We're awesome..

i dont think the pl is uni vocally the most exciting league in the world , imean the serie a ,la liga , bundesliga all have a lot of excitement in different positions. almost all the top leagues were two horse leagues last season, so the top of the table excitement was kind of uniform. and there was great competition in all those leagues for the cl positions, relegation dog fights as well. the pl is marketed far better and hyped up well , thats what contributes it to being so popular. it doesnt necessarily mean it is the best

@Arqui

My point was more to refute the statement that Chelsea was better defensively in the CL final. A team that concedes around 20 corners and is only saved time and again by Bayern players missing the empty net point blank isn't exactly defensively solid. Kudos to Petr Cech, too, BTW, but GK heroics to bail out defense mess-ups don't speak for the defenders either.

rwo power wrote:@Arqui

My point was more to refute the statement that Chelsea was better defensively in the CL final. A team that concedes around 20 corners and is only saved time and again by Bayern players missing the empty net point blank isn't exactly defensively solid. Kudos to Petr Cech, too, BTW, but GK heroics to bail out defense mess-ups don't speak for the defenders either.

Your bound to concede corners in that Catenaccio style considering the rule of the compact defence is to prefer conceding corners rather then compromise the integrity of the back line. Conceding corners is also preferable because its easier to defend corners when more compact.

Difference was barely that high as the possession difference was 56-44% while Chelsea had only 4 less shots on target then Bayern (7-3). Obviously a team that was 6th in the EPL wouldn't try to take on the 2nd best possession team in the world, in their own game. Chelsea needed to deploy the best possible tactics and thats exactly what they did. Chelsea also had their share of open chances with Kalou on the far post and Mata unable to finish his chance.

I rather have had Bayern win but I cannot argue against Chelsea's win.

To say Bundesliga is better than the EPL is just ridiculous, Bundesliga teams don't have money to compete with EPL

And to say that Bundesliga,La Liga etc cant compete with the EPL because of the money is even more ridiculous.Money = Guaranteed success is just short sighted thinking.

Even in the present scenario there are teams doing just fine without the money with Dortmund being the prime example courtesy their well structured youth system which has produced a no.of world class talents and they are well on their way to standing amongst the best in Europe all this without much money.Schalke are on a similar path as well and you have the economic powerhouse in Bayern who have also done well on the youth front,Bundesliga is actually closing in on the PL in the Co-Efficient charts which is a great achievement from them tbh.Bundesliga is on the rise so yeah it actually really doesnt matter if the PL has more money or not as they will continue to remain competitive in my opinion.

As for La Liga,they best the PL on the club stage as well as the international stage, the best DL clubs cannot compete with the best Spanish clubs and likewise Mid-table English clubs are vastly inferior to their Spanish counterparts..Premier League on a whole is inferior to the inferior Liga as of now.Could change in the future seeing the difficult financial situation of a No.Of Spanish clubs.

cyberman wrote:Who were Chelsea lucky against?Barca created nothing v them over two legs..[/b] Bayern nothing in the final.
It was great defensive performances.
Barca in their two recent wins were luckier than Chelsea.

You didnt see the games, right? Otherwise you wouldnt be saying this kind of bs. I mean, just in the first leg barca had atleast half a dozen great goal-scoring opportunity, 2nd leg was much the same. Barca hit just the bar/post 4 times, ffs!

What Chelsea did was no way a great defensive performance. A great defensive performances was what Inter did when they won the CL..

Arquitecto wrote:

rwo power wrote:Chelsea were lucky against Bayern as Bayern got chances en masse, but just failed to convert them. If you let the opponent create chances, you don't really have a good defensive performance. Chelsea only lucked out because Robben & Co misfired.

There is nothing that great about beating this out of form Arsenal (who are barely scraping top 10) and a Manchester City who are known to flop in the Europa League and the Champions League.

There is also was nothing lucky about Chelsea winning the CL.

They pulled a valiant and intelligent counter-attacking system which dismantled Barca as the latter team simply didn't take their chances. Chelsea deserved to go through 100%

Bayern? Chelsea were without Ivanovic and their best CB John Terry. Nothing lucky about that either. Bayern didn't take their chances but so didn't Milan who failed that way to win the Serie A last year. Chelsea once again deployed a modern Catennacio system which kept their defence compact and ready to break on the counter. Chelsea in the end took their chances while Bayern didn't. Bayern also had the home advantage and couldn't even stop themselves from choking in penalties when they had the better GK and personnel. Nothing lucky about the win in any sense of the word.

Chelsea were only lucky vs Napoli imo.

I dont see how you can say that they were lucky against Napoli and not against Barca or Bayern. I mean all three outplayed Chelsea butr none of the three took their opportunity while Chelsea did. So if neither Barca nor Bayern were unlucky then Napoli wasnt either...

EPL > Bundes>>>>> Seria A>>>>>>>>>>>SPL>>>>>>>>>>>.Afghan League>>>>>>>>>>>Indian League>>>>Malta League>>>>>La Liga.

cyberman wrote:What marketing? The world wants to watch English football, you know why? We're competive, have top notch stadiums, the crowds are electric and unbelievable players.

The biggest market atm, South East Asia is completely dominated by ESPN/Star which like BSkyB is owned by Newscorp.- the largest media conglomerate in the world and unlike sports channels in Europe where you usually pay extra to watch a certain league, ESPN/Star comes with every basic cable package across the entire region. That's not marketing, it's shoving down peoples throats what you have readily available and people not having an active choice. Those who do take a slightly more active role usually associate with a player with a a shared nationality, and which league has the largest range of internationals and has a national team suffering because of it?

People were forced to watch the EPL - which coincided with English CL successes and the massive media attention Chelsea got to counter-balance the Manchester United & Arsenal band-wagoners.

There's an impression here that people actively seek out the EPL. This couldn't be further from the truth - kids interested in watching football turn on the TV, or see ads for matches on Newscorp-owned channels and of course have the EPL propaganda shoved in their faces and that sticks. The same reason why nearly every religious kid believes in religion because he is raised that way is the same as SEA kids are raised thinking EPL is undisputed #1 they weren't raised to think otherwise and when you have the likes of Shearer saying thing's like "I wouldn't swap any of their players for ours" in pre-match comments before the England-Germany game it's hard for someone to think for themselves. Champions League is even worse - there the broadcast from BSkyB is used instead of the usual ESPN/Star pundits (although this might be out of date) and we all know how insightful BSkyB's CL broadcasts are.

It's actually in Newscorp's interest to increase the money they are paying for the TV rights - it's an investment into the teams so they have extra cash to invest and stay where they are. It'd be hard to advertise a league as best in the world if its representatives are struggling in the champions league.

The "Chelsea is going to win, Chelsea is going to win" Malaysian Airlines Ad chant is still f****** stuck in my head half a decade onwards.

From my travels, Vietnam is the only country in SEA where you can walk into a bar at 9PM SEA time and not find an EPL match on the TV.

Phritz wrote:

cyberman wrote:What marketing? The world wants to watch English football, you know why? We're competive, have top notch stadiums, the crowds are electric and unbelievable players.

The biggest market atm, South East Asia is completely dominated by ESPN/Star which like BSkyB is owned by Newscorp.- the largest media conglomerate in the world and unlike sports channels in Europe where you usually pay extra to watch a certain league, ESPN/Star comes with every basic cable package. That's not marketing, it's shoving down peoples throats what you have readily available and people not having an active choice. Those who do take a slightly more active role usually associate with a player with a a shared nationality, and which league has the largest range of internationals and has a national team suffering because of it?

People were forced to watch the EPL - which coincided with English CL successes and the massive media attention Chelsea got to counter-balance the Manchester United & Arsenal band-wagoners.

There's an impression here that people actively seek out the EPL. This couldn't be further from the truth - kids interested in watching football turn on the TV, or see ads for matches on Newscorp-owned channels and of course have the EPL propaganda shoved in their faces and that sticks. The same reason why nearly every religious kid believes in religion because he is raised that way is the same as SEA kids are raised thinking EPL is undisputed #1 - It's actually in Newscorp's interest to increase the money they are paying for the TV rights - it's an investment into the teams so they have extra cash to invest and stay where they are.

The "Chelsea is going to win, Chelsea is going to win" Malaysian Airlines Ad chant is still f****** stuck in my head half a decade onwards.

THis ,only this season espn/star bought the rights of la liga again and began showing a lot of matches, otherwise it has always been all epl

cyberman wrote:Who were Chelsea lucky against? Barca created nothing v them over two legs.. Bayern nothing in the final.
It was great defensive performances.
Barca in their two recent wins were luckier than Chelsea.

I agree, Barcelona lost to Chelsea with 10mena and were up a goal.

Since when did more money = WE ARE THE BESTTT ??

Shit donkey football and shit academies are always there you know?

Adit wrote:Since when did more money = WE ARE THE BESTTT ??

Shit donkey football and shit academies are always there you know?

You seem mad today.

other leagues have more dignity than to claim "omgz our league is the best!!" whenever they see a good game. EPL has done this over and over and over until eventually countries who know less about football have become influenced by it. it's like a disease that's spread. some years the EPL is the best others it's not. people who say it's clearly the best in general are just deluded sheep and you should be embarrassed

i think this all came from the England football team. when it was made painfully obviously the England national team is a joke compared to how good English fans said it was, they then had no ground to stand on and decided to move onto "well our English league is the best!"... just embarrassing

He mad at England cos all his mates (a hand ful) all got visas but he didn't :-( true story he told me.

T

andiii wrote:other leagues have more dignity than to claim "omgz our league is the best!!" whenever they see a good game. EPL has done this over and over and over until eventually countries who know less about football have become influenced by it. it's like a disease that's spread. some years the EPL is the best others it's not. people who say it's clearly the best in general are just deluded sheep and you should be embarrassed

i think this all came from the England football team. when it was made painfully obviously the England national team is a joke compared to how good English fans said it was, they then had no ground to stand on and decided to move onto "well our English league is the best!"... just embarrassing

Other lges don't say it because they can't

Simples

Abramovich wrote:He mad at England cos all his mates (a hand ful) all got visas but he didn't :-( true story he told me.

Wow man, way to go with your stereotypes..

dont need to overthink it

there are always entertaining games, it doesnt have the crackpot inconstistency of bundesliga or the empty stadiums of serie a, nor does it have the unilateral play of la liga

it is the best league, there is balance to it & simply it has it all.