Activate Another Lever and Still Lose to a Madrid Remontada - The Small Teams Thread

Although I find the strength of a league topic boring and pointless I think it points to something else, and a weakness in teams in general. I don’t know if it’s just how I see it. But look at the last four in this seasons champions league for example. It is very weak. Even ourselves as possibly favourite now, we aren’t a team that dominates others like we have in the past.

 

Also it's about revenue; Valencia used to be one of the top teams with top talent like Villa, Vicente, Ayala, etc. Now they have a ghost stadium that might never be finished.

 

Meanwhile, La familia will be completed by 2026.

 

The economic crisis of 2008 hit Spain especially hard. Teams like Valencia and Sevilla lost their spending power and more importantly, players were sold off across the league in the youth academy and budgets were cut heavily in that area. Instead of being able to take on 200 kids, now that’s only 75. It’s a numbers game, the more you can develop the better chances a few turn out. Small clubs that rely on the develop and sell model suffered the most. Plus you had the new oil clubs like City and PSG hovering up every kid that looked decent they didn’t care if only one developed, the rest were expendable which has a knock on effect.

It’s actually good for the league that Athletico had its run when it did. But like Sevilla and Valencia, they will regress back to mid to lower table once Simone is gone and their finances are an absolute shambles right now.

 

Meh, the EPL has the English language advantage. The other advantage that I can see is/was Oil money, Russian Oligarch money, and now American Billionaire money pouring into that league moreso than others. La Liga also has a few top teams that actively CHOOSE to play with one hand tied behind their back, vis a vis the Basque giants that either DON'T import players from abroad, or AVOID importing non-Basques.

If Athletic plugged in a handful of top players from abroad, what could THAT club be? They're already often Champions League material without doing so. [And yes, I already understand their history and why they do what they do, but if say, Newcastle or ManURE only recruited from the Midlands, would they be as successful? I doubt it.]


That said, money ALONE won't lift those teams; see the examples of Chelski and ManURE as Billion Pound Bottle Jobs. EPL clubs also had to import managers and sporting directors from the continent, in order to figure out WTF they're doing. [I honestly do not rate a single native English-speaking manager or sporting director, regardless of their country of origin.]

What's more, the opposite side of the EPL's largesse, is "what do you do, when your Bililon Pound investments go sideways?" How, exactly, will Chelski and ManURE and other overspending sides dispose of their stoopid purchases? Saudi can only take on so much, and the rest of the continent do not have the revenues to buy and pay for a turd like Jackson on Chelski, or Antony on ManURE.


Meanwhile, as Barca unwind the criminal stoopidity of Bartomeu, the generation of Messi/CR7 have also moved on. [Looking back a few years, La Liga boasted the lion's share of Balon D'Or vote-getters.] We're all just accustomed to recent hegemony over that competition.

La Liga is as strong as ever. Don't buy into the moronic mouthbreathing English media types who are out to fap their own country. They can't coach without importing managerial minds from the Iberian Peninsula. They can't recruit without the sporting minds from the continent. And for the most part, they can't play a modern game, excepting a small minority of wealthy teams.


Carry on...

 

As noted, I understand that.

I'm just pointing out that two clubs that would otherwise be pretty dynamite on the Continent choose not to. For "reasons." The EPL has no such club that engages in self-inflicted limitations.

And in comparing leagues, La Liga would be even STRONGER if, say, Haaland were paired with the Williams brothers in San Mames, for example. But alas, here we are.


That said, its only one issue out of a few, when comparing leagues, or wondering why it feels like "La Liga has fallen behind."


And agreed that Lim is/was a moron.

 

What club I wonder?

 

Main issue of Valencia fans with Lim was him using the club as Gestifute's farm club. And when they had a nice run going finally with Marcelino and Alemany, Lim's ego sabotaged it.

He was so pissed that Valencia played starters in CDR though they went on to win the tournament beating Barca in the final and Marcelino achieved Lim's main goal which was Top 4 finish as well.

 

Odegaard has ridiculous vision and passing ability.

 

Jackson is the embodiment of a lack of confidence.

 

You know you're sh!t when bloody Havertz bags a brace against you..

 

Oh damn Chelsea getting spanked..

 

He might not be the architect but he's definitely one of the chief engineers.

 

Boehly's cluelessly assembled team looking clueless. What a surprise.

 

Genuinely never heard of half of the players in the team until this season. Even today I took a look at the team sheet and had no idea centre backs were and just found out this Madueke guy is English.

 

Enzo dropping a casual 4.7 rating

 

Without palmer goals, Chelsea would be 18th. Amazing.

 

Pretty sure Diassi played in the World Cup final and Badiashile was supposedly good in Ligue 1, having just broke into the French Senior team, they’ve been crap for Chelsea though.

 

Under Boehly, Chelsea have handed out seven-year contracts for fun and paid more than €1 billion in transfer fees for 28 new players.

— Paul O Keefe (@pokeefe1) April 23, 2024