What has happened to the English teams in the CL?

If you want further proof, look at this transfer index of players below in this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Manchester_United_F.C._records_and_statistics

(Just scroll down to transfers paid)

Look at the jump in spending between 1998 and 2001. Its completely out of sync with every other year.

Even if you apply the inflation rate like when ManU bought Gordon Mcqueen from Leeds, its still only 3.5 million pounds give or take. Compare that to shelling out 20 million for Ruud or 28 mil for Veron.

 

EPLOL's last 3 CL champions have all won it on penalties.

 

Keep in mind that the 2008 final decided on penalty kicks was between two EPL clubs.

 

so their chance of not winning it on pk's was even greater lo, /eplol

 

i have a better stat, 8 cl finalists in 8 years (05,06,07,08 x2, 09, 11, 12). 1 more to equal seria a in the 90s, with 9 in 10 years (89,90, 92,93,94,95,96,97,98). tells a slightly better story than 3 cl pen shootouts in 3 finals.

 

A few things:

Bryan Robson, Roy Keane and Andy Cole were ALL British records and in the upper reaches of transfer fees at the time.

On the difference in spending between 1998 and 2001: Fergie's Fledglings. Beckham, Butt, Scholes and the Nevilles gave the team strong players in key positions who would last for many years. There wasn't a need or reason to spend heavily.

Nonetheless, United were hardly bargain basement shoppers between Beckham's breakthrough and the start of the 1998 season.

They signed Dwight Yorke for 12 million pounds during that period. They also broke he world record for a defender when they signed Stam.

Even more damning to your claims: they had the money to sign Alan Shearer and Ronaldo de Lima - both World Record fees - but missed out on both when Shearer chose his hometown club and Ronaldo's wage demands were at complete odds with the club's wage policy. This occured prior to Beckham becoming close to the name he is today.

Finally, team value. Yes, United were worth about 50 million in 1991. That was in line with the price of clubs at the time, coming as it did prior to clubs being aggressive pursuers of fresh revenue streams (something United helped pioneer).

You suggest Beckham was the catalyst that drove up United's valuation. I say, the increase is in keeping with the exploding valuation of football teams in general. If you check the valuations the biggest teams are all valued in the hundreds of millions to billions. If that was all Beckham, then his existence must of singlehandedly increased the value of every major team on the planet.

What I think you'll actually find is that these valuations were on this trajectory regardless. If anything, Beckham and his fame is more a product of the corporate branding and revenue pursuits than vice-versa. Note that Man Utd had already had such an entity in George Best. Had Best been playing today, he'd have been the face they pushed (and was in the 60's). Had Giggs not expressed a reluctance to "be that guy", having tasted it in his early career, he'd have been the face (and was for a while).

One other factor you haven't considered: the reason why Man Utd are exploding in Asia and the US is also not because of Beckham - it is because the EPL is heavily pushed in those regions. United are the dominant team of the Premiership era. Chelsea have no Beckham or Henry. Nor do Liverpool. In any case, the only reason United weren't big in those regions previously is because no team was. However, where football has been big, whenever it has been big, United have also been amongst the most famous teams.

You can believe me, or you can continue to theorise that Beckham "made Man United". However, there is no doubt in my mind that Manchester United FC would be just as successful in the world today, had he never played for us.

 

You're right but they did anyway.

I never suggested they were, but the symmetry in transfer amounts paid goes haywire at a certain point in the clubs history.

You mean when Ronaldo was playing at Barca? Inter paid a record fee for Ronaldo at the time which came directly from Moratti's wallet. Man U being a publicly shared entity at the time I don't think they would have matched the 50 million dollar number.

And I'm saying that Beckham was the face of the brand in that pursuit.

Its how effectively clubs were able to market their players. Beckham is without a doubt the most marketed player of all time. The intellectual property of his entity with Man United far exceeded any other team at the time.

In that period other clubs witnessed the net gains and marketed their players the same way like Juventus and Real Madrid, but Man U was far ahead of them at that point.

Well they go hand in hand. Even today the strength of a teams brand is only as strong as how players sell it.

Yes, global marketing was inevitable and teams were going to find ways to increase revenues regardless, but what Man U was able to achieve in such a short amount of time (indicated by the money they spent) must be attributed to something. They became the richest team in the world overnight and you make it sound like it was always going to happen regardless of who played for them.

Not acknowledging Beckham as the single most important ingredient in Man United's rise to prominence is like ignoring Michael Jackson's effect on pop music. You keep looking at everything from your rosy red sunglasses without a shred of objectivity.

 

No it doesn't! Dwight Yorke was in keeping with the highest transfer fees paid at the time! Stam was the most expensive defender!

The reason Man United hadn't spent 30 million (pounds) before 1998 is because NOBODY HAD. The record was 20 million for Denilson at that point.

It was 19.5 million (pounds). What makes you think United couldn't afford that??? They'd matched Newcastle's 15 million bid for Shearer a year earlier! Then bought Yorke for 12m!

So what? They were already the most famous club in the world and already among the most profitable (IIRC, the most profitable at the time). Beckham made them a tidy sum, but they were already one of the biggest outifts in the game.

He didn't make the effing club. BECKHAM, playing for the biggest club in the country and the world marrying VICTORIA ADAMS, who was at the time a member of the BIGGEST POP GROUP IN THE WORLD, made for a celebrity crossover behemoth. It made them and the club a lot of money, but had he been playing for Blackburn, Newcastle, Arsenal or Liverpool at the time, those teams wouldn't have overtaken United.

Hell, Eternal were enormous around that time and Jamie Redknapp was pin-up too. Yet strangely, Liverpool didn't become the biggest club in the world when he got together with Louise Nurding.

You are talking complete tripe. Manchester United have been prominent for decades. I've already shown that they had the money to spend before and after 1999 and that what they paid increased in line with the transfer markets of the time.

It wasn't like they couldn't afford the best players in the World, then won the treble, then BOOM started spending.

It's also common effing knowledge that Manchester United were among the most recognisable teams in the sport going back decades.

To say that one man was repsonsible for the rise of prominence of a team that was already as prominent and profitable as any other on the planet, is stupid. Just because a few non-football fans in the football backwater of Canada may have been introduced to Man Utd because of Beckham, it's far from the reason that the club is what it is. In fact, had Beckham not played for Man United, I'll bet none of those people would know who he is.

You've displayed overwhelming ignorance over common knowledge and ignored my counter points at every turn.

 

What we didn't know then but know now, is that the clubs that were competing with Man United in the transfer market at the time were A)insolvent entities (i.e. Lazio/Real Betis) and/or B)privately financed by owners or conglomerates. Manchester United being extremely solvent and devoid of private financier(s) was spending from their net earnings.

This is a really ********ing important thing to distinguish since you clearly don't understand or appreciate the sheer money making power of a team like Man United.

You keep saying the Dwight York and Staam signings were keeping with the spending "trend" at the time 'pre-Beckham' launch but how does that compare to paying 30 million sterling in consecutive years between 2001 and 2002?

You said it yourself that his wager demands were to high? Incidentally I've never heard or read anything remotely proving that Man United had an intention to buy Ronaldo.

How do you define famous? I think they were famous in Britain but outside of that they were in the beginning stages of reclaiming a world audience.

Biggest outfit in the game by what standard? We're talking about the 90's right? Aside from a couple of FA Cups, a league cup and a UEFA Winners cup in '91, they haven't won ********all. You make them sound like they were AC Milan type-famous during that time.

Granted '98 was a breakout year for them and audiences were captivated by two things, great team play combined with one of the most dramatic finishes in European Cup final history accentuated by a young kid with dyed blond hair taking corners.

...oh ******** off. Go put on your ********ing red pajamas then.

Beckham is as relevant to Manchester United in their rise to fame to a point where it is comparable to Kobe Bryant and the Lose Angeles Lakers. In both cases one cannot survive without the other.

 

Let's start with this nugget...

Firstly, I define famous literally. Manchester United, regardless of what they had or hadn't won over different periods of time, were amongst the most well-known and well-supported clubs in the entire world. This is fact. It's not something I'm making up. It's why I explained about the Babes and Munich all those posts ago. United, since 1958, have been world famous.

Now onto the other cavernous holes in the above passage. At first I thought "90s" was a typo and that you meant "80s". Then you said we had a "breakout in 98".

This is what Manchester United did in the '90s:

1990: FA Cup
1991: Cup Winners Cup
1992: League Cup
1993: The Premiership
1994: League and FA Cup Double
1995: Nowt (lost league on last day of season, lost FA Cup final)
1996: League and FA Cup Double
1997: League
1998: Nowt (finished second)
1999: Champions League, League & FA Cup Treble

And FTR, despite not winning the league between '67 & '93, we were still supported worldwide during the '70s and '80s.

Complete falacy. Manchester United regained dominance before Beckham and continued it to the present day.

The Lakers three Championships at the beginning of the last decade, were built around Shaq and Kobe. Their recent two titles were built around Kobe. He was central to all they did.

Beckham was never that player in terms of on-field contribution. At his absolute best, he may have been on a par with our top talent, but he was always surrounded by quality. More often though, there were players better and more important on-field.

The reason I keep mentioning Yorke and Stam is that they were market value, indicating that we were in a position to pay top dollar before Becks exploded.

The reason we didn't sign Ronaldo was not that we couldn't afford his wages, but because the club had a strong wage structure philosophy that they refused to break. Big difference. That structure remained in place well after Beckham became famous and was finally broken to keep Roy Keane.

I already explained the leap in transfer fees: the top fees exploded after Alan Shearer moved to Newcastle (1996). Within a few years, the world record transfer fee more than doubled (Vieri cost 32m in 1999) and as often happens, the price of transfers in general ramped up with it.

Had we signed Veron and Van Nistelrooy at 1997 prices, Veron would have cost more like 17m and Ruud would have been closer to 10m.

 

Posting it twice doesn't make it any less crap

 

This is a poor analogy I think you are wrong on both counts. United would still be world famous without Beckham. And the lakers had the 2nd most championships of all time without Kobe Bryant. Kobe would have been famous wherever he played. Lebron became pretty famous playing in Cleveland.