Pep's Barca had a team full of "who's who" for top15 all time for nearly every single position on the pitch, and they were a team that just worked. There are many other teams in the conversation that's already been mentioned here, but there's really just one realistic winner here.
Best club side ever?
- Thread starter Spoony
- Start date
This. They were a team greater than the sum of their parts, but when all the parts are that fecking good its not really fair to the opposition.
That's an interesting point though and perhaps also reflects that strength in top level depth that Milan had - top 3 in the Ballon D'Or in 1988 and 1989 - and 5 players who would be considered amongst the top 30-40 of all time. I know you're throwing it in purely for argument's sake, but any top 20 should really include Baresi. If Beckenbauer commonly lands comfortably in most people's top 10, then Baresi cannot be far behind. His influence on Milan's success both individually as a defender and collectively on the system through his high line and offside trap squeezed a whole generation of teams out through unprecedented levels of compactness.
Agreed. After reading through this thread i come back with the general feeling that Pep's Barça gets nitpicked on any potential shortcoming that they may have had, while any stain on Milan's record gets swept under the rug to put them in a more favorable light.
While i've seen time and time again in this thread, people dismissing Real Madrid's Three peat team claim on the GOAT team based on the fact they only won a single league title, i haven't seen the same argument being brought up when we talk about Sacchi's Milan, who also only won the league once in four years. In 1989 they weren't even in the title race. And while it's true that the 80's serie A was one of the most competitive league that we've seen, we are holding talks about the greatest team of all time, so this should raise serious interrogations on the validity of their claim as the GOAT team, but so far i didnt see anyone bring this up.
On the other hand people are talking about a supposed febrility of Barça's defense, even though both teams conceded goals at more or less the same rate. While conviniently ignoring that Barça's midfield is, as you pointed out, vastly superior, and as good as Van Basten is, his impact can't compare to Messi's.
Sorry for the rant, i don't want to belittle the milan team, just call out certain biases that may have formed in the general consciousness.
This basically. I don’t really think there can be any other winner.
Did they?
Using 2011 team
Obvious: Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Alves
Debatable: Biscuits
Nah: Puyol, Valdes, Pedro, Mascherano, Villa, Abidal
If you consider the 2009 team, Henry would fall under obvious, Etoo under debatable
Yeah I don't think that team was that star studded overall. They had 4 players who can stake a claim in terms of top 3-5 for position. No one else.
They had arguably the best player ever at his peak, arguably the best midfielder ever at his peak, another generational midfielder at his peak and one of the best right backs ever at his peak.
For me the best team of all time is Barça 2010 2011 which team there were players like Messi, Xavi, etc. it was a fabulous team. After Machester United we did not win the treble in 99 but I was 2 years old so I don't really know how to say!
For any team win the game is always important. Nobody want Klopp, ole or tuchel to win possession game with man City and play pass to death football.
This artistic culture of football already dead ever since the retirement of Xavi and Iniesta. Pep didn't go anywhere with Bayern and now city. The heynkes Bayern Zidane s real and flick s Bayern could give the game to barca 2011 at their peak in my opinion because all these teams have extraordinary pace in both wings and barca s average fullback position of pep s barca it's easy to see why heynkes Bayern murdered them in 2013 semifinal.
Only thing the pep s barca proved was you can build a winning team with technically sound small players but only problem is you need the greatest of the era messi to make it as a winning unit.
This artistic culture of football already dead ever since the retirement of Xavi and Iniesta. Pep didn't go anywhere with Bayern and now city. The heynkes Bayern Zidane s real and flick s Bayern could give the game to barca 2011 at their peak in my opinion because all these teams have extraordinary pace in both wings and barca s average fullback position of pep s barca it's easy to see why heynkes Bayern murdered them in 2013 semifinal.
Only thing the pep s barca proved was you can build a winning team with technically sound small players but only problem is you need the greatest of the era messi to make it as a winning unit.
Based on this metric, I think Sacchi's Milan comes out on top of the club sides, especially if the imagined matches were played under a variety of conditions. I think for peak sides, that Milan juggernaut just has a perfect balance and would be ideal suited to defeating Pep's tiki-taka at its peak. Milan could play either possession, counter-attack, or direct attack. Milan of that era was tested against a higher quality of teams than La Liga of Barca's peak which almost lost to Arsenal in 10-11.
This. Certainly the 2 best i have witnessed (watching since 1996).
Also i have Shevchenko's and Kaka's Milan in good memory.
Well do they ?
In our timeline Sacchi's Milan finished with a single league title and 2 champions league titles. I could see the argument for them winning in 1991 but the 1989 and 1990 wins become more uncertain as they struggled in a penalty shoutout against the red star, and could only advance due to the away goal rules against Bayern, their tie against Malines went to extra time, these are all games that at any moment could go eitherway. So it is not certain that they win the Back to back CL in all of the simulations.
They also only won a single league title, in 1989 they weren't even in the title race so i don't think they ever win that one, 1990 is one that they could take away from Napoli if we were to rerun the simiulation, but in 1991 Sampdoria had a comfortable lead.
So they could win all between 1-2 league titles and 0-3 Champions league depending on the amount of luck that they have.
For Barça, they won 2 league titles comfortably in 2009 and 2011, in 2010 Madrid gave them a run for their money, so i could eventually see that in some instances Madrid could walk away with the trophy even if it's unlikely, and in 2012 i would apply the same reasoning but the other way around. It would be unlikely for Barça to win the league that year but not impossible if certain things go right.
So it seems like 3 league titles is about fair for that team on average luck.
As for the Champions league, i could see the 2009 tie against Chelsea go eitherway (assuming they go past Liverpool considering that tie itself was pretty close), so its not a certainty that they win it in the majority of time.
In 2010, i actually see them going past Inter more often than not, once you consider how much bad luck they had against them. First is that icelandic volcano that prevented all flights in Europe from taking off, which made the team go on an exhausting 20 hours bus ride to play in Milan. There were mistakes made by the referree that put them into a disadvantage like the third goal which was offside and a missed penalty on Alves. So i can see them winning more often than not or at least it's a 50/50.
In 2011 they didn't struggle much to lift the trophy so i think they win in the vast majority of scenarios.
Finally in 2012, i think that out of a 100 times they go past that Chelsea team in 99% of instances, we hit the post like 5 times during the two tie, miss a penalty and waste an insane amount of chances either due to bad luck or an incredible Petr Cech.
So all in all, you could say that Barça finishes with at worst 2 league titles and a single champions league or at best with 3-4 league titles and 4 Champions league if luck is maxed out. Their floor and their ceiling are both higher to the one of the Milan team.
Of course this is all speculation, but it's interesting nonetheless to ask ourselves what could have happened if conditions were different.
I don't think that we should ask ourselves the question to who would win a potential game between the two because these kind of mental experiments will always favor the modern team because they will have a lot more tactical knowledge access to better training, better medecine...
A lot of tactics that the Sacchi team used for exemple were either outdated (like the agressive offside trap) or something that Barcelona is used to face on a weekly basis (like the famous Milan press which was revolutionnary at the time but is democratized by today).
Those two teams are in my opinion the most dominant in history. Cannibalized both their domestic leagues and Europe, and this is also supported by empirical evidence. Found a ranking using the elo method to determin which team is the best in history, Pep Barca and Heynckes Bayern ranked respectively 1 and 2.
What year?
The equation takes into account, opposition strength and goal difference, according to the method the 2014 team is the best of that stretch, so more Pep's bayern than Heynckes..
It has to be noted that so the ranking is not overcrowded by different versions of the same team, only the best version of the team appears on the ranking and based on that Barça 2012 and Bayern 2014 are the teams that come out on top according to the formula, so 2011 and 2013 verson of the teams could be right behind bu they do not appear.
The best version of Milan that appears on the ranking is the 1993 team so more Capello's Milan than Sacchi's, and it is ranked 6th.
@Spoony
As i pointed out in my post, Sacchi's milan struggled as much if not more than Barça in their CL runs, and there are many instances where they get severely outplayed in the serie a by Napoli, Juventus and Inter. Why is every instance where Barça struggled gets put under the spotlight in this thread while, all of Milan's embarrassing moments gets swept under the rug ?
@Earvin Johnson very interesting, thanks for the context
Great post, to my understanding proper candidates would be:
50's Real Madrid
Early 60's Santos
Mid 60's Internazionale
Early 70's Ajax
Mid 70's Bayern
Late 80's and early 90's Milan
Early 90's Sao Paulo
Late 90's and early 00's Real Madrid
Early 00's Boca Juniors
Late 00's and early 10's Barcelona
Mid to late '10s Real Madrid
There are probably other great teams from eras where international competition wasn't that regular so I didn't include them.
50's Real Madrid
Early 60's Santos
Mid 60's Internazionale
Early 70's Ajax
Mid 70's Bayern
Late 80's and early 90's Milan
Early 90's Sao Paulo
Late 90's and early 00's Real Madrid
Early 00's Boca Juniors
Late 00's and early 10's Barcelona
Mid to late '10s Real Madrid
There are probably other great teams from eras where international competition wasn't that regular so I didn't include them.
I misunderstood your original comment. I think you meant if Sacchi's Milan played Pep's Barca 100 times, which side would win more. I don't think the metric of "most trophies" if run 100 times is valid. First, its a mental experiment just like any comparison between historic sides. But I don't consider that valid because of the difference between the quality of opposition and the competitions themselves. Serie A in the late 80s was just a different beast to La Lige of the 2010 era when you have two sides with such a massive financial advantage over the rest of the league, its almost entirely a two-team league at the time with squads that allowed much more rotation and rest.
If they played during Saachi's Milan's era then I reckon they'd get a mighty beating by Milan. It wouldn't even be close.
Well that is an absurd thought experiment because as i told you, there is a gap in tactics athleticism and information between the two sides, it's not a good way to compare teams across eras, because each era has it's own specificity, and each team build itself consequently to adapt to those specificities.
This also holds true for @Spoony comment.
Based on what ? Tons of arguments have been developped in this thread, and majority of them indicate otherwise.
One simple exemple is the agressive offside trap that the milan team used to pull off. Trying this kind of tactics against three of the best passers the game has ever seen would be straight up suicide, Messi/Villa and Pedro would be feasting on those through balls.
That kind of tactic was revolutionary at their times, but by 2010's they were outdated.
Their intense system of pressing which revolutionarized the game at the time was democratized by the 2010's, and Barça was used to play against it. Barca was actually the Goat team when it came to make pressing useless, because they had tons of technical players who could play in very tight spaces and collapse the pressing of their opponent. That was one of the main reasons that made them "unplayable", because all teams could do was sit deep and hope that they wouldn't find a breach in their defense. That makes Barca a terrible matchup for Milan, because it would be the first time that they encounter a team that can basically nullify their pressing.
And this is without taking into account the superior athleticism that comes with modern technology.
Sacchi's Milan came up with a lot of revolutionary tactics for their times, and majority of them are democratized in modern football which is a testimony of their effectiveness, however this puts the Milan team into very bad matchups against modern team because all what constitutes their strength would be routine for the modern teams.
Now i don't think that comparing teams across era's like both of you guys just did is a reliable method to determin the best team of all time because as i said there is always going to be a gap in athleticism and knowledge that is going to favour the modern team. This is why i prefer the method wehere one would compare dominance over era.
Serie A in the 80's was more competitive than Laliga of the 2010's thats for sure, but you also have to take into account that winning the CL before the 1992 reform was much easier than winning it in the 2010's, as there were less competitive european teams taking part in it. Also i would argue that Real Madrid was a formidable opponent in Laliga that always pushed Barca to it's limit. Between 2010 to 2012 they finished with 96, 92 and 100 point, that is tougher competition than anything Serie A could propose between 1988 and 1991 (Inter 1989 aside).
From 1988 to 1990, Napoli has won a similar amount of points per game than the mighty Milan. And Napoli while being good had nothing impressive going for them (well aside one of the 3 GOAT players in history, something Barça possesses too). Milan didn't even dominate Serie A like Inter would in 1989. Never came close of their point tally in that 4 year span. This should be considered as a serious stain to their claim as the GOAT team, as they could not even be the best team in their country.
They got severely outmatched on several instances, losing 4-1 to Napoli in 1989 and 3-0 to Juventus, Inter and Napoli again in 1990. Pep's Barça never had to endure such an embarrassing defeat, never losing by more than two goals. Why isn't this brought up ? Pep's Barça has more impressive victories against top European sides wether it be trashing Madrid 6-2 and 5-0, Bayern 4-0, Arsenal 4-1 (More Messi Trashing them but still), demonstration against Man Utd in the 2011 final...
Again, i don't want to disrespect Milan, but the amount of disrespect Barça is getting is sickening. If i knew nothing about Sacchi's Milan i would have thought that that team had no weaknesses if i was just going by the things that are written in this thread. And this is obviously not true. And every single one of Barcelona potential weakness gets overblown as if Milan had none when the truth is that the latter had significant shortcomings too.
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It's no more absurd than your own "rerunning a simulation of certain seasons" idea due to the factors I mentioned. La Liga was a joke competitively compared to Serie A in the late 80s era. Any comparison of historic teams between eras will require some form of imagination/speculation. There is no objective way to do it otherwise. It's part of why questions like Pele vs Maradona dominate the collective football consciousness for so long with no objective answer (and now Messi is in that convo but still without any objective answer).
And these stats just showcase how much more competitive Serie A was than Pep's peak years at Barcelona, where two teams had such a massive financial advantage that comparing league points is just meaningless. There was only one other decent competitive team at Barcelona while Milan had, as you mentioned another of the 3 GOAT candidates on an opposing team and a stacked Inter side with a candidate for the greatest midfielder of all time. And as mentioned earlier even midtable sides had stars of the quality of Baggio. It's why your chosen comparison is not really viable either. Barca was nevertested week in and week out the way Sacchi's Milan was. Barca has 2 tough league games a year while Milan had a dozen or more. The quality of Barca's CL opponents and Sacchi's Milan opponents was roughly equivalent for the most part.
Anyway, it's fair to disagree but call people's arguments in favor of Milan disrespectful and sickening is hyperbole. Comparing teams that people rate in the top 3 of all time and saying Barca doesn't come out for them is hardly disrespectful.
Anytime always a pleasure !
People aren't making arguments for Milan , they are making arguments against Barcelona. i've seen an an incredible amount of dubious arguments made to downplay that Barça team over the last few days. Afterall didn't you start this conversation stating that Barça struggled against Arsenal as if Milan never struggled in their european cups run. It's these kind of biases that are bothering me.
No because the question of the greatest team of all time could be replaced by "most dominant team of all time". There are tons of random factors that come into play in football, so when you rerun these situation you average luck and you get the average level of the said team. In basketball discussions where these kind of cross era comparisons are much more common it is a consensus that time machine argument where you transport a team into another era are fallacious for all the reasons i cited in my precedent post. So the best way to determin which team is the best of all times is to actually compare their dominance.
In football we do not have many tools to have these kind of conversations because we lack Data. That's why we cannot say who of Messi or Maradona was the better dribbler for exemple. However if we use logic and basic football principle we can reach a decent amount of understanding of the game. But to do that we must aboslutely avoid fallacies. Because it screws everything up....
And sir this is a fallacy. Milan failing to win the league on several occasion is not a testimony of Serie A competitivity but is... a testimony of their failure to win the league. A side like Inter had a more dominant title run than milan ever had. And sorry i cannot consider a team that got totally outclassed domestically as the best of all time.
When Barca was dominating, Madrid was arguably the second best team in Europe, and none of the squads in serie a at that time can claim to be better than Mourinho's Madrid. So Barça was actually the one with the tougher competition. even if the difference between them and the rest of their opposition was greater.
Well first of all Quality players do not make garbage squads quality squads . Grealish is World class but his talent can't save his team from mediocrity. Same thing for Baggio at Fiorentina, he was extremely talented but it's not because Fiorentina had Baggio that they were quality. Just look at Argentina with Messi, he will always have moments of class, but if the defense and the other player don't step up their game there is no chance they win. So you need more than a world class player to be considered a quality team so talent being more spread out through the league does not indicate that those teams were good themselves because they couldn't put their star players in favorable conditions.
This Myth about the supposed weakness of Laliga needs to die, Barça had two tough games because they were hundred of levels above their opposition. Look at them this year, they have a shit team and suddenly every game is tough. If City can pull 100 point in the PL, there is no reason for Pep's Barça to not do so. Unless you believe that City under Pep > Barca under Pep. And the PL is more competitive than 1980's serie A for sure.
And second part of your message is false. Before the CL reform, winning it was much more easier, because champions of poor leagues used to qualify for it, while 2nd 3rd and 4th place of the top 5 leagues didn't play it even though they were better than the champions of minor leagues.
This changed with the CL reform and made it much harder to win. in the last 30 years since the reform, only one team could do a back to back, while in the 30 years that preceded the reform they were 8 able to do so.
So, Barca faced tougher opposition to win those CL indeed (and played more games).
Well i think this will settle the deal.
If Milan struggled against against one of 3 GOAT candidates with a decent but not stellar supporting cast, how do you expect them to fare better against the 21st century version of said player but with a GOAT tier supporting cast ?
If one is unable to answer this question then i think that we have our answer. (This sounds very contradicting but you get me hahahaha)[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
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Don't have time to respond point by point but in general, it can be boiled down to a few things.
First, La Liga was simply not as remotely as competitive as Serie A of that era and to argue it was just defies facts and plain eye tests. Barca and Real of that 09-012 era had such a massive financial advantage the league was simply not competitive nor even entertaining to watch bar the classicos. Look at any metric (transfer fees, team wages, the disparity in league TV income, the tax breaks, etc) and you see how La Liga was divided into two superteams that peaked financially at the right time and 18 other teams that simply lacked the resources to even come close to competing on an even footing. The resource levels of Serie A in the 1980s were far closer in both Top 4-5 teams and from top to bottom. Just look at the players playing across a variety of teams. You had Maradona, Baggio, Matthaus, Cerezo all on different competing teams. It's just a fact Serie A matches were harder for Milan than La Liga matches for Barcelona due to much more even sides resource-wise. So yes, Milan had much higher competition weak in and weak out.
Second, your bolded point is just a bit silly but it can easily cut the other way. Milan repeated in the CL and could have had another if not for dubious circumstances. Barca never repeated in the CL and were knocked out by Chelsea and Inter sides that were solid defensively but not as strong defensively as a side with Baresi, Maldini, Rijkaard, Costacurta, and a lot of top tier defensive players. So, it's quite fair for many to believe Pep's Barca could not outscore Sacchi's Milan. You disagree that's fine but you seem to have a hard time accepting that others have a different opinion than you do.
And talking of fallacies, Madrid was hardly the "2nd best team in Europe" during Pep's peak Barca years, if they were then the other CL winners around that time would not have been United, Inter, Chelsea, and Bayern.
Also, football cannot be reduced to statistics the way other sports like baseball can. The nature of the game itself cannot be quantified the same way. But one thing that can be understood is that players like Gullit, Rijkaard, Van Basten, Maldini, and Baresi have timeless skills that are not somehow automatically inferior due to advances in training in the 21st century.
I am getting tired of this because either you didn't read my posts or you misinterpreted them because i've already adressed nearly every point you raises. I am wondering are you willing to discuss and challenge your ideas, or do you just want to prove a point at all costs ? Because if it's the latter then this discussion doesn't have to be in the first place. It's a genuine question i don't want to sound rude.
So, first about the level of competition that Barça faced. You misunderstood the argument. I didn't say that Laliga was more competitive than Serie A, i said that Real Madrid was a better team than any serie A side at that time. So even if they were the only competitor of Barça, winning the league against them was more challenging than winning the serie A because no teams were as good as them. Milan wasn't even winning against Napoli and Sampdoria. So unless you can prove that Napoli and Sampdoria > Mourinho's Madrid then winning laliga in 2010's was harder than winning the serie a.
Convenient how you stopped at Bayern isn't it ? Now tell me who won the CL after Bayern ? Frankly you talk about fallacies and at the same time consider winning a CL as the argument for determining the best team in Europe but you cite bloody Chelsea ? This is either ignorance or bad faith. How were Chelsea one of the best sides in Europe ? They are literally the worse CL champion since 1992. They finished 6th of the PL and had an unprecedented amount of luck to win the competition. How can i take this argument seriously ? And Madrid didn't win the CL because they got clapped by Barça in 2011 and lost in the bloody shoutouts in 2012. How does losing in the shoutouts to Bayern makes them a lesser team ?
So to be completely honest with you these are the elements making me question your good faith in this argument. Because someone who is genuinely looking to have a fruitful conversation would realize that this a fallacy. Especially that you put an arbitrary cut off at bayern to conveniently leave out Madrid's CL win in 2014, which would go against your (weak) argument.
So if you want to prove your point at all cost and is not actually interested into challenging your opinions, just say it we don't have to lose time over this.
And yet another fallacy. This is a point i adressed in my post. Did you just skim through it, or did you intentionally ignore it ? i am just gonna paste it again.
"And second part of your message is false. Before the CL reform, winning it was much more easier, because champions of poor leagues used to qualify for it, while 2nd 3rd and 4th place of the top 5 leagues didn't play it even though they were better than the champions of minor leagues.
This changed with the CL reform and made it much harder to win. in the last 30 years since the reform, only one team could do a back to back, while in the 30 years that preceded the reform they were 8 able to do so. "
And i would add further that Barça had incredible bad luck against Inter (they scored an offside goal, and referree didnt give them a penalty after a foul on Alves), and against Chelsea (hit the post 5 times and missed a penalty). If you averages luck, they could definitely win more than 2 CL. And that's without mentionning that Milan also had a decent amount of luck as they only went trhough against the red star in the penalty shoutouts.
For the second part of your message, Baresi, Maldini, Costacurta and Rijkaard got clapped 4-1 and 3-0 on several occasions by Napoli, Juve and Inter. In the league they were as good as Napoli who was a decent team but no close to an all time great.
So my bolded point ain't silly at all, unless you see Barelona as inferior to sides like Napoli, then there is no reason to believe that they wouldn't roll over Milan. And God knows Barça is infinitely more stacked than those teams.
Peps Barcelona, in the time I’ve watched football from the 90’s I’ve never seen a team to almost play like one entity.
The you had the brilliance of Messi, we would have 5 European cups if it wasn’t for these lot.
Yes his team was brilliant one thing I hate though is the notion they invented the press when it was the English teams doing it since 2005.
We went there in 2009 with high hopes we started brilliantly in the first two minutes then the rest was there’s, even SAF admitted we’d never lever been schooled like that before (2009&2011).
The you had the brilliance of Messi, we would have 5 European cups if it wasn’t for these lot.
Yes his team was brilliant one thing I hate though is the notion they invented the press when it was the English teams doing it since 2005.
We went there in 2009 with high hopes we started brilliantly in the first two minutes then the rest was there’s, even SAF admitted we’d never lever been schooled like that before (2009&2011).
This is certainly one subjective opinion. I don't find it compelling or convincing myself. Being one of two teams with an exponentially massive resource advantage over the rest of the league simply isn't objectively more difficult than winning leagues in an era where teams were all much closer financially and multiple opponents had all-time greats on their sides. Having two competitive league matches a year simply isn't more difficult to me than having many more tough league games. And for the record, I would consider Maradona's Napoli and peak Matthaus' Inter to be superior sides to the early Madrid of the Pep years when they got eliminated in the R16 from Liverpool and Lyon.
I stopped at Bayern because the comparison has always been Pep's Barcelona to Sacchi's Milan. Pep was manager 08-12 so it's not relevant how good Madrid became later for this comparison. Although, I shouldn't have mentioned Bayern's win either actually.
Also, you misunderstood my argument. The argument was not that Chelsea was the best side in Europe. The argument was a counter to your claim that Madrid was the 2nd best team in the world during the Pep years. If Madrid were actually the second-best team in the world during those years then you'd expect them to perform better in the CL during that 08-12 time frame and not have 4 other winners around that time. In other words, the point is that it's not compelling for you to suggest Madrid was such a massive side 08-12 that winning against them as the only competition somehow makes Pep's La Liga more difficult to win than Serie A in late 80s- early 90s.
Yeah, I simply don't agree the Euro Cup in the late 80s, early 90s was all that much "easier" to win because of your point. Back then champions from "poor leagues" could still be superb sides. Red Star had players like Savicevic, Prosinecki, Stojkovic, and Belodedici, Steau had a peak Hagi and Petrescu, PSV had Romario, etc. The overall quality in the CL might be slightly higher but it's not enough to really decide any arguments for me. Barca had a few relatively "weak sides" in their CL runs as well. You bring a few matches but losing to Maradona's Napoli 4-1 is not any more embarrassing than Pep's Barca losing to Hercules 2-0, Real Betis 3-1 or Getafe (a side whose entire team was paid less than Messi alone) 1-0.
Anyway it's all subjective. You believe Pep's Barca is the greatest but for me, I'd take Sacchi's Milan individual quality and level of play to shut down Barca at their respective peaks. So again, difference of opinion but you should tone down your hyperbole and condescending remarks if you are actually interested in a reasonable debate.
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No it's not subjective. The whole point of this conversation is trying to be objective. It's not because a league is more dense that it is more difficult to win. It's a ridiculous argument or the algerian league would be considered more difficult than the bundesliga because as in your defnition teams get challenged week and week out. In a two horse race your opponent who is nearly as good as you is going to trash the same weaker teams so competing with him is more challenging than competing with weaker opponents but closer to your level.
Oh if you wanted to cite the CL winner during Pep's time at Barça then you shouldn't Bring up Bayern or Man Utd, you did just to try to give more strength to a weak argument and for the record 9 of the 11 players who started the CL final in 2014 were parts of Mourinho's Madrid so don't act like they are completely different teams, as if Real took a huge leap forward.
Also Chelsea being part of the teams you cited should have given you a clue on how silly that argument is, because winning a CL require a huge amount of luck and it can't be a criteria to judge who the best team in Europe is.
My argument is that Mournho's madrid > All the other teams in serie A during that period, so winning against them is harder than winning against weaker teams It's not hard to understand.
Well you disagree but facts disagree with you. Before ethe CL reform there 13 instances where a team won the CL after winning the year before. Since the reform there were only 2. Empirical evidence literally contradicts you so just accept the fact. If you deny these facts then it is useless to argue.
The overall quality is not slightly higher it is MUCH higher.
And you are comparing things that have nothing to do witth each other not only are you comparing random games in the league (the loss against Betis came after a 5-0 win in the first leg of Copa del rey. I've lost count of all the fallacies you've used at this point) to must win games against contenders. And they got trashed in them.
Well, no it's not subjective, that's my whole point. Football is not a song contest where everyone can pick his favorite. It's a sport which has metrics that determin who is better and who is worse.
If you prefer Milan that's fine, it's your personal preference. But trying to defend that opinion when facts and all other empirical evidence points otherwise, leads you to pull fallacious arguments and baseless statements and when you are trying to discuss football and passionnate about it, it is frustrating to see someone still defend an opinion even when presented with the facts. It turns the conversation into a confrontation and nothing fruitful can come out of it.
This is why i was getting frustrated, i did not want to be condescending with you, but i've lost all faith into having a reasonable debate because the arguments being cited are just weak.
I'm taking this harsh stance against Milan to call out a bias here, where people are nitpicking every game where Barça didn't dominate to dowplay them but are not doing the same for Milan. If you want my opinion nitpicking games in the first place is a weak argument, but people are using it anyway.
You have done this yourself, pointing Barça struggling against Arsenal in 2011 as an argument to prove Milan's superiority while Milan struggled similarly in their CL campaigns or against other teams in serie A. If you wanted to have a reasonable debate, why didn't you admit this bias ? We wouldn't be stuck in this endless loophole of throwing weak arguments at each other. All i've been looking for is reasonable debates, it's the reason why i'm here, but if people can't even admit their biases when they are proven wrong and they dig deeper to try to "own" the other side then all hope is lost to have a reasonable debate and that's what frustrated me.
As i said, Football ain't about preferences, if you hold an opinion that goes against facts then it is not a valuable opinion and don't expect me to respect it. If you want to have a reasonable debate where you want to challenge your ideas and you're actually interested into learning more then you have to admit when you are wrong or biased.
This basically comes down to a few basic disagreements, of which, I doubt we will ever agree. First, when comparing all-time great teams there is no way to determine an objective answer because the achievements are so close together. Comparing Sacchi's Milan with Pep's Barcelona is not like comparing Magico's Cadiz to Di Stefano's Madrid. You have two legendary teams with comparable accomplishments but from very different eras, different styles of competition, different styles of officiating, and different leagues. So you can't just claim there is an objective answer. You can objectively say that Pele is a better player than Denilson. But when it comes to Pele, Maradona, or Messi there is simply no objective answer. Same when comparing best teams like Sacchi's Milan, Pep's Barca, and say Cruyff's Ajax.
So yes, you made the argument that Pep's Barcelona competing with Mourinho's Madrid for a few years somehow makes winning La Liga more difficult in Pep's years than Serie A was for Sacchi. That's a subjective opinion. You can't objectively prove you are right. Personally, I find that argument less than compelling and also biased. More biased in fact than any argument in this thread in favor of Milan. Competing against a single opponent with comparable financial resources naturally makes for an easier league than league with multiple opponents with legendary players. I simply disagree with your opinion that Mourinho's Madrid automatically makes Barca's league wins more difficult.
Napoli had one of the all-time 3 greatest players with a very complementary cast of excellent players in their prime. Inter had probably the greatest midfielder of all time in his absolute peak coupled with an amazing defense also in its prime. Just one of those teams competing with Milan is equivalent to the Madrid of 08-12 that Pep had as opponents (when most of CR's supporting cast were still several years away from their peak). To claim those 4 years of Madrid somehow were more difficult than Milan competing against Maradona's Napoli, Lothar's Inter, plus a Juventus that some might argue had some refs in their pocket doesn't make much sense. Your entire argument has been based on a premise that just isn't sound. Nowhere to go after that. If that's what you believe, then bully for you. But it's hardly an objective fact. It's just your opinion which many will disagree with.
Second, you pulled out random games to try to make your point about Milan. I simply flipped your own arguments with you throwing out Milan losing to Napoli 4-1. Losing to Maradona's Napoli 4-1 is not as embarrassing as Barcelona losing to a team with an entire squad budget less than Messi's salary. I would agree that single games in isolation aren't definitive evidence but you brought up those examples against Milan. So my point was simply to point out that that same type of evidence can be marshaled the other direction against Barcelona.
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Yeah fair point on Baresi, I do believe he is a good shout for top 20 all time. We also have to factor in Maldini, another all time great defender and right up there in any all time list. Collectively they were very strong, I just don’t think they had that singular attacking genius like the other teams. Van Basten and Gullit were great but not quite on that level for me.
Well thats a list. Not many teams can boast 7 leagues and 4 European cups in a ten year period. How many on that list?