How would you rate Ligue 1 ?

[jambon-beurre]

Compared to other european championships, how would you rate our beloved (or not) Ligue 1 ?
My ranking would be : (I've done it by group)

1. Spain, Italy and England

4. France and Germany

6. Portugal and Netherlands

8. Greece, Turkey, Russia, Belgium and Scotland

after that I cannot tell ... but I still see Ligue 1 above Portugal and Netherlands even if our championship is often criticized.

[Pigs]

I agree with all of the above.

Netherlands and Portugal are decent leagues, but the French league seems to be more competative.

[HalfManHalfAmazing]

Wow talk about French bias. I rank the leagues as such:

1)Spain
2)Italy
3)England
4)Germany
5)Netherlands
6)French
7)Russia
8)Portugal

Dont know enough about the rest.

[adri]

france has had a huge inprovement over the past two seasons or so, at least equal with germany.

1. Italy, Spain, & England.
2. France, Germany.
3. Holland.
4. Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine.

[SportBoy333]

As far as Ligue 1 vs Bundesilga Ligue 1 has better young talent but the Bundesliga has more higher price veterans. The young German talent of the Bundesliga can not match the young French and African talent of Ligue 1 but the Bundesliga can sign more higher price good veteran players than Ligue 1 can and usually good German players stay in Germany while in Ligue 1 they are more likely to go abroad. Germany has a lot more larger cities than France does so it makes sense the teams in those cities are richer and have better attendence than their French counterparts. France can counter that disadvantage with their good young French and African talent which is superior to their German counterparts.

[RandyNA74]

Pretty much agree with (almost) everyone's top 5. France and Germany are roughly equal, much in the same way that Italy/Spain/England are fairly equal. Good points mentioned by SportBoy.

[JRstriker12]

IMHO, I'd put the Dutch League and the Ligue 1 on about the same level.

In my mind, that's not a particularly bad thing since I like Dutch football.

I also tend to put German football more on par with the premier league. Overall, sometimes I think it's a better league since the teams are more technical than some of the EPL teams on the lower half of the table. (But that's just my opinion, I'm by no means an expert.)

I've been watching the Ligue games on FSW and I have to say I'm impressed. there have been some very entertaining games and you just can see some great young players busting with talent.

[guignol]

this rating agrees with UEFA's, based on results and statistics, so not much else to say...

dutch football is great, but a country of 15 million can't be expected to put together a great league... there are never more than 2 or 3 teams on form, and almost always the same ones.

[iougs]

Ligue 1 needs more goals !

iougs-

[SportBoy333]

Watching Ajaccio beat Lille at home got me thinking how bad Ligue 1 is. It's not like Lille tanked it because they needed to win this game because they still dont have 2nd place locked up yet and 2nd avoids the Champions League qualifying match. Lille is not even close to being as good as the 2nd place teams in Spain,Italy and England. I also think the 2nd best team in Germany(Shalke) are probably better than Lille.

[mofo4life]

1. Spain
2. Italy
3. England & Germany( i don't think that teams like everton,tottenham are better than stuttgart,leverkusen
4. France
5. Holland

[SetPeace]

Watching Ajaccio beat Lille at home got me thinking how bad Ligue 1 is. It's not like Lille tanked it because they needed to win this game because they still dont have 2nd place locked up yet and 2nd avoids the Champions League qualifying match. Lille is not even close to being as good as the 2nd place teams in Spain,Italy and England. I also think the 2nd best team in Germany(Shalke) are probably better than Lille.


On the surface, I suppose you could say that about Lille, but remember, Ajaccio is locked in a spirited relegation battle with 6 or 7 other teams. Only Istres has been eliminated for next year, but 3 teams above Ajaccio and 2 below them are fighting to avoid the drop. Having said that, I saw the Lille-Ajaccio match on FSC Saturday. While the victory by Ajaccio was stunning, I think they looked better earlier this season when they beat Auxerre than they did against Lille. Overall, your assessment is probably correct when comparing soccer between the traditional European powers. I would rate France no better than 4th and no worse than 6th. One thing similar this year comparing the French top flight to England and Italy is that the relegation fight is going down to the last day, and that makes for exciting games--it gives people a reason to keep interested in soccer in May!