I want to place a little nuance: In the 1970s, being the 6th placed team in the coefficients-table was arguably less worse as being the 6th ranked nowadays. For 'Oriundi' it was a logical destination if a player wanted to go to Europe, the Italian border was closed. But for North-European players also the Bundesliga, Eredivisie and First Division were logical destinations (too). Some major stars were also scared off by the (alleged) violence in the Primera Division. Examples of those stars are Kevin Keegan, Dragan Dzajic and Ralf Edstrom who clearly did not want to be there. So they moved to other places (Dzajic to France). I know about Johnny Rep that he left the league for Bastia (where he reached the UEFA Cup final in 1977-78 as their major star), partially because of the perceived violence too. Keegan (article from early 1980): But it is clear that the opening of the borders helped the league, when facing other European sides. Country ranking (based on previous five years) 1970 - 6 1971 - 9 1972 - 10 1973 - 10 1974 - 12 1975 - 8 1976 - 10 1977 - 5 1978 - 6 1979 - 5 1980 - 4 1981 - 3 1982 - 4 1983 - 2 etc. The 'team ranking' is tricky, because many Spanish teams failed to qualify for European competitions in those years (Real Madrid missed European spots for the 1977-78 campaign! - that means no coefficient gained for this season and therefore a low 'team ranking'). If we take the only two teams that managed to qualify for all five years, which are FC Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, then Barcelona was sixth by 1977-78, and Atletico Madrid seventh. Barcelona had a poor coefficient for 1973-74 (eliminated in first round by Nice; Cruijff was ineligible to play btw), which fell away in 1979. Combined with the CWC win of 1978-79 Barcelona moved to 3rd place in the team ranking, and 2nd place in 1980. Thus, only looking at Barcelona (= only club qualifying for European football in all five-to-seven seasons since the opening of the borders), for them had this a positive effect. http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method1/trank1979.html
Interesting Betis - Barcelona game of 1982-83 (70 min highlights). Featuring Rafael Gordillo (#7 best player according to Don Balon in 1982-83). Maybe the best and/or most consistent Spanish player overall for the 1975-93 years, based on the Don Balon ratings - see the overview at previous page - and the number of 'caps' he has (75 caps). Also featuring Schuster, Maradona, Migueli... https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/threads/la-liga-rankings-1975-93.1813986/page-3#post-24677366 Gordillo his best season is maybe 1979-80 (#1 according to Don Balon) but no games on YT of that period...
Skipping through 1979 World Soccer issues I see that by then they ranked Primera Division together with Bundesliga and First Division as the three best leagues in Europe ("the world" in fact). Eric Batty wrote in his season review that they can be placed in any order ("in no order"). (As a Dutchman I noticed he is a self-admitted admirer of Germanic culture and in the same season review (and other articles) he saw some space to take some hits to the Dutch - the Italians at some places too; it's at least praiseworthy that he played 'open cards') It can be argued that the opening of borders for foreigners ('non Oriundi' because Oriundi had a chance before 1973) had a positive effect for their strength, as also the UEFA ranking demonstrated. At least the strength and results of the top teams. Maybe until they received competition from the Serie A in 1980 and 1982.
La Liga in the 70s (until early 80s maybe) was generally seen as a 2nd tier league. When i did this thread, i get the impression, that at least "on paper" they were a top-5 league. And in a non-oligopolistic world football, that's mean a competitive league. For whatever reason, their teams in that period failed at final stages to win some thropies. Lucky factor, maybe? But i think that teams like Barcelona-mid 70s, Atletico Madrid-mid 70s, Real Madrid-same era, also early 80s, were very good teams.
Yes, but apart from Real Madrid maybe also imbalanced for that time, based on what I've read. Had Atletico Madrid one half-decent Spanish player in their team around that time? Opinion was, I think, that they leaned hugely on the foreigners and Oriundi (foreigners with Spanish ancestors). http://www.bdfutbol.com/es/t/t1976-777.html Similar thing might be said about Barcelona (as naked results tend to show). Bernd Schuster said there was a big difference between the foreigners and the others. Correct me if I'm wrong. Perhaps that's also why the admission of foreigners to Serie A in the 80s proved to be more successful.
Well, good/decent players for spanish standard were Reina(GK), Marcelino(FB), Leal(MF), Irureta(MF), Adelardo(MF), Luis Aragonés (MF) and Ufarte(FW). Also had oriundi as Cano, Bezerra or Garate. It's interesting that the great Bayern need a replay to beat them in the EC final. But if you claimed by stars as Pirri or Camacho. The answer is the 70s was a poor era for spanish-born players. I remember said that previously.
Yeah, that is what I mean. Look at the Cruijff thread (also concerning Atletico Madrid) for common opinions. The Real Madrid manager Miljanic for example. Probably, better depth was a key reason why Serie A was more successful (depth of well-trained and educated Italian players to support the two/three stars of a team). That said, despite this imbalance and lack of trophies, some Spanish sides got some decent results in Europe on a consistent base (although, as on post #202 only Barcelona and Atletico Madrid managed to qualify for five consecutive seasons determining coefficient).
Didn't Spain fail to qualify for all three WCs of the 70s, shows the relative dry era for their footballers. They hosted WC82 so were automatically qualified, but disappointed in their performance (only Gordillo and Quini played well). It's only after the "Quinta del Buitre" generation begins around that time that Spain becomes again very strong.
In fact, Spain qualified in 1 out of 3 WCs in the 70s. They won their ticket to Argentina in the last breath, also in the last breath were eliminated for WC'1974. But, I agree they weren't among the top nations. Arguably neither in the 2nd tier.
Santillana (very good scoring record in European competitions; 47 goals in 87 games) and wing forward Juanito maybe qualify too. They also had an OK butcher in the person of Benito. For Barcelona Asensi and Migueli arguably as best Spanish players at Barcelona over a number of years (player ratings show that IIRC). But others outside the 'big four' (Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia) had also first class players around that time. First class in a national context I mean, like Jesus Zamora who was I thought seen as their key midfielder in 1980 and 1982 (playing for Real Sociedad). Though probably neither of those has a status like Luis Suarez, Gento, Amancio, Peiro, Del Sol.
This is from Don Balon #185 (04.24.1979) Player rating scale seems 1-10, not 0-3. But msioux75 said that scale changed to 1-10 since 1988-89. Who can explain Don Balon's rating?
Don Balon their choice of 'team of the decade' 1975 - 1985 As published 29 October 1985 In between parentheses the number of times a player got selected in the 'team of the season' (as posted by @msioux75 in the thread, which was based on the average match grade). Difficult to read perhaps but it reads as: Arconada (4); Urkiaga (3), Migueli (5), Pirri (2), Camacho (4); Cruijff (3), Neeskens (3), Kempes (2); Stielike (6); Quini (4), Lopez Ufarte (3) After balancing peak form, consistency and number of seasons out Stielike was named 'player of the decade' (the Real Madrid player made the team of the season 6 times of the 8 full seasons he played in the Primera Division). They describe him as a defensive and midfield player so probably it should be read as that he's lined up alongside Neeskens in the 'team of the decade'. I found some other scans too. Which will also answer @Raute his question a bit.
Great post @PuckVanHeel , I left my mags in my old house, so it was hard to scan the issue of the Opening Post where all rankings are showed. I can't find it in the net, but some issues from 79-81 which the weekly ratings are in 1-10 scale as @Raute said, even I remember having some of those. But, honestly I don't have an answer why DB changed the scale those years, why return to old scale to change it again in the 1988-89 season. And the most important how they showed the original ranking published in the 79-80 and 80-81 seasons and how they made the conversion in the resumes that I posted.
Here's a great site about statistics and general info about La Liga and Don Balon http://www.arefepedia.es/foro/viewforum.php?f=11
Yes, in the 1985 magazine it is formatted in this way The other one like this (click picture to enlarge) The scale was 1-10 and then in the 1993 review changed to 0-3. Do you maybe know more for the years 1994 to 2006? I was looking into buying an issue (as I actually did for October 1985) but it is hard to see when - which issue of the year - they published the final ranking...
Thank you @PuckVanHeel . I always want to know the conversion to one scale to another and your post is very useful In the Arefepedia's link that I posted there are upload the last years of DB, I guess some final ranking must be there. Extras Don Balon, maybe? http://www.arefepedia.es/foro/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=48 I also see some old ratings published by Marca in the scale 0-3, for example in 1961-62 season (there are upload in the Cloud) http://www.arefepedia.es/foro/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=206
For example, I download Marca from June 01, 1961. It covers the EC final: Barcelona 2 - Benfica 3 The ratings BENFICA: Costa Pereira (3) - Joao (2), Germano (2). Angelo (2) - Neto (2). Cruz (3) - Joao Augusto (1), Santana (1), Aguas (1), Coluna (3) y Cavem (2) BARCELONA: Ramallets (0) - Foncho (1), Gensana (0), Gracia (2) - Verges (1), Garay (1) - Kubala (2), Kocsis (3), Evaristo (1), Suárez (3) y Czibor (3) The better players, for Benfica (Coluna and C.Pereira), for Barcelona (Suárez, Kocsis and Czibor)
Yeah, this are the Marca ratings of the 1960 final. Re: Don Balon I saw that they picked a 1st, 2nd and 3rd XI for the 1994 to 1996 years, but they don't show the grades. It's the same in the links you provide. I'll spell out the 'problem' tomorrow... edit: or things like the April 1976 'Clasico' and other 1960s to 1980s Clasicos by Marca http://www.bdfutbol.com/es/p/j5282.html?cat=-&temp=-&equip=-&rival=2
I already spotted some peculiar and clear oddities in the Marca archive. Two mid-70s examples: Gerd Müller received a '0' for the 1975EC final. The only other ones to receive a '0' too was the Leeds goalkeeper, Billy Bremner and the referee. Another thing I noticed was that they graded all sorts of games. That made me wonder how Marca rated the only 1970s match Catalonia played (could play - didn't play in the 1980s too). And surprise... on this rare occasion they didn't hand out grades Anyway, I'll move back to 'Don Balon' now and show the 'problem'...
Well, this is one of the problems I previously encountered and in the links you provide the same problem shows. 'Don Balon' certainly handed out grades after 1993, because I saw them in several individual issues. However, I struggle to find the final average grade in end of the season overviews. The 1994 overview: The 1995 overview: See? In 1994 they changed the method for selecting a team of the year. They still handed out grades but the final overview, even next to previous years, didn't show them any more. I couldn't find this with the grades included...
1993-94 Don Balon ranking Foreign player of the season: Stoichkov Spanish player of the season: Guerrero Breakthrough player: Sergi 1994-95 Don Balon ranking Foreign player of the season: Zamorano Spanish player of the season: Amavisca Breakthrough player: Raul Gonzalez 1995-96 Don Balon ranking Foreign player of the season: Mijatovic Spanish player of the season: Caminero Breakthrough player: Ivan de la Pena
I'll note the 'full' seasons + seasons played at the top level (1975-1985), which makes their balancing act a bit more transparent and visible. Arconada (4 of 9, 10) Urquiaga (3 of 6, 7) Migueli (5 of 9, 10) Pirri (2 of 5, 5) Camacho (4 of 8, 10) Cruijff (3 of 3, 3) Neeskens (3 of 4, 4) Kempes (2 of 6, 8) Stielike (6 of 8, 8) Quini (4 of 8, 9) Lopez Ufarte (3 of 9, 10) Notice here that there have been players with more than 2 'team of the season' selections, who didn't make it into their team of the decade.