This thread is based on the hypothesis put forth by (Equilibrium) that La Liga is the least competitive of all major European leagues. I have done a very simple calculation to see if that were true. I have collated the points of all teams from the major 5 leagues of Europe. This excel sheets has the statistics. In the EPL: The median points were 48.5, the standard deviation (sd) was 18.87. The distance of the top team (in standard deviations) from the median was 1.99 and from the bottom team was 1.56. In the French League: The median points were 50, the sd was 15.1 The distance of the top team from median = 1.85 standard deviations The distance of the bottom team from the median = 1.79 sd In La Liga The median ponts: 45.5, sd = 18.6 The distance of the top team from median = 2.88sd The distance of the bottom team from the median = 0.62 sd In Serie A The median points: 48.5, sd= 14.74 The distance of the top team from median = 2.27sd The distance of the bottom team from the median = 1.32sd In the BuLi ( 18 team league, where as the others are 20 team leagues) The median points: 46.5, sd = 13.37 The distance of the top team from median = 1.76sd The distance of the bottom team from the median = 1.68sd ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My inference, based on these numbers: In the 09-10 season, Real and Barca were head and shoulders above the rest of the pack. La Liga was a league where the leaders were way ahead of the average. In fact, the average was only slightly ( 0.62 sd) better than the last place team. That indicates a massive gulf between the top 2 and the rest. BuLi and the French league on the other hand were pretty much even in this regard. Your thoughts?
The number of standard deviations from the top club to the bottom club (adding the two numbers you provided) were close: 3.55 for EPL 3.64 for Ligue 1 3.50 for La Liga 3.59 for Serie A 3.44 for Bundesliga Having two to four dominant clubs at the top will get more attention than having two to four clubs much worse than everybody else since the latter group would get relegated, although if the latter group had four clubs there would be a battle for which one of the four survived. If a league relegates three clubs, there is a no hypothetical limit to consecutive seasons in the top three but having consecutive seasons in the bottom three of the same level is impossible.
Thanks. Valid points about the relegation battles. Considering 1 season will off set that problem. I did not look at the overall distance ( in SD) between top and bottom teams for a reason. What I tried to arrive at was where is there more competition in a given league. For eg, in La Liga, the last club is just 0.62 sd below the median. That means that the competitiveness there is very high. In the French Ligue 1, the median is almost equidistant from the top and bottom clubs. This shows a fairly balanced league. I had done the same thing for the ONGC I league ( Indian league) and the median value was much closer to the top team than the last team, unlike the case in Europe. Indicating that competitiveness for winning the league is probably more than at relegation. I will add more leagues and expand this to a few more seasons, time permitting.