I think that as a league, it sucks.. You always have Barcelona on the top, Real Madrid 5-8 points behind and everbody else is 20+ points behind.. I mean, u have 2 very strong teams, but the rest just can't compete with them.. Sort of what happens in Scotland with Celtics and Rangers, or what happens in Uruguay (except that they are 3) with Peñarol, Nacional and Defensor.. What is your opinion about La Liga ?
The spanish league is actually quite strong looking at the top 10, but what you are saying is true. But it's not one of the worst, it's one of the best. And England has the same problem, but there it are 4,5 of them. The more money is going to play a role, the bigger the gaps will become. In a big league the teams can try to keep up with the richest teams by tv-rights, although that's nothing compared to what the 2 richest earn with merchandise, sponsoring and Champions League participation. Teams like Villareal, Valencia, Sevilla come close, and play high level football. But without a sugardaddy, it's almost impossible to win it and become a stable contender for the championship.
Yeah this seems to happen a lot with soccer, especially with Man U always being on top within the Premier League. Unfortunately money really does talk and richer clubs can just easily buy themselves quality players while bottom feeder clubs may have to dare I say it train and build players up to play at a higher level. Not to say MLS is better then any of these clubs ( because its not) but here we do have equilibrium and no one club really dominates.
yes, in my opinion its one of the worst, despite the strong quality level of football. The problem is that its too predictable. its either Barcelona or Real Madrid. BORING! I stoped following it 2-3 years ago.
The standings have become predictable the past four years or so, but the soccer played in the field is quite superior. I still prefer it to any other European league.
La Liga is pretty bad right now but certainly not one of the worst. Portugal went over 50 years with the title always going to one of the "Big 3". Then of course there is the Scottish duopoly - 26 years and counting. Dutch Eredivisie also went about 30 years with one of the "Big 3" winning every season. Compared to that, La Liga's 3 year run of Barca/RM finishing #1/#2, and 7 year-run where one of them wins the title, looks pretty insignificant. OTOH, its difficult to see the current situation changing in the next several years.
since 95-96 only 3 teams have won the title in England, and since 2004 only 2 teams have won the title. so why is everyone complaining about Spain? at least 5 teams have won it in spain since then (I may be forgetting a team that's not in the first division anymore but the following have all won it in spain since 95-96: real madrid athletico madrid barca valencia deportivo de la coruna plus , watching la liga you see such beautiful plays in 30mins that you don't see ever watching BPL. la liga is the most aesthetically pleasing league in the world if you love beautiful soccer. In england you never know if someone's going to get their leg broken in two like a twig due to some neanderthals tackle. So I guess that's exciting in some ways, kind of like watching car racing for the accidents.
and diving and holding both hands to your face as you roll along the field pretending to be severly "injured"
or you can watch someone do that after they've suffered multiple compound fractures b/c some Neanderthal got "stuck in" and then coaches for a team that wasn't even playing can tell you how there was "nothing wrong with the tackle" and it's just good football really overrated league.
The complaints about La Liga are just in the past 2-3 seasons. Nobody was complaining about lack of competitiveness in Spain in 1995. The duopoly in Spain is a very recent thing, but its also unprecedented in terms of the degree of dominance and there is no sign of this ending. Whereas during a typical EPL season, there are many twists and turns that re-shape the title-race.
It's not new but amount of dominance of the big two is rather recent. About your second statement, that may be true but the winners end being the same.
Spanish league may have some better football, but less competition and i hate the diving. Thing is you can't just put statistics down about who won the league, look at how well the teams have done in the seasons and almost got there but havent won such as Liverpool. In the Premier League you have 5 contenders to win the league who have near about equal chances wheres in Spain only 2 teams will win the league, and the others will be far behind. I like a league with competition you may like different, but in my opinion i think the English Premier League is much better.
In hindsight, every league looks predictable. But you wouldn't bet serious money that either Man Utd or Chelsea will win next season. Can we leave the diving comments out of this? Any objective observer knows there is a similar amount of diving in any of the top leagues.
No, they just have to stop being greedy. All you have to do is look at the transfer market to see why they can't capable of competing with Barca/Real... Atletico sold Fernando Torres, Valencia sold David Villa, etc. Here's a hint to teams who want to be more competitive: STOP SELLING YOUR BEST PLAYERS! I have no sympathy for these idiots when they DO have the pieces to build a great team, but instead they sell them just to make a quick buck.
They aren't selling players to make money. They sell them to stop going into debt, and also because once a player's head is turned by a larger club and larger salary, they'll never be the same again.
Apart from the flaw in your reasoning that RichardL pointed-out, the Villa case is a bad example. Valencia got a tonne of money for that transfer, they still qualified automatically for the CL group-stage anyway and now Villa's best years are behind him. All-in-all a brilliant piece of business by Valencia right there.
Why ? it seems to be a predominately "latin" thing. Watch the CL semi first leg ? Real vs Barca ? The "simulation" by the Barca players was totally ridiculous. Sure Man Utd got beat by the better team on the day in the final but they sure as hell weren't flopping all over the place and thats a big part of why it was such a good game.
That wasn't a typical La Liga game though. In fact, it wasn't a La Liga game at all (Hint: What does 'CL' stand for?) Neither was Barca. Your argument just doesn't fly since the top teams in both leagues are stacked with foreign imports. You're basically claiming that "our Portuguese imports dive less than yours."
Sure as hell was two Spanish teams playing each other though and it was a total disgrace and one of the most pitiful ads for football I've ever witnessed.
Every league has it's *problems*, to me the biggest thing about La Liga is watching Real or Barca dominate some poor La Liga team. If you are a fan of either clubs, its the best league in the world otherwise it's not the league for you.