Are the traditional big leagues outside England at a collective low point?

[SinNombre]

Just 6 out of the 12 teams from La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga are going to make it to the last 16.

Previous seasons - 11/12, 10/12, 8/12, 6/10 (5 PL in the group stages), 9/10, 7/10, 8/10, 8/11, 9/9, 7/10, 8/9

I gave up at this point and I think this might be the worst season for the traditional big leagues in Europe in the modern format of the CL.


Is this just bad luck (since they did go 11/12 just last season) or pointing to bigger issues which are more apparent because of two years of a global pandemic?

 

[adexkola]

Ebbs and flows.

This conversation will be mute anyways, once non-champions are banned from the CL

 

[432JuanMata]

Just 6 out of the 12 teams from La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga are going to make it to the last 16.

Previous seasons - 11/12, 10/12, 8/12, 6/10 (5 PL in the group stages), 9/10, 7/10, 8/10, 8/11, 9/9, 7/10, 8/9

I gave up at this point and I think this might be the worst season for the traditional big leagues in Europe in the modern format of the CL.


Is this just bad luck (since they did go 11/12 just last season) or pointing to bigger issues which are more apparent because of two years of a global pandemic?

Everything goes through cycles Real won the CL more times in last decade than we did in our history.
La Liga was so dominant from 2009 to 2020 they were due a fall off.

 

[RoyH1]

Everything goes through cycles Real won the CL more times in last decade than we did in our history.
La Liga was so dominant from 2009 to 2020 they were due a fall off.

This. I remember the same discussion a couple of years back but reversed (the decline of the PL)
It’s all cycles and at one point it will revert. It always does.

 

[tomaldinho1]

It’s just a logical evolution given where all the money is moving. PL is head and shoulders above other leagues right now and the European giants outside of Bayern just don’t come close to what they were - this is the easiest it has been should any PL team want to rack up CL wins because La Liga is in free fall (and has been, though this might upset people for about 5 years) & Serie A sees to be recovering but is nowhere near where it was.

Maybe a side question to this is has the Bundesliga now become the 2nd best league?

 

[Gio]

It's simply the gap in TV revenues.

 

[Lay]

I get the whole ‘cycle’ argument but the tv revenue is so big right now, I can’t see anything but the EPL getting further and further ahead.

 

[Spaghetti]

It’s just a logical evolution given where all the money is moving. PL is head and shoulders above other leagues right now and the European giants outside of Bayern just don’t come close to what they were - this is the easiest it has been should any PL team want to rack up CL wins because La Liga is in free fall (and has been, though this might upset people for about 5 years) & Serie A sees to be recovering but is nowhere near where it was.

Maybe a side question to this is has the Bundesliga now become the 2nd best league?

No. The second best German team were knocked out.

Spain has had 2 (could be 3 with Villarreal still to play) go through, Italy had 2 (could be 3) go through, France 2, Portugal 2.

This puts Germany on a par with Holland and Austria.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

'Cycles' and TV revenue are the smaller part of the issue here. Covid and the decrease in revenues across the board resulting from the pandemic has seriously affected the Spanish and Italian clubs. It's possible that they could get cut adrift a bit going forward, if they haven't been already.

Real Madrid seem to be in a better position and the German clubs, especially Bayern, should be more resilliant.

 

[tomaldinho1]

No. The second best German team were knocked out.

Spain has had 2 (could be 3 with Villarreal still to play) go through, Italy had 2 (could be 3) go through, France 2, Portugal 2.

This puts Germany on a par with Holland and Austria.

Why is CL qualification a measure of a league overall? I’ve never really understood this idea.

 

[TheReligion]

To be honest it does feel like the gap between the MLS and La Liga, Ligue One and the Bundesliga is closer than the gap between those leagues and the PL.

Crazy to think.

 

[JPRouve]

To be honest it does feel like the gap between the MLS and La Liga, Ligue One and the Bundesliga is closer than the gap between those leagues and the PL.

Crazy to think.

Mainly because it's nonsense.

 

[Kasper]

Mainly because it's nonsense.

 

[stefan92]

Just 6 out of the 12 teams from La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga are going to make it to the last 16.

Previous seasons - 11/12, 10/12, 8/12, 6/10 (5 PL in the group stages), 9/10, 7/10, 8/10, 8/11, 9/9, 7/10, 8/9

I gave up at this point and I think this might be the worst season for the traditional big leagues in Europe in the modern format of the CL.


Is this just bad luck (since they did go 11/12 just last season) or pointing to bigger issues which are more apparent because of two years of a global pandemic?

The Bundesliga result can be explained a bit by the massive manager turmoil in most top clubs. The only clubs who can stake a claim to even qualifying for Cl/EL and kept their manager are Freiburg and Union Berlin. Everyone else has a new manager, and none of them are as successful as they should be so far, some were massive failures (including Wolfsburg and Leipzig who already sacked their new managers during the group stage).

This is an extreme case and not really associated with any outside factors, essentially two domino effects happened as Dortmund bought Rose from Gladbach (who then got Hütter from Frankfurt, who then took Glasner from Wolfsburg) and Flick wanting the job for the national team (so Bayern bought Nagelsmann from Leipzig, who got Marsch from Salzburg, who got Jaissle from Liefering).

 

[MackRobinson]

Ebbs and flows.

This conversation will be mute anyways, once non-champions are banned from the CL

Moot.

Hopefully not. It will be a worse competition.

 

[Siorac]

Moot.

Hopefully not. It will be a worse competition.

He means mute: we won't even be allowed to talk about the old system anymore, and those who ever supported it will be persecuted under @adexkola's new regime.

 

[Mike Smalling]

To be honest it does feel like the gap between the MLS and La Liga, Ligue One and the Bundesliga is closer than the gap between those leagues and the PL.

Crazy to think.

Come on now

 

[Pep's Suit]

At this point there should be 6 or 7 Premier League teams in CL to make it more exciting, that's for sure.

 

[tomaldinho1]

To be honest it does feel like the gap between the MLS and La Liga, Ligue One and the Bundesliga is closer than the gap between those leagues and the PL.

Crazy to think.

I don’t watch MLS regularly but that seems highly unlikely, has there been a dramatic improvement there?

Gap between LL, Serie A, BL is closest I can remember (as said I think BL overall has better teams now than both the others) and Ligue 1 is actually half decent. Whilst it’s good for us, the PL is too financially dominant now and it will only get more lopsided.

The big allure of the CL was coming up against these titans of clubs like AC, Juve, Real, Barca, Benfica back in the day…knowing you’d be up against it whereas now, you basically want to avoid Bayern and the rival PL clubs.

 

[horsechoker]

LA Galaxy would beat Atlético Madrid

 

[kouroux]

2/2 for France @JPRouve

 

[MayfieldsFinest]

Yes and it's a bit of a pisser. Had this happened in 2009/10 we'd have another 2 CLs in the cabinet.

 

[Wolf1992]

To be honest it does feel like the gap between the MLS and La Liga, Ligue One and the Bundesliga is closer than the gap between those leagues and the PL.

Crazy to think.

MLS still has way too many bloopers in their gk and defenders, and barely any top club is raiding that league to pick top talent, which means it's still a league for retired players to make money and show off.

 

[JPRouve]

2/2 for France @JPRouve

Lille topping their group is baffling. Also french clubs actually playing the EL feels like something terrible is about to happen.

 

[Bebestation]

It's been like this for ages.

Serie A hasn't been doing anything for ages, the last time they seemed good was when Juventus were regularly in the CL semi finals. By themselves anyway and even that's gone.
La Liga is a 3 team league - its why I never rated players that just dominate that league with ease and have all the relaxation to go try harder for a CL match.
Bundesliga is just Bayern and the league only gets remotely better if Dortmund are able to find a good manager once in a while - hardly anything to do with the players. The defending is awful, I would score Ten goals in that league playing off the last line of defenders who are closer to the opposition goal than defending their own.
The French league is only interesting when PSG lose, like their recent title lost. However I feel like that league is improving a bit due to teams like Lille, Monaco and Lyon - even though their best/top club pretty much has the money of a whole country to spend.

I don't think leagues have gotten a whole lot worse - it's just that the Premier League has improved to a crazy amount.

The best managers arguably of the world like Pep, Tuchel, Klopp, Pochettino have been here - the previous rated managers like Jose, Ancelotti, Benitez have managed here.

Managers like Koeman and Ancelotti go from managing Everton to managing Barcelona and Real Madrid


The PL is a different level and has been like this for a long time.

 

[giorno]

Lille topping their group is baffling.

I mean, they topped their group last season too

 

[Rozay]

No water outside England at the moment, except for an oasis in Paris and Munich. Everyone else is reliant on del boy swaps, loans and dodgy accounting processes to strengthen.

 

[JPRouve]

I mean, they topped their group last season too

They weren't in CL last year and didn't top their group.

 

[Hound Dog]

Nope, no cycles here, you see where the money is going and it is obvious that this is going to be a permanent state of affairs, just like Celtic, Steaua and Red Star have no more hope of winning an European title.

Italy has not been truly relevant in the CL for nearly 15 years. Have you seen the state of their stadiums and the attendances? It is depressing. How the mighty have fallen.

Bayern will be able to compete as all of the top German talent ends up there eventually.

Real will be able to compete as they operate on a level completely alienated from their league.

Barcelona eventually too, but to a lesser extent.

That is pretty much it. Obviously there is also PSG, but those are four clubs in total. We are heading towards a long-term PL dominance.

 

[giorno]

They weren't in CL last year and didn't top their group.

Ah you didn't get it

 

[Zen86]

These things go through cycles. The PL has gone through periods of strength in the past, and declined as La Liga becomes the dominant force in Europe. However, I think the PL dominance we're starting to see now is here to stay, purely because that's where the money is flowing.

 

[JPRouve]

Ah you didn't get it

Indeed, I didn't.

 

[JPRouve]

These things go through cycles. The PL has gone through periods of strength in the past, and declined as La Liga becomes the dominant force in Europe. However, I think the PL dominance we're starting to see now is here to stay, purely because that's where the money is flowing.

Yeah, if we are being serious that's the point that I made several times in the other threads dedicated to this topic. There is a scarcity of elite talents, when you have them, you have a distinct advantage until you lose those talents and it's rare for teams to just have an uninterrupted line of elite talents. In the 90s-early 2000s Italy had the top talents, then England had them, then Spain had them and now England has them again. Though whoever gets Haaland/Mbappé is going to have an advantage and there is a chance that both spanish teams find a way to get them.

 

[Withnail]

Ebbs and flows.

This conversation will be mute anyways, once non-champions are banned from the CL

I see the moot/mute thing has been done but where are you getting this non champion thing from?

You think they'll have a competition with just the league winners? Less matches, less tv revenue, less prize money and less opportunity for advertising. I can see how they'll go for that.

 

[Lyricist]

To be honest it does feel like the gap between the MLS and La Liga, Ligue One and the Bundesliga is closer than the gap between those leagues and the PL.

Crazy to think.

Okay

 

[André Dominguez]

Money and marketing reasons are keeping Premier League on top atm. If the EPL keep itself away from major doping/results fixing/bribe scandals (looking at you Serie A), you can keep the edge.

About tv rights, I'm pretty sure Barcelona and Real make as much money if not more than any top EPL club, they just are operated with less eficiency.

 

[Dave Smith]

These things go through cycles. The PL has gone through periods of strength in the past, and declined as La Liga becomes the dominant force in Europe. However, I think the PL dominance we're starting to see now is here to stay, purely because that's where the money is flowing.

The PL, with its revenues, is the de facto Super League. This is only going to get worse over time as it grows ever more popular.

 

[Wolf1992]

Yeah, if we are being serious that's the point that I made several times in the other threads dedicated to this topic. There is a scarcity of elite talents, when you have them, you have a distinct advantage until you lose those talents and it's rare for teams to just have an uninterrupted line of elite talents. In the 90s-early 2000s Italy had the top talents, then England had them, then Spain had them and now England has them again. Though whoever gets Haaland/Mbappé is going to have an advantage and there is a chance that both spanish teams find a way to get them.

80s Serie A was massive, they got Maradona,Platini,Zico and Van Basten in a decade...mind-blowing.
2010s La Liga comes close with Messi and Ronaldo.

EPL still needs to get 2 historic goats playing in the same league, they have lot of top/world class players, but neither Salah,De Bruyne,Bernado Silva, Mané, Kante or Jorginho are considered goats or historically top 3-5 in their respective positions.
Probably this is cause football is more physical and less individualist nowadays.

 

[Wolf1992]

About tv rights, I'm pretty sure Barcelona and Real make as much money if not more than any top EPL club, they just are operated with less eficiency.

Real and Barcelona at their peak have won more than PL top clubs, so i wouldn't say they operated with less efficiency.
Its just that La Liga as a whole will never be as marketable as PL due to language, they dominate the latin-american market(for obvious reasons), but still struggling in Asia(a way bigger market than Latin America), especially after losing Messi and Cristiano.

One of the PL advantages is that english is considered universal language(by now), that makes PL more reachable in eastern countries than Serie A,La Liga or Bundesliga.

 

[Lentwood]

Yes, and the gap will only get bigger because of the flood of foreign money into the PL, driven by its huge commercial appeal.

I can see a scenario very soon were the EPL is given 6 Champions League spots. The money-men will twig that it makes no sense to have two of Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, City and either Saudi Newcastle/Tottenham miss out each year. It will also help quieten some of the calls for a ESL from Premier League clubs.

Whatever we think about sporting merit, money will dictate that Arsenal vs Real Madrid is a much bigger game than Porto vs Atletico Madrid