and to think 12 months ago Italian fans were crying how its criminal Germany "STOLE" their 4th spot.

now France, the amazing league everyone on GL it is, is 6th, and Benfica can take Italy soon-ish too.








brb, shedding a tear for France and Italy. I can totally see Napeloen and Mussulini singing co-ed:

I had a dream my league would be
So different from this hell I'm watching
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

inb4 weak lineups

Doesn't reflect the strength of any teams of leagues.

Benfica and Porto for 5 years have been padding within the Europa League while the top teams of Serie A and Ligue 1 aren't getting knocked out in UCL qualifications and actually facing relevant teams.

Such medieval formulae isn't the best to judge the progress and propensity of a league at all. Ligue 1 itself is far better than Portuguese league

Weak teams or not, no coincidence both Ligue 1 and Serie A treat the EL like an island of dogs.

Arquitecto wrote:Doesn't reflect the strength of any teams of leagues.

Benfica and Porto for 5 years have been padding within the Europa League while the top teams of Serie A and Ligue 1 aren't getting knocked out in UCL qualifications and actually facing relevant teams.

Such medieval formulae isn't the best to judge the progress and propensity of a league at all. Ligue 1 itself is far better than Portuguese league

Weak teams or not, no coincidence both Ligue 1 and Serie A treat the EL like an island of dogs.

Don't you think Benfica and Porto's image/status have only benefited from their recent EL performances though?

They are rightfully seizing an opportunity to expand their brand to an audience that might not get to see them otherwise, they shouldn't be blamed for that, its a smart move in more ways than one IMO

Swanhends wrote:

Arquitecto wrote:Doesn't reflect the strength of any teams of leagues.

Benfica and Porto for 5 years have been padding within the Europa League while the top teams of Serie A and Ligue 1 aren't getting knocked out in UCL qualifications and actually facing relevant teams.

Such medieval formulae isn't the best to judge the progress and propensity of a league at all. Ligue 1 itself is far better than Portuguese league

Weak teams or not, no coincidence both Ligue 1 and Serie A treat the EL like an island of dogs.

Don't you think Benfica and Porto's image/status have only benefited from their recent EL performances though?

They are rightfully seizing an opportunity to expand their brand to a new audience, they shouldn't be blamed for that, its a smart move in more ways than one

Bhends my friend don't put me in the same legion of fans who are outraged by this co-occurrence.

I am the one praising Deutschland and Portugal for their shrewd and diligent ways, & panning Serie A and Ligue 1 for disrespecting EL...you know...the competition I absolutely adore.

Never would I say they don't deserve it, yet it doesn't reflect disparities of League strengths and difference.

Arq wrote:Never would I say they don't deserve it, yet it doesn't reflect disparities of League strengths and difference.

Fair claim

On a slightly related note, this relates to something talked about in chat:

Could there be a correlation between a less congested schedule in Portugal and their success in EL?

Serie A's season is one week shorter than the Portuguese league's season, yet Portuguese teams only have to play 30 games in that time, while Italian teams have to play 38

If I had to point to 3 reasons behind Portuguese teams increased success in EL:
1) Excellent Scouting
2) Underrated Coaching
3) Less congested schedule?

Porto and Benfica are strong teams, every once in a while a Braga or a Sporting (been a while) will also find a good level. But it isnt better than Ligue 1.

I guess the problem is mainly, many teams are quite offensive minded, and if you do that vs a better team you are bound to struggle defensively.

It also expands to the bigger 2 though too. They are offensive minded and even when they play vs better teams in the CL, they play offensively..so always struggle defensively. Bit of a cycle and the reason Porto won the CL was because Mou did it in a different way in the CL, they were defensive against the stronger teams.

Benfica are not that good tbh, If Cisse wasn't so terribly unlucky and know less about the offside rule than Inzaghi's new born child we would have knocked them out.

And everyone sees how bad we are

Swanhends wrote:
Serie A's season is one week shorter than the Portuguese league's season, yet Portuguese teams only have to play 30 games in that time, while Italian teams have to play 38

If I had to point to 3 reasons behind Portuguese teams increased success in EL:
1) Excellent Scouting
2) Underrated Coaching
3) Less congested schedule?

Bundesliga 34 match days and 30 day winter break

#justice4laliga

I think Benfica are good, they showed good spirit today...trust me, I dont like praising them lol

I didnt see them against you Mole, but I want to think it was more a one off thing. They are a good team.

Flawed no doubt, but good.

Bundesliga only has 18 teams tbf, would you want to make La Liga an 18 team league so you no longer have excuses why you lost

tbf mole those are facts not excuses, and what about my other excuse fact? 30 days rest is a long time...

last year the winter break cost us the title, because we were completely out of form

Didn't they overtake Serie A with that win?

BAYERN_MUNICH wrote:last year the winter break cost us the title, because we were completely out of form

Because every other Bundesliga team didn't have the same issue...?

The top teams in Portugal have very little competition. They are practically assured to get CL or Europa bid every year.... for them, both are prestigious. for Ligue 1 and Serie A teams, domestic competition is fierce. You give it your best in CL obviously. But you're not going to sacrifice the league for Europa. Most teams lack the depth to compete well across 4 competitions (there are 2 domestic cup competitions too). Not getting a european bid for the following season is far more damaging than doing well in Europa. The only club that took Europa seriously was Lyon for Ligue 1 and that was because they had the depth to do it. i could tell with the lineups they played.

As long as it doesn't affect CL spots, which it doesn't for Ligue 1, i really don't care about the coefficients. Serie A should be more worried.

So does this mean Portugal will have three CL slots and France two CL slots in the 2014-15 season!!!

No. It doesn't change a thing for either league in terms of CL and Europe. The #5 and #6 slots both get 2 CL automatic bid, 1 CL playoff bid and 3 Europa bids. The only difference is that the seed for the CL playoff bid is better for the #5 league.

It's in 3rd place (Bundi currently) that you get the extra auto CL bid.

Ukraine is waaaaaaaay behind at #7. Honestly, this news is really non-news. It means nothing in a practical sense.

Also, isn't co-efficient calculated over 5 years? One year of getting more points means nothing.

Yeah I'm pretty sure even if you lead another country in co-eff points, the table doesn't swap places until after a certain time. Because as soon as you overtake another league, that league could easily bounce back with a few wins and it would create havoc.

Forza wrote:Also, isn't co-efficient calculated over 5 years? One year of getting more points means nothing.

It's not just one year of more points getting added, it's also another year of more points for Seria A/Ligue 1 getting dropped. Effectively a gap of 2 years is created.

AbraKebabra Alacalamb wrote:Yeah I'm pretty sure even if you lead another country in co-eff points, the table doesn't swap places until after a certain time. Because as soon as you overtake another league, that league could easily bounce back with a few wins and it would create havoc.

Next year the 2008/2009 season gets dropped from the 5 year span. That was a year where Italy did well and Portugal didn't. I believe the difference between their scores that year was 5 coefficient points give or take, wanna know the current difference? 5 points.

However like sport said it's unlikely this changes anything from a practical standpoint. Ukraine is a distant 7th place so France/Portugal/Italy are safe as far as CL/Europa places go.

Spain, England and Germany are also not likely to drop out of the top three any time soon. However Germany could overtake England in second.

It says more about the relevance of the formula than of the quality of Ligue 1. I don't think anyone believes that the Portughese League has more quality than Ligue 1, much less Serie A.

Forza wrote:Also, isn't co-efficient calculated over 5 years? One year of getting more points means nothing.

Here lies the problem:



Assume that in 2013/14 every league gets the average amount of points they've achieved over the past 5 years. Portugal loses a year when it underperformed and suddenly it is very, very close to Serie A.