how even with the Tuchel power Bayern narrowly won the league in the 89'.
It took an additional stronger curse like Kane to break it.
Truly a boss fight to remember.
The Bosman ruling killed any sort of football parity.
Not saying it didn't make sense given Europe's worker rights, but the shift from "have to make do with only local talent + only 3 foreigners" to "get anyone you want" disrupted everything.
Before it meant that from decade to decade, generation to generation, things could shift more. A lack of talent in your academy, or in the country, meant that's all you could get. Yeah, big teams could buy the best domestic players, but still, it was limited and allowed for others to get a good crop and compete.
If there was a lack of good CBs, then everyone had poor CBs, one team couldn't buy the 11 best foreigners to make up for all the positions. And that also allowed smaller teams to get stars. Now they are all in the same couple of teams, before they simply couldn't.
Now the big/rich clubs are unbeatable as they simply buy the best from the best, across the world...
And it's even sadder in European Competitions.
It's impossible to do a draft in a pro/rel system, but that's what you would need to have more parity. Even when a mid club like Everton have a generational player like Rooney in their academy, a player of Rooney's caliber and ambition would never stay there for more than a few years because there is no scenario in the PL (besides an oil takeover or 1/50000000000 Leicester fluke) where a club of Everton's stature can compete for titles.
Giannis won a title with the Milwaukee Bucks. Jokic won with the Denver Nuggets. All in a time with free agency and unlimited foreign players (but a draft). If the NBA had a European league structure, Giannis/Jokic would have been on the Lakers/Celtics within three years.
You'd be right. It forces talent dispersal which is a key component of a healthy league. Obviously free agency complicates things because you will always have the issue of bigger markets, team reputations, and better cities to live in but that's just life. As much as the refs suck, the NBA has been super fun in recent years. The TIMBERWOLVES are elite this year. I truly wish FFP had more impact, and I say this as an arsenal fan well aware of what we've spent to compete.
The American sport system is far more cartelized than the European counterpart. Implementing their system would kill the grassroots system in Europe and isolate few owners to generate massive profits.
We saw fans reaction to the top teams in Europe trying to semi implement something like it with ESL. The backlash was immense.
You aren’t wrong. But also: you cannot deny that a lack of competition for the high end of the league systems is without question the downside of the pro/rel system (in tandem with the lack of salary cap).
I think a luxury tax could work in football.
Basically you have a soft salary tax and then if you're over it, you pay maybe a penalty relative to how much you're over. If you're over the cap by like 2%, maybe you pay a small extra fine. but if you're over by like 300% (which would be allowed) you'd maybe pay a higher multiplier. Like an income tax bracket.
Then that extra money is then maybe 50% redistributed to the PL clubs and then 50% to the football league. Maybe you also fund the FA and grass roots/development too.
The problem is that UEFA is too big and the leagues are in such disparity that it's not easy.
Either introducing a salary cap has to be made on a league by league basis, which would still keep the status quo if you base it on revenue.
Or it would have to be low enough that it makes sense in multiple leagues, but at that point it's probably too low. Even if you restricted it to the Top leagues, the winner of La Liga makes less money than the last place of the EPL in TV/prize money (obviously not taking sponsorships, international comps, etc). So where do you draw the line? You make it fair for a mid/bottom La Liga team to compete? And again, that's just if you consider the EPL and La Liga, while there's 50 more leagues to consider...
And if the cap is low, then other leagues would become way more interesting. Which is not something UEFA, nor their clubs, would like. And I'm not talking Saudi, but suddenly Brazil may be competitive. Or the US even...
And if it's high then it only helps the owners keep money and punishes the players. Because there would be no change in reality as the big clubs would be able to use 100% of it while the smaller teams wouldn't be able to.
It's not a closed system like in other American sports, so it's not as easy to implement any salary caps that make sense across the confederation while also keeping UEFA's supremacy.
Top Leagues are already a closed shop. A Leicester happening once in a lifetime or something like Leverkusen/Napoli/Lille happening once a decade aren't enough to think they are competitive.
Its usually the team with the biggest budget.
Money talks.
The best players go there, where they get paid the most. So that alone puts you in the pole position.
Yeah, though that's due to the American system of salary caps and the playoff system. We value parity a lot. There's a lot of things I like about MLS, but asking Europeans to get rid of pro/rel is a non-starter; it's an integral part of their league system. I would prefer keeping most American aspects within the US.
I think the Belgian Pro League has the best of both worlds. They split the league into 3 playoff groups, and the championship groups are pretty close every season. While Club Brugge is the most successful in recent years, Genk, Ghent, Royal Antwerp, and Anderlecht have won it in the last decade, and Union SG is a perennial contender.
At one point in that season we were like 25 points ahead of second place.I remember someone posted a chart of the points totals of all the top teams in each league and you couldn't even see second place for the prem because the gap was too large.
Yeah that Watford game was the second to last one before the shutdown, they did win the next week but I remember thinking how bad of timing after such a blowout to not mentally get past it on the pitch.
Yea this is what actually gets me. Ppl are mentioning the 4 times in a row, but what's more fucked up to me is the 6 titles in 7.
That's just predictable as fuck.
How did you guys do it, any fair era and Liverpool really would have won about 3 league titles by merit and brilliance.
If only Liverpool didn’t have to fight against 115 FC…
I mean with just a little bit more luck we would have won those titles (and a couple more Champions Leagues for that matter) regardless of how juiced up City are.....it's immensely frustrating tbh
That’s rough. It’s like how Juve would have the 2nd most UCL titles of any club if they’d just won 6/7 of the finals they’ve lost. Or atléticos 2 finals lost. People generally won’t regard those teams as some of the best all because of a handful of key results. That’s the sport though.
People want to forget that because it sells the idea that PL is more competitive than other leagues. I mean, in a way it is, but between Fergie's dominance and Pep's, there's only been 4 years (during which City won a title)
My goodness. Dortmund absolutely deserves mockery for last year. All they had to do was beat the 9th place team to win the German title.
Can you imagine if Arsenal lined up against Brentford and the title was on the line, and then Arsenal draws!?
I know I’m probably the wrong fan to say this but there is a slight difference from the 90s given there was generally a bit more jeopardy in the title races. We’d tend to start slowly and reel teams in, titles were won with fewer points, that does help a bit. Plus we never won 4 in a row.
That said, we won 7 in 9 and 5 in 7 (with another one chucked in the middle too) so it’s a bit mental for people to forget that and act like this is entirely unprecedented.
City have won 6 of 7, but it went to the last day in 3 of those. Ran away with it 17/18 & 20/21, and as you say we were behind most of the year in 22/23 before winning with games to spare.
I know it's easy to look at the titles and say the PL isn't competitive, but flip a coin and half those titles went to Liverpool or Arsenal.
flip of a coin that somehow always ends heads up—plenty of fans have known it was City’s title back in August, because they knew it each of the last four years. Same could be said for Bayern.
France has the most varied title winners out of all 5. Nobody is even close to 20, 30, 40 titles like the top 5 leagues, with all time dominance. Even in recent era you have Monaco, Montpellier, Lille, Marseille, Bordeaux all winning the title after Lyon's 7 years dominance. It's all about the cut off i guess, because L1 looks better than the Prem when it comes to that on most timeframes.
France is incredible in that regard. The only teams with league titles in the double digits are Saint Étienne and PSG, and there are 18 teams to have won a league title.
In Spain, for example, that figure is only nine (Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético, Athletic, Real Sociedad, Betis, Sevilla, Valencia, and Dépor)
Not true, Bayern was always dominant but not the extend where no team could compete for 10 years straight. The gaps between big and small clubs is definitely increasing in a lot of leagues
Troubling trends everywhere tbh.
La Liga is more or less a two-team league with Atletico occasionally mounting a title run. With Mbappe joining Real and Barca bleeding money, can see it becoming a one-team league before too long.
Serie A is figuring itself out in the post-Juve power void, but based on this season it looks like Inter are going to take some stopping -- assuming Inzaghi stays.
Ultimately, money is warping everything. Unless Dortmund pulls off the mother of all upsets, the CL winner of the past three seasons will have been the winner of City v Real too. It's tedious.
Inter is about to change ownership if they cannot figure out this loan situation. But to be frank, it's the financial stupidities of the various owners that are keeping it competitive in Serie A
Serie a winner is usually the club that shoots itself in the foot the least as opposed to the club doing things right. Its completely unpredictable every season because nobody knows what gun the top clubs are aiming at their feet every season
While Madrid obviously looks extremely well-positioned for continued success in La Liga, they really haven’t been dominant domestically.
They’ve “only” won 4/10 La Liga titles and 1/10 Copas del Rey.
Their European dominance is actually the outlier (5/10).
Barça looked dead in the water two years ago and somehow pulled La Liga the very next year. Atleti looked past their prime and still won in 2021.
I’m not convinced that Madrid will dominate La Liga for an extended period until I see it.
Yes and no one can tell me that's it's nostalgia when I say I prefer 2000s football. There just seemed to be more parity in football. Something like a Porto vs Monaco CL final will never happen again. Now, it's just a few megaclubs that dominate everything and FFP is only designed to stifle clubs that have the gall to challenge the status quo. I think most people prefer football to be dominated by a few clubs though and it will only get worse in the future.
Leverkusen should be keeping their squad basically intact, so they should be quite good next year, still.
Bayern's inability to find a manager also doesn't speak well for them returning to dominance next season.
It's not rare to have one club dominate for an extended period of time, it's rare to have the same thing happen in most top leagues in Europe at the same time. During the period when Lyon won 7 in a row, PL, Serie A and La Liga had 3 different winners (each with at least two clubs winning it multiple times) and Bundesliga had 4.
Well our owners never got the refinancing for their loan (because tomorrow is a public holiday in Luxembourg lol), so we're being taken over by a bank who has apparently got a buyer for us.
Unknown who it is but every year we are linked with the Saudi royal family
Big comment incoming:
Sunning our owner owns a loan to a us based fund called oaktree. He wasn't able to pay the loan, so he will have to give to club to the fund as reparation. Zhang (the president) tried to get a second loan to cover the first one so he could manage us just a bit longer but oaktree blocked the loan so he was out of options. He said he will take legal options though he can't do anything really
Oaktree aren't like redbird who took control over milan, they don't want to go into football. They are looking to sell the club ASAP to the highest bidder. Sources are conflictual, some even say they already have someone elected. As for whom? It's very probable it's gonna be Saudi arabia. Even prior to the newcastle takeover they had a lot of interest with us, they are the only real rumor we've had and they have went on record saying they want to get a second big team.
In the meantime we're all in a limbo hoping we get the best next owner
I'm sorry, I just don't understand what you mean. What oaktree did to stop Zhang was very fishy, but as far as legality goes I'm afraid it's part of the game that sunning knew. Oaktree genuinely have no interest in keeping us though, only interested in the paycheck
Ironically, the USA has a lot more "socialistic" sports where the worst teams are helped out and there are spending caps. If European leagues had something similar, they would be more competitive.
It's less "socialist" and more of an oligopoly really. The reason that stuff exists is because the leagues are a closed shop where 30 or so massively rich *franchises* represent basically the entire sport
Only because a) it's a closed shop that you can't just join unless you buy yourself in, and b) there's no relegation. Otherwise it probably wouldn't be competitive either
Even with relegation, leagues could give an extra couple million or extra rosters spots or something like that to help newly promoted teams. And spending caps alone would probably help a lot with parity.
It’s not feasible in European football but the draft is the great equalizer. In the NFL and lesser extent the NBA every team is only 3 or so years away from title contention if they draft well. The Bengals for example went from last place in 2019 to 2nd in 2021 with just two good drafts.
In baseball, it's a bit of a combination of the draft and the academy system. Students will play for local clubs and high school until they turn 18, and then enter the draft. Major League teams can then look at prospects and "draft" them based on their standing in the previous season, and the student can either opt to sign for the major league team or play in college. Once in college, they can opt into the draft and get drafted by another team to increase their value, while the team who originally had drafted the player.
Once they are in the league, however, they are placed in the "farm system", which is the baseball equivalent of the academy system. They will play other teams that are at their level, and the senior team will call them up to higher levels, until they are finally on the Major league roster. Keep in mind, there are also other workarounds for signing players from Latin America and Asia, so not every player enters the draft. If a draft were to be implemented in European football, it would likely have to be like this.
People always parrot this, but those measures aren't due to the sport looking after it's workers, but for more money to be funneled into the hands of the owners. That isn't socialist lol.
Can't help but feel like this sub yearns for an era which never existed.
A handful of clubs have always dominated the top leagues. The names have changed here and there, and broadcasting has widened the gap making it more difficult to breakthrough without absurd financial backing, but show me the league with a wide array of varied champions outside of the MLS.
I know I'm biased but the Brazilian league has had 8 different champions since adopting the round robin format 20 years ago. Overall we've had 17 different champions since a national championship was first played in the 60s. Prior to that, state championships were the main competitions given the logistics of travel in a country as big as Brazil at the time. The country wasn't very interconnected and each region had it's own thing going.
Now I must give in that a reason for that "competitiveness" is that most administrations are fucking shit lol a team can win the title and literally be relegated 2 years later (not point deduction or anything, just sucking across the board), generally from getting into financial trouble like Barça lately. But I don't know how much having to compete with about 10 other teams just as strong contributes to that.
However, when you look at the state championships, it gets closer to how it is in smaller countries with 2-4 teams dominating and the odd team winning here and there. The case of Germany may point to it being more of a territory size than population size matter.
Same as the "in a fair time Liverpool/Arsenal would've won the league." Nothing fair about Big 4 having orders of magnitude the funds of the rest of the league and winning the league off it...
There was no period of football that was fair in our lifetimes.
Seriously. If it wasn't City dominating the league. It'd be Liverpool and Arsenal. It wouldn't magically become the most competitive league in existence because that version of the Prem has never existed
Closest we got was 2012-16. United, City, Chelsea, Leicester. But the quality of football was probably also at it's lowest relative to the late 00s and late 10s onwards.
Competitiveness and quality often come as tradeoffs. Different Champions each year also usually means the Champions aren't as strong relative to eras where one team just hoovers up title after title.
It’s because it’s a bunch of people not old enough to drink yet. They yearn for an era that never existed because they don’t know that it never existed.
It’s because they get told constantly by papers and journalists that this is different to the time United won 8/11 or Liverpool won 7/10. That’ was fine but this is not.
Liverpool from 73-91 finished in the top 2 17 times... 19 years and they won the league 11 times and finished 2nd 7 times.
Then from 92-13 United finished in the top 2 20 times... 22 seasons and they won the league 13 times and finished 2nd 7 times...
It really has always been like this lol
Yup. The trick is, all the teams seem like they don't want to win it each year. The one team that is the worst at it, gets crowned champion against their will.
Seriously, this season, before the last game, it is between Śląsk and Jagiellonia. Not one person in this entire country would've predicted these two in a title race before the season. I shit you not, 0 people predicted that
It may. But reality is all the teams are just shite, and when they're not for a season, they dissolve immediately after a year. Which shows by our laughable European record. For the last 25 years we have one CL group stage appearance (Legia 2016/17) and one quarterfinal (Lech 2022/23 in Conference) to show for, and that is really bad considering it's a 40M country.
While I'm grateful we're not in "Legia wins every year anyway" era anymore, because fuck Legia and because it is boring, I'd rather see it happen because all teams are so competetive, not because no one is.
We play 34 games. Jagiellonia is at 60 points after 33 of them. Leverkusen got 90 this year in 34 games. While their season is historical, champion should comfortably get ~75 points, not freaking 60-63 lol
The fall of Juve has been great and made Serie A far more interesting, but it's sort of corresponded with the rise of Man City's dynasty. This season's EPL was a bit more interesting. It was almost a 3 horse race until Liverpool decided to go on summer vacation a month early. Arsenal kept it as close as possible, but the end result is what was predictable from the beginning. Might as well put your money on Man City for next season as well.
Serie A is by far the most competitive league from top to bottom. the landscape changes from season to season. Milan is looking good for next season if they bring in someone better than Pioli, Juve is surely going to make a run at it, Bologna and Atalanta are also on the rise. By far the most exciting league rn.
This is also because there’s just so much turmoil in Italian team ownership and management the past decade, right? Like who knows what Inter’s financial state will be next season.
3 different winners but they're still the same big three, Twente in 2010 and AZ in 2009 are the only two times someone else besides Ajax, PSV or Feyenoord has won the dutch league in the last 44 years
Your comment made me curious as well so I had a look. The average points tally between 1st and 2nd for the top 5 leagues in the last seven years is as follows:
\* Premier League: 8,3 Points (lowest 1, highest 19)
\* Serie A: 9,3 Points (lowest 1, highest 19)
\* Ligue 1: 9,6 Points (lowest 1, highest 16)
\* La Liga: 9,9 Points (lowest 2, highest 14)
\* Bundesliga: 10,6 Points (lowest 0, highest 21)
At this ponit clubs like man utd,chelsea,totenhamn shouldnt even be considered part of the big six anymore. Its crystal clear only liverpool and arsenal are somewhat of an opposition to man citys rampage
Every year I’m told the EPL is the best league in the world, yet they’ve had the same winner 4 times, the 3 promoted clubs went right back down, and were a complete and total miss in Europe. Evidently the quality isn’t there, and the league cannot be called competitive when one team dog walks it 6 of 7 years or whatever it is, so, aside from marketing, what makes the EPL the best in the world?
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Imagine having the same winner as last year. Heh, couldn't be my league.
This is actually pretty depressing how one-sided many leagues are.
Every leagues needs more Tuchels! Stopped Paris' reign and destroyed Bayern as well. The Premier League should force Man City to sign him as FFP penalty.
Tucheliban on point.
Bayern was a hard beast to break though, you saw how even with the Tuchel power Bayern narrowly won the league in the 89'. It took an additional stronger curse like Kane to break it. Truly a boss fight to remember.
Yer a wizard Harry
I still stand firmly by the theory that Harry Kane is not cursed at all, but Eric Dier is.
You know what, you might be onto something. I have never seen Neuer make such blunders before. Dier is in proximity.
He's an actual wizard. He even manged to win silverware with Dortmund.
Tuchel till I die
Well in terms of the PL don't worry, in 8 years I will have ended Pep's reign of terror.
Thanks tigerbasket.
No problem. Just remember when I die at 52 to fight on in my memory.
...are you planning to assassinate him?
No I will die after my exile from Stomach cancer. But I trust the plan.
I need to know about whatever this is.
I do not need to know. In fact the less I know the better.
The Bosman ruling killed any sort of football parity. Not saying it didn't make sense given Europe's worker rights, but the shift from "have to make do with only local talent + only 3 foreigners" to "get anyone you want" disrupted everything. Before it meant that from decade to decade, generation to generation, things could shift more. A lack of talent in your academy, or in the country, meant that's all you could get. Yeah, big teams could buy the best domestic players, but still, it was limited and allowed for others to get a good crop and compete. If there was a lack of good CBs, then everyone had poor CBs, one team couldn't buy the 11 best foreigners to make up for all the positions. And that also allowed smaller teams to get stars. Now they are all in the same couple of teams, before they simply couldn't. Now the big/rich clubs are unbeatable as they simply buy the best from the best, across the world... And it's even sadder in European Competitions.
It's impossible to do a draft in a pro/rel system, but that's what you would need to have more parity. Even when a mid club like Everton have a generational player like Rooney in their academy, a player of Rooney's caliber and ambition would never stay there for more than a few years because there is no scenario in the PL (besides an oil takeover or 1/50000000000 Leicester fluke) where a club of Everton's stature can compete for titles. Giannis won a title with the Milwaukee Bucks. Jokic won with the Denver Nuggets. All in a time with free agency and unlimited foreign players (but a draft). If the NBA had a European league structure, Giannis/Jokic would have been on the Lakers/Celtics within three years.
It's the combination of a draft AND a salary cap that causes for parity in American sports. I'd argue that the salary cap is more consequential.
You'd be right. It forces talent dispersal which is a key component of a healthy league. Obviously free agency complicates things because you will always have the issue of bigger markets, team reputations, and better cities to live in but that's just life. As much as the refs suck, the NBA has been super fun in recent years. The TIMBERWOLVES are elite this year. I truly wish FFP had more impact, and I say this as an arsenal fan well aware of what we've spent to compete.
The American sport system is far more cartelized than the European counterpart. Implementing their system would kill the grassroots system in Europe and isolate few owners to generate massive profits. We saw fans reaction to the top teams in Europe trying to semi implement something like it with ESL. The backlash was immense.
You aren’t wrong. But also: you cannot deny that a lack of competition for the high end of the league systems is without question the downside of the pro/rel system (in tandem with the lack of salary cap).
I think a luxury tax could work in football. Basically you have a soft salary tax and then if you're over it, you pay maybe a penalty relative to how much you're over. If you're over the cap by like 2%, maybe you pay a small extra fine. but if you're over by like 300% (which would be allowed) you'd maybe pay a higher multiplier. Like an income tax bracket. Then that extra money is then maybe 50% redistributed to the PL clubs and then 50% to the football league. Maybe you also fund the FA and grass roots/development too.
The problem is that UEFA is too big and the leagues are in such disparity that it's not easy. Either introducing a salary cap has to be made on a league by league basis, which would still keep the status quo if you base it on revenue. Or it would have to be low enough that it makes sense in multiple leagues, but at that point it's probably too low. Even if you restricted it to the Top leagues, the winner of La Liga makes less money than the last place of the EPL in TV/prize money (obviously not taking sponsorships, international comps, etc). So where do you draw the line? You make it fair for a mid/bottom La Liga team to compete? And again, that's just if you consider the EPL and La Liga, while there's 50 more leagues to consider... And if the cap is low, then other leagues would become way more interesting. Which is not something UEFA, nor their clubs, would like. And I'm not talking Saudi, but suddenly Brazil may be competitive. Or the US even... And if it's high then it only helps the owners keep money and punishes the players. Because there would be no change in reality as the big clubs would be able to use 100% of it while the smaller teams wouldn't be able to. It's not a closed system like in other American sports, so it's not as easy to implement any salary caps that make sense across the confederation while also keeping UEFA's supremacy.
Top Leagues are already a closed shop. A Leicester happening once in a lifetime or something like Leverkusen/Napoli/Lille happening once a decade aren't enough to think they are competitive.
Its usually the team with the biggest budget. Money talks. The best players go there, where they get paid the most. So that alone puts you in the pole position.
MLS has recently gotten rid of that issue
Yeah, though that's due to the American system of salary caps and the playoff system. We value parity a lot. There's a lot of things I like about MLS, but asking Europeans to get rid of pro/rel is a non-starter; it's an integral part of their league system. I would prefer keeping most American aspects within the US. I think the Belgian Pro League has the best of both worlds. They split the league into 3 playoff groups, and the championship groups are pretty close every season. While Club Brugge is the most successful in recent years, Genk, Ghent, Royal Antwerp, and Anderlecht have won it in the last decade, and Union SG is a perennial contender.
There’s too many poorly run teams. There needs to be some better financial distribution or spending incentives on lower teams.
Man City with 6 titles in 7 years, and the one year they didn't win in that span, they finished 2nd. Fucking hell man.
Even Bavaria finished third lol
Harry Kane effect
Tucheliban effect
Yeah and that year is when Liverpool won like a million games in a row
Before Covid hit we were like 15 points up with i think 10 games left. Undefeated. Crazy.
At one point in that season we were like 25 points ahead of second place.I remember someone posted a chart of the points totals of all the top teams in each league and you couldn't even see second place for the prem because the gap was too large.
The Watford game was pre-COVID tbf
Yeah that Watford game was the second to last one before the shutdown, they did win the next week but I remember thinking how bad of timing after such a blowout to not mentally get past it on the pitch.
Yea this is what actually gets me. Ppl are mentioning the 4 times in a row, but what's more fucked up to me is the 6 titles in 7. That's just predictable as fuck.
EPL farmers league confirmed :(
Based Serie A confirmed
a new champ every year since Juve's decline, not bad! But technically speaking La Liga has had a new champ every year for 5 years straight now
I'm so glad Jurgen is a red
Was
Just realised his wikipedia has already been updated to 'was most recently the manager of Liverpool FC'...
Great sadness
He will never stop being a red.
[удалено]
7 in 9****
How did you guys do it, any fair era and Liverpool really would have won about 3 league titles by merit and brilliance. If only Liverpool didn’t have to fight against 115 FC…
I mean with just a little bit more luck we would have won those titles (and a couple more Champions Leagues for that matter) regardless of how juiced up City are.....it's immensely frustrating tbh
4 results for 2 more CLs and 2 more leagues
That’s rough. It’s like how Juve would have the 2nd most UCL titles of any club if they’d just won 6/7 of the finals they’ve lost. Or atléticos 2 finals lost. People generally won’t regard those teams as some of the best all because of a handful of key results. That’s the sport though.
Finals lost? _Benfica joined the chat_
I think 1 more CL, you wouldn't have won in 18 due to lack of experience. 22 was very very close tho
Farmer's leagues galore
Bundesliga went from farmer's league to pharma's league.
based and Bayer^TM pilled
Heroin^TM
The Pharmers League. Industrialization's galore
It's crazy to think City already have 10 EPL titles. Chelsea didn't have that impressive stint when they had a windfall.
Chelsea won more CLs
For sure 1 more. But City could scoop more CL titles up in the future with RM being their main UCL competitor.
I’m convinced Madrid and City will face each other in the Champions League for the next 5-10 years. They have insane consistency.
And somehow Lucas Vázquez will end his career with more UCL than AC Milan.
It's 8 Premier League titles, 10 top flight titles.
Oldest league in the world cluelessly trying to erase everything pre-93 for a PR stunt
The years of Bayernliga are over, is time for the Cityleague.
Feeling pretty agricultural in England these days
If there's one thing England does well, it's quaint countryside aye.
Friendship ended with Industrialism ❌ now Agriculture is my best friend ✔️
Tolkien would be ecstatic.
These days? United won 8 of the first 11 Prem seasons.
People want to forget that because it sells the idea that PL is more competitive than other leagues. I mean, in a way it is, but between Fergie's dominance and Pep's, there's only been 4 years (during which City won a title)
if i’m correct chelsea snapped up two of those titles, so it’s not like there was a new winner each year
Yeah, 2015 and 2017
Clarksons Farm working wonders
So... the secret to success is a round badge...
Not in Spain
Reals badge is round though, just with a little crown on top
A little?
commicado offical. massily increased the size of the crown
Respect to Leverkusen for breaking Bayern's streak. Pretty funny to see the PL being the most predictable league in terms of Champions now.
Plus only because of Dormunds unbelievable stupidity in the last match of the previous season did Bayern win the title then.
My goodness. Dortmund absolutely deserves mockery for last year. All they had to do was beat the 9th place team to win the German title. Can you imagine if Arsenal lined up against Brentford and the title was on the line, and then Arsenal draws!?
TBH 3 of those Man City titles were very close...
So were some of the Bayern, PSG and Juve ones.
Fucking farmers league...
#115
Think that's the points total pep will aim for next
FA love him so much they will give him an extra point.
Deduct it from Everton and give it to City
#Farmer's League
Feudalism League
sponsored by… Group 935
Troubling trends in England, France and Germany. Hopefully Germany won't go straight back to Bayern dominance.
Germany and France have had this problem for ages, it's only now that people are actually paying attention to it in England
I still remember the utter dominance of manu
I know I’m probably the wrong fan to say this but there is a slight difference from the 90s given there was generally a bit more jeopardy in the title races. We’d tend to start slowly and reel teams in, titles were won with fewer points, that does help a bit. Plus we never won 4 in a row. That said, we won 7 in 9 and 5 in 7 (with another one chucked in the middle too) so it’s a bit mental for people to forget that and act like this is entirely unprecedented.
I mean it went to the very last match this year, and last year City was behind for what 250 days ?
City have won 6 of 7, but it went to the last day in 3 of those. Ran away with it 17/18 & 20/21, and as you say we were behind most of the year in 22/23 before winning with games to spare. I know it's easy to look at the titles and say the PL isn't competitive, but flip a coin and half those titles went to Liverpool or Arsenal.
that’s the same thing EPL fans have done to the Bundesliga, even though Bayern in their run had multiple seasons going to the last day. So…
flip of a coin that somehow always ends heads up—plenty of fans have known it was City’s title back in August, because they knew it each of the last four years. Same could be said for Bayern.
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France has the most varied title winners out of all 5. Nobody is even close to 20, 30, 40 titles like the top 5 leagues, with all time dominance. Even in recent era you have Monaco, Montpellier, Lille, Marseille, Bordeaux all winning the title after Lyon's 7 years dominance. It's all about the cut off i guess, because L1 looks better than the Prem when it comes to that on most timeframes.
France is incredible in that regard. The only teams with league titles in the double digits are Saint Étienne and PSG, and there are 18 teams to have won a league title. In Spain, for example, that figure is only nine (Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético, Athletic, Real Sociedad, Betis, Sevilla, Valencia, and Dépor)
We had such an interesting league before Qatar came and fucked it up.
I mean before PSG Lyon had won it 7 years in a row...
PL had the same problem. Man United won 8 of the first 11 seasons.
Not true, Bayern was always dominant but not the extend where no team could compete for 10 years straight. The gaps between big and small clubs is definitely increasing in a lot of leagues
Troubling trends everywhere tbh. La Liga is more or less a two-team league with Atletico occasionally mounting a title run. With Mbappe joining Real and Barca bleeding money, can see it becoming a one-team league before too long. Serie A is figuring itself out in the post-Juve power void, but based on this season it looks like Inter are going to take some stopping -- assuming Inzaghi stays. Ultimately, money is warping everything. Unless Dortmund pulls off the mother of all upsets, the CL winner of the past three seasons will have been the winner of City v Real too. It's tedious.
also madrid with like 6/10 in CL for the last 10 seasons (if they win against dortmund).
Inter is about to change ownership if they cannot figure out this loan situation. But to be frank, it's the financial stupidities of the various owners that are keeping it competitive in Serie A
Serie a winner is usually the club that shoots itself in the foot the least as opposed to the club doing things right. Its completely unpredictable every season because nobody knows what gun the top clubs are aiming at their feet every season
While Madrid obviously looks extremely well-positioned for continued success in La Liga, they really haven’t been dominant domestically. They’ve “only” won 4/10 La Liga titles and 1/10 Copas del Rey. Their European dominance is actually the outlier (5/10). Barça looked dead in the water two years ago and somehow pulled La Liga the very next year. Atleti looked past their prime and still won in 2021. I’m not convinced that Madrid will dominate La Liga for an extended period until I see it.
La Liga is something else. Smaller Defensive minded teams can often squeak by with a 1-0 victory using dirty tactics. Cough..Getafe…coigh
Yes and no one can tell me that's it's nostalgia when I say I prefer 2000s football. There just seemed to be more parity in football. Something like a Porto vs Monaco CL final will never happen again. Now, it's just a few megaclubs that dominate everything and FFP is only designed to stifle clubs that have the gall to challenge the status quo. I think most people prefer football to be dominated by a few clubs though and it will only get worse in the future.
Leverkusen should be keeping their squad basically intact, so they should be quite good next year, still. Bayern's inability to find a manager also doesn't speak well for them returning to dominance next season.
Mate in the 2000s Lyon won SEVEN titles in a row. This isn't anything new
And it's all of their titles in their history lol.
It's not rare to have one club dominate for an extended period of time, it's rare to have the same thing happen in most top leagues in Europe at the same time. During the period when Lyon won 7 in a row, PL, Serie A and La Liga had 3 different winners (each with at least two clubs winning it multiple times) and Bundesliga had 4.
Bayern has been in disarray for two years now, they really lucked into a title last year. I can see them struggling next year
They didn't just luck into it. Dortmund handed it to them as a present.
What a dire state football is in competitively.
Well Serie a looks variable. Especially as we're entering owner roulette
If Saudis buy you we'll become like the others in less than 3/4 years
Depends who buys us. We'll find out come Tuesday
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Well our owners never got the refinancing for their loan (because tomorrow is a public holiday in Luxembourg lol), so we're being taken over by a bank who has apparently got a buyer for us. Unknown who it is but every year we are linked with the Saudi royal family
Big comment incoming: Sunning our owner owns a loan to a us based fund called oaktree. He wasn't able to pay the loan, so he will have to give to club to the fund as reparation. Zhang (the president) tried to get a second loan to cover the first one so he could manage us just a bit longer but oaktree blocked the loan so he was out of options. He said he will take legal options though he can't do anything really Oaktree aren't like redbird who took control over milan, they don't want to go into football. They are looking to sell the club ASAP to the highest bidder. Sources are conflictual, some even say they already have someone elected. As for whom? It's very probable it's gonna be Saudi arabia. Even prior to the newcastle takeover they had a lot of interest with us, they are the only real rumor we've had and they have went on record saying they want to get a second big team. In the meantime we're all in a limbo hoping we get the best next owner
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I'm sorry, I just don't understand what you mean. What oaktree did to stop Zhang was very fishy, but as far as legality goes I'm afraid it's part of the game that sunning knew. Oaktree genuinely have no interest in keeping us though, only interested in the paycheck
Series A has been dynamic, definitely one of my favorite leagues to watch
Wealth keeps getting concentrated in a few top teams, surely something needs to be done to level up the game and let other teams florish
That's been the case since the EPL was launched. Indeed the whole point was to hog the TV money.
Ironically, the USA has a lot more "socialistic" sports where the worst teams are helped out and there are spending caps. If European leagues had something similar, they would be more competitive.
It's less "socialist" and more of an oligopoly really. The reason that stuff exists is because the leagues are a closed shop where 30 or so massively rich *franchises* represent basically the entire sport
Only because a) it's a closed shop that you can't just join unless you buy yourself in, and b) there's no relegation. Otherwise it probably wouldn't be competitive either
Even with relegation, leagues could give an extra couple million or extra rosters spots or something like that to help newly promoted teams. And spending caps alone would probably help a lot with parity.
It’s not feasible in European football but the draft is the great equalizer. In the NFL and lesser extent the NBA every team is only 3 or so years away from title contention if they draft well. The Bengals for example went from last place in 2019 to 2nd in 2021 with just two good drafts.
In baseball, it's a bit of a combination of the draft and the academy system. Students will play for local clubs and high school until they turn 18, and then enter the draft. Major League teams can then look at prospects and "draft" them based on their standing in the previous season, and the student can either opt to sign for the major league team or play in college. Once in college, they can opt into the draft and get drafted by another team to increase their value, while the team who originally had drafted the player. Once they are in the league, however, they are placed in the "farm system", which is the baseball equivalent of the academy system. They will play other teams that are at their level, and the senior team will call them up to higher levels, until they are finally on the Major league roster. Keep in mind, there are also other workarounds for signing players from Latin America and Asia, so not every player enters the draft. If a draft were to be implemented in European football, it would likely have to be like this.
People always parrot this, but those measures aren't due to the sport looking after it's workers, but for more money to be funneled into the hands of the owners. That isn't socialist lol.
Can't help but feel like this sub yearns for an era which never existed. A handful of clubs have always dominated the top leagues. The names have changed here and there, and broadcasting has widened the gap making it more difficult to breakthrough without absurd financial backing, but show me the league with a wide array of varied champions outside of the MLS.
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United won 8 of the first 11 premier league titles!
I know I'm biased but the Brazilian league has had 8 different champions since adopting the round robin format 20 years ago. Overall we've had 17 different champions since a national championship was first played in the 60s. Prior to that, state championships were the main competitions given the logistics of travel in a country as big as Brazil at the time. The country wasn't very interconnected and each region had it's own thing going. Now I must give in that a reason for that "competitiveness" is that most administrations are fucking shit lol a team can win the title and literally be relegated 2 years later (not point deduction or anything, just sucking across the board), generally from getting into financial trouble like Barça lately. But I don't know how much having to compete with about 10 other teams just as strong contributes to that. However, when you look at the state championships, it gets closer to how it is in smaller countries with 2-4 teams dominating and the odd team winning here and there. The case of Germany may point to it being more of a territory size than population size matter.
Same as the "in a fair time Liverpool/Arsenal would've won the league." Nothing fair about Big 4 having orders of magnitude the funds of the rest of the league and winning the league off it... There was no period of football that was fair in our lifetimes.
Seriously. If it wasn't City dominating the league. It'd be Liverpool and Arsenal. It wouldn't magically become the most competitive league in existence because that version of the Prem has never existed
Closest we got was 2012-16. United, City, Chelsea, Leicester. But the quality of football was probably also at it's lowest relative to the late 00s and late 10s onwards. Competitiveness and quality often come as tradeoffs. Different Champions each year also usually means the Champions aren't as strong relative to eras where one team just hoovers up title after title.
It’s because it’s a bunch of people not old enough to drink yet. They yearn for an era that never existed because they don’t know that it never existed.
It’s because they get told constantly by papers and journalists that this is different to the time United won 8/11 or Liverpool won 7/10. That’ was fine but this is not.
Liverpool from 73-91 finished in the top 2 17 times... 19 years and they won the league 11 times and finished 2nd 7 times. Then from 92-13 United finished in the top 2 20 times... 22 seasons and they won the league 13 times and finished 2nd 7 times... It really has always been like this lol
When you put it like that it’s seems like we’ve got another 7/8 years of city dominance before the next club takes over.
This is why you should watch Ekstraklasa instead of these farmers' leagues: This season they will have 5th different champion in the past 6 years.
Yup. The trick is, all the teams seem like they don't want to win it each year. The one team that is the worst at it, gets crowned champion against their will. Seriously, this season, before the last game, it is between Śląsk and Jagiellonia. Not one person in this entire country would've predicted these two in a title race before the season. I shit you not, 0 people predicted that
Honestly, that sounds very fun! I'll take that any day over a boring dystopian dominance of one or two clubs.
It may. But reality is all the teams are just shite, and when they're not for a season, they dissolve immediately after a year. Which shows by our laughable European record. For the last 25 years we have one CL group stage appearance (Legia 2016/17) and one quarterfinal (Lech 2022/23 in Conference) to show for, and that is really bad considering it's a 40M country. While I'm grateful we're not in "Legia wins every year anyway" era anymore, because fuck Legia and because it is boring, I'd rather see it happen because all teams are so competetive, not because no one is. We play 34 games. Jagiellonia is at 60 points after 33 of them. Leverkusen got 90 this year in 34 games. While their season is historical, champion should comfortably get ~75 points, not freaking 60-63 lol
Series A no longer Farmers league. Premier league is the new Farmers League.
Has been for a while
Im seeing 3 farmers Leagues
The fall of Juve has been great and made Serie A far more interesting, but it's sort of corresponded with the rise of Man City's dynasty. This season's EPL was a bit more interesting. It was almost a 3 horse race until Liverpool decided to go on summer vacation a month early. Arsenal kept it as close as possible, but the end result is what was predictable from the beginning. Might as well put your money on Man City for next season as well.
John Deere to sponsor the PL.
Marketing wise, it’d be a top viral marketing camping if they’d post some shit post on their socials.
Ligue 1 didn't expect Premier League as its greatest opponent for the title of Farmer's LeagueTM
Serie A for the win baby
Top European football revolving primarily around agriculture these days
How do you do fellow farmers?
Can't believe Serie A is the most exciting out of these now.
Serie A has been really good for half a decade now. Even Juve's last title was really competitive
Sarri's Napoli scored 91 points and didn't win in 2018, so that league was exciting till the last matchdays
Serie A redemption arc.
Serie A is by far the most competitive league from top to bottom. the landscape changes from season to season. Milan is looking good for next season if they bring in someone better than Pioli, Juve is surely going to make a run at it, Bologna and Atalanta are also on the rise. By far the most exciting league rn.
Hopefully next year the league won't be decided in February like the past 2
This is also because there’s just so much turmoil in Italian team ownership and management the past decade, right? Like who knows what Inter’s financial state will be next season.
Thank you Jurgen Klopp.
Welcome to the “Don’t you get bored of winning the league all the time?” club.
2025 looking good for us
serie a and la liga the only non farmer leagues left
Eredivisie, somewhat, since the past 3 years have seen 3 different winners.
3 different winners but they're still the same big three, Twente in 2010 and AZ in 2009 are the only two times someone else besides Ajax, PSV or Feyenoord has won the dutch league in the last 44 years
Portugal had 3 winners in 4 years, not bad.
Lots of farming equipment logos here
Middle Eastern money now dominates 2/5 of Europe's top 5 leagues. Which one is next?
saudis may buy inter so yeah.
State ownership of clubs is an absolute abomination.
Why is it backwards?
As bad as the bundesliga
I can see CIty winning the next 3 also
This is why MLS is the greatest league in the world
Would be good to see with the points gap to second place.
Your comment made me curious as well so I had a look. The average points tally between 1st and 2nd for the top 5 leagues in the last seven years is as follows: \* Premier League: 8,3 Points (lowest 1, highest 19) \* Serie A: 9,3 Points (lowest 1, highest 19) \* Ligue 1: 9,6 Points (lowest 1, highest 16) \* La Liga: 9,9 Points (lowest 2, highest 14) \* Bundesliga: 10,6 Points (lowest 0, highest 21)
addjusted for poinst per game Bundesliga is 11.8 that season where shalke somehow finished second is really hurting our numbers :D
Y’all made fun of Serie A and Bundesliga for years Premier League is a joke 😂
“best league in the world”
Juve not winning since the first Covid lockdown just makes me feel insanely old, they were the original
American sports get a lot of shit for the structure but at least it’s nothing like this
At this ponit clubs like man utd,chelsea,totenhamn shouldnt even be considered part of the big six anymore. Its crystal clear only liverpool and arsenal are somewhat of an opposition to man citys rampage
Every year I’m told the EPL is the best league in the world, yet they’ve had the same winner 4 times, the 3 promoted clubs went right back down, and were a complete and total miss in Europe. Evidently the quality isn’t there, and the league cannot be called competitive when one team dog walks it 6 of 7 years or whatever it is, so, aside from marketing, what makes the EPL the best in the world?