Laliga: The best get no real test

I can't even watch a match that doesn't involve Madrid or Barca in La Liga anymore.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:
La Liga was without a doubt the best in the league at that point though and only fanboys would deny it.

Not the case now, pretty much all the talent outside the big 3 has been sold to the big 3 or teams in other leagues.

Outside the top 3 could you really say there is Villa, Silva and Aguero level talents? your delusional if you say there are

Barca stroll to victory every week and Messi has hardly been fit since March, Atletico are the same 90% of the time and since Madrid sorted themselves out they have been also.

Last year it was a lot more competitive, just look at the talent lost by clubs behind Barca and Madrid teams.

Negredo, Soldado, Navas, Llorente, Illarramendi, Isco, Joaquin etc etc and hell there's a lot more i could name.

That is a lot of talent to lose and very difficult for clubs who have cash flow problems as is to recover from.

But that's not true. During those years, the common opinion was that the EPL was the best league in the world and that there was no talent outside the top 2 in La Liga.

It doesn't matter if their are players with the talent of Villa, Silva or Aguero. Because even if there were, people would still be saying that there exist no good player outside barca and madrid. Like I said earlier, even with Villa, Silva, Aguero, Forlan, De Gea, Navas, Negredo, Llorente, Javi Martinez, Michu, Isco and so, even when all of them played in La Liga(outside the top 2) people were already saying that all the teams and player outside the top 2 was shit.

Do you honestly not remember that?

8-2, 6-1, 4-1, 7-0, 6-0 are scoreline in recent years in the PL and some of the top clubs who play away play like crap yet win games 2-0, or 3-0 and its a not big problem when Barcelona, Madrid, Atleti go a lot out on other teams in La Liga it is? Wasn't there a year when United were average against the big team, but beat all the small team and still won the PL(nothing against United)? I don't even need to speak about the Bundesliga score lines. Barcelona got dismantled by BM last season, but yet with a shit defence and had the coach out for many months got to Europe biggest competition semi final name me any other team that could pull that off in the CL with Barcelona defence last year? If you look at the other last 3 RM, BM, and Dortmund wouldn't have even made it to the semi final with that defence. Valencia in the group stages was neck and neck with BM losing 3-2 in over two games and held BM with 10 man for about 40 mins. Valencia also had a good two leg against PSG losing 3-2. Malaga almost made it to the SF with a 33-34 year old defender knocking out Dortmund.

I'm not disagreeing that the competition isn't strong in La Liga, but Bundesliga is no better, and in the PL teams with the quality of Chelsea/City should be winning almost every games just because they lose doesn't mean its competitive, those teams are just incompetent. Take the top two teams in PL bring them to La Liga and trust me Barca/RM will still be a head of them, sure a little better competition, but results/table would remain the same.

I'll probably go on a rant if i talk about this. Already suffering with Betis this season.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Atleti are legit you can't ignore them.... at least while Simeone is there and the debt isn't spiraling out of control anyway.

My point is that to deny the inclusion of Atleti in a talk about competitiveness is to deny that La Liga is more competitive now than before.

if it is no real test why do la liga teams continue to outperform every other league in europe?

EPL 2006-07 - two horse race (United and Chelsea)
EPL 2007-08 - three horse race (United, Chelsea and Arsenal)
EPL 2008-09 - three horse race (United, Liverpool and Chelsea)
EPL 2009-10 - two horse race (Chelsea and United)
EPL 2010-11 - one horse race (United)
EPL 2011-12 - two horse race (City and United)
EPL 2012-13 - one horse race (United)

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Atleti are legit you can't ignore them.... at least while Simeone is there and the debt isn't spiraling out of control anyway.

My point is that to deny the inclusion of Atleti in a talk about competitiveness is to deny that La Liga is more competitive now than before.

Because then the other teams were closer.... it was like 2 then a pack of teams and then another pack.

Now its 3 teams who are close for the title and the others are further away than ever before.

Yes the title race is more competitive but as a result the rest of the league is further away than it ever has been.

I mean Villarreal just got promoted and are 4th

You can twist the argument all you like but fact is the talent level is now even more top heavy than it ever has been the talent level is definitely worse then their English and Italian counterparts where the talent is evenly spread out and not just packed into 3 teams.

Agreed. There's nothing impressive about beating Osasuna or Almeria 20-0. Nothing can be taken from games in La Liga. The teams are just so poor.

Also I wouldn't say it's behind Bundesliga. They pretty much just have one elite team, while La Liga has 2.

Of course. This is why Barcelona don't view winning the La Liga as a serious accomplishment now. Now their seasons have to include a Champions League otherwise it's an average season.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Because then the other teams were closer.... it was like 2 then a pack of teams and then another pack.

Now its 3 teams who are close for the title and the others are further away than ever before.

Yes the title race is more competitive but as a result the rest of the league is further away than it ever has been.

I mean Villarreal just got promoted and are 4th

You can twist the argument all you like but fact is the talent level is now even more top heavy than it ever has been the talent level is definitely worse then their English and Italian counterparts where the talent is evenly spread out and not just packed into 3 teams.

I'm not trying to deny or twist anything, if you read my prior posts I readily admit that La Liga's competitiveness is a joke. But there is no definition for 'competitiveness' and whereas before people used to (mostly) claim that La Liga is a 2 horse race and useless now that it's a 3 horse race people move on to the quality of opponents. Atleti has proved that even with a significantly lower budget it is possible to compete with the top dogs, and has made the title race more interesting. In this aspect, at least, the league is more competitive.

What's a perfectly competitive league? Every team has an equal chance of winning the league? If so La Liga is more competitive than the Bundesliga because it has 3 candidates to Germany's 1. Yet you don't see threads like this about them.

El Chelsea Fuerte wrote:Of course. This is why Barcelona don't view winning the La Liga as a serious accomplishment now. Now their seasons have to include a Champions League otherwise it's an average season.

Of course they view La Liga serious accomplishment what do you think the players were saying last year and what were they celebrating? The squad that we have can win everything in a season hence that is always the goal. Everyone wants the CL and would risk losing the league for it.

without some sort of salary cap or ways to give teams who are worse a better chance the next year like the draft in the NBA, MLB, etc, this will always happen in the top leagues.

BL, EPL, SPL, La Liga, Serie A, will almost never have more than 2 or 3 teams in a given year who have a real shot at winning the league. People say that La Liga isnt as competitive.. but the score lines just give that illusion, just because manu or whoever is more likely to drop points against relegation sides never changes the end result. lt only masks the issue. EPL this season seems more open than it has since the eighties, but well see once the season is over if that was really true. Even if it is, l don't really consider 3 or 4 teams that have a chance to win the title highly competitive either. Once closer to 7 to 10+ teams feel they have a fighting chance to win then l think leagues can be considered as having great competition.

People want leagues to be more competitive but if you never nerf the massive advantages they have over all the other teams in the league or atleast give handicaps and boosts to the less fortunate teams, it will never be more competitive than it is now.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Of course they don't

Barca are strolling the league while Messi is spending more time with his new born son than his playing

That's what happens when you have 8 World Cup winners in your squad.

andiii wrote:oh, so it is because of where they are in the table? i know they're doing well, but to go from calling it a 2 horse league to a 3 horse league is a bit premature. surely the saying comes from those teams being capable of winning the league... something AM have not done at all yet. RM have demonstrated they can recently so atm it's still 2 imo

I can say the same about Liverpool, Tottenham and when did Arsenal win a league title? [10 seasons ago]

EPL last 9 seasons:

2013 Manchester United
2012 Manchester City
2011 Manchester United
2010 Chelsea
2009 Manchester United
2008 Manchester United
2007 Manchester United
2006 Chelsea
2005 Chelsea

well uh, you're proving my point haha. i never considered Liverpool, Tottenham or Arsenal as contenders. same with AM. bpl has been a 3 horse league, spain 2.

What he said about the Almeria fans is true. Minus a few blips spanish football has always been like that though, 95% of the country support 2 clubs.

1991 wrote:What he said about the Almeria fans is true. Minus a few blips spanish football has always been like that though, 95% of the country support 2 clubs.

That is false.

Khaled wrote:

andiii wrote:oh, so it is because of where they are in the table? i know they're doing well, but to go from calling it a 2 horse league to a 3 horse league is a bit premature. surely the saying comes from those teams being capable of winning the league... something AM have not done at all yet. RM have demonstrated they can recently so atm it's still 2 imo

I can say the same about Liverpool, Tottenham and when did Arsenal win a league title? [10 seasons ago]

EPL last 9 seasons:

2013 Manchester United
2012 Manchester City
2011 Manchester United
2010 Chelsea
2009 Manchester United
2008 Manchester United
2007 Manchester United
2006 Chelsea
2005 Chelsea

Since 1929 to coincide with La Liga inception

England: (18 Winners) Arsenal, Aston Villa, Blackburn, Burnley, Chelsea, Derby, Everton, Ipswich, Leeds, Liverpool, Man City, Man United, Nott Forest, Pompey, S. Wednesday, Sunderland, Spurs, Wolves

Spain: (9 winners) Athletic Bilbao, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Deportivo, Real Madrid Real Sociedad, R. Betis, Seville, Valencia

Most clubs who won it outside the top two were pretty isolated, with the exception of Bilbao and Atletico over 50 years ago.

My point is that is it any surprise that La Liga is a two horse race? It has been that way since the leagues inception... and unless some CL battler tickles the fancy of a Forbes listed business magnate it is always going to be that way. They are just too big - to argue that the gap doesn't exist or is on par with the UK would be disingenuous.

I personally find it dull. From an entertainment perspective as a neutral I would prefer to watch the Bundesliga or Serie A if not the BPL.

Yohan Modric wrote:Also I wouldn't say it's behind Bundesliga. They pretty much just have one elite team, while La Liga has 2.

*insert joke about non elite Dortmund beating elite Madrid in CL twice here*

M99 wrote:

Yohan Modric wrote:Also I wouldn't say it's behind Bundesliga. They pretty much just have one elite team, while La Liga has 2.

*insert joke about non elite Dortmund beating elite Madrid in CL twice here*

*insert joke about Barca and Atletico being the 2 elite teams Yohan Modric is talking about here*

I like the fact that when last year (when messi was carrying the team) it was all about Messi dependence and the rest of the team being incompetent while this year it’s not that the team actually improved but the league itself is crap. Double standards boys. In any case the distribution of the tv contracts should change though

McAgger wrote:Yeah agree with Moal.

This season the best players outside of big 3 are

Benat
Ander Herrara
Muniain
Xabi Prieto
Carlos Vela
Griezmann
Inigo Martinez
Rakitic
Gameiro
Banega
Sergio Canales
Suso

I struggle to think of any more, and none of them are really at the talent level of Aguero, Villa, Silva, Mata,

Fallacy Warning: Villa, Silva and Mata played in the "top 3" those days (Valencia was a top 3 team).

You can include all Atletico Madrid players, and the comparison it's pretty much the same.

1991 wrote:What he said about the Almeria fans is true. Minus a few blips spanish football has always been like that though, 95% of the country support 2 clubs.

Out of all this dross in this thread this is the worst post that could have possibly been made

Arquitescu wrote:

1991 wrote:What he said about the Almeria fans is true. Minus a few blips spanish football has always been like that though, 95% of the country support 2 clubs.

Out of all this dross in this thread this is the worst post that could have possibly been made

Sadly what he says is becoming more and more true as the time passes by. I wouldn't say 95% but a lot of people even in football rich comunidads such as Valencia support the big two. Especially the younger generations.