I guess the rest of the swedish teams aren't doing so well but IFK GBG is leading their group. They have said from the start that they want to win this turnament, and it's looking good so far!!
IFK Göteborg has been good so far. Arne Erlandsen has gotten a great start as h.c (two out of two), and I think that it's thanks to his cynical style of football, with tight defense and pressure on the ball high up on the field (much like Lillestrøm), that they have started off this well.
Right, I'm getting tired of this whole "who has the best league" discussion - I've actually been so for long. Long version: Bruiser keeps talking about Rosenborg and how the CL qualifications are proof that Norway is better club-wise. It isn't. I will accept that RBK has done well in Europe, no doubt, but that alone does not make a league strong - something several has pointed out. The scottish league isn't strong when you leave out Rangers and Celtic fx. Now, all leagues have had some succes in Europe. Brøndby reaching the semi-final in the UEFA-Cup and almost taking out Roma in that semi. OB reaching the quarter final in the UEFA cup after taking out Real Madrid 4-3 on aggregate FC Copenhagen slaughtering Bayern Munich 6-1, Brøndby winning against the same team, in the CL, 2-1. Kaiserslautern, Leverkusen, Schalke 04, Dortmund, Eintracht Frankfurt, Liverpool and several other large teams (at least they were large teams at the time of the match) have been beaten by Danish sides. But, where's the point? We all know that cups are reliant on the form of the day, luck of the draw, underestimations and the odd minor club taking out a big club. So we take Royal League as an example - If all teams took it like Champs League, or even their own league, it would be a decently fair way to tell who's best. Fact remains tho, that most teams focus on their own league, wether they admit it or not. Brøndby rested 4 key players in round 2 for example. The way I see it, Royal League is no real succes - at least not yet. It takes time for a new tournament to get accepted by clubs and fans, and we might see more interesting games in the future RL's. Then the talk goes on NTs and what country has the best players. Now, if we take the past in it, there's no telling how far you'd be able to take it. Bruiser talks about norwegian players who've played in the CL-final - So what? Schmeichel has won everything there is to win, even best goalie in the world (and several times too). Michael Laudrup has won everything and is one of the remarkably few players accepted as great by both Barca and Real fans. Allan Simonsen won Best player in Europe back in the days. In the 50s 2 danes were the keystones of a league-winning AC Milan team. So you say "look at the present" and talk about Solskjær, Riise, Carew, Gamst etc. A dane could answer "look at: Martin Jørgensen, Jon Dahl, Gravesen, Krøldrup, Grønkjær, Rommedahl, Daniel & Niclas Jensen, Kahlenberg, Skoubo etc" A swede could reply "then check: Ibrahimovic, Henke Larsson, Ljungberg, Edman, Källström, Wilhelmsson, Zetterberg (alltho over the hill by now), Mellberg, Svensson, Berglund etc" I don't see Bruiser's point in mentioning X players. You talk players in the norwegian league. Let's do a rundown of the danish then: Zidan, Leon Andreasen, Absalonsen, Kahlenberg, Skoubo, Agger, Grahn, Hoseth, Álvaro, Zuma, Trond Andersen, Elmander, Retov, Peter Sand (star at Stabæk now star at a club in the _second best league in Denmark_), Danilo Arrieta etc etc.. Now, Bruiser. You make points, but you base them on facts that you twist, turn, crumble down and build up and generally do whatever it takes to make them fit into your perception of reality. A perception shared by far from everyone. Now, I could take the game Football Manager 2005. Highly rated for especially the insanely accurate database of players and their abilities. According to that database, the danish and norwegian league is player-by-player almost the same, but with the danish having a small edge. The swedish league is a tad behind both. I could twist that into "2500 football experts can't be wrong!" - because that is how large the _official_ research team is, not even counting the ones the researchers get information from, of which there are around 15-20 in Denmark alone. Short version: Bruiser, you are all about facts. Why do you keep ignoring or sweeping away the facts that do NOT support your opinion? Why can or will you not accept that others do NOT agree in your perception of the norwegian league? Why do you feel the NEED to play smartass on everyone disagreeing on you, claiming they know nothing about football? I expect a "aaah, came out of hiding again, u suck" style answer from you Bruiser - impress me, for once.
I was in fact done with this discussion, but if you care to rip it up again once more then here you go. But It'll be my final answers, so please stop "asking".
"In the Tippeligaen you have several teams that fight for the gold/silver/bronze every year" You call 13 years in a row for Rosenborg a competive league - I know it has been close some times, but still, competive isn't really the word I would call it. One-sided would fit better. The Danish league is even more competive then, FCK, BIF, FCM, Efb, AaB, OB are all in the medal competition every year - plus the random fluke like the Herfølge championship a few years back. "the players are better in the Tippeligaen, wich makes it stronger than the other Scandinavian leagues." This is highly subjective and thus, not really an argument. I could as well say that the player in the Danish Premier League are way better than the norwegian - but that would just as well be subjective. "And? Many of those results are from many years ago. And as the teams have gone through major changes since then, those results aren't comparable to the results Rosenborg and the other Norwegian teams have acchieved in the last decade." So you claim that the Norwegian results in the last decade are important, while the Danish results in the same timeframe are not - the BIF semi final was in 91, I admit, all others were 94 or later though - the S04 result was not more than a year ago. "As I can remember, Smeichel won the award of best goalie of the year two times, maybe three. That's not several times. And that doesn't even matter now, because he's retired." Several = 2 or more times. He took it home 3 times, ergo several times. He's still the best goalkeeper in the world in recent times. "Iversen, Bakke, Gashi, Kvisvik, Sæternes, Hagen, Andresen, El Fakiri, Karadas etc etc. The point is that we have alot broader squad. And alot of them are playing in the Tippeligaen." "And those players you mentioned, ME = not impressed." Well - I recognize Iversen and Bakke - and I'm not really impressed by a striker who has had _ONE_ good season in the EPL. Compare: Iversen: 218 games 62 goals for Rosenborg, Tottenham, Wolves and Vålerenga with Jon Dahl: 313 games, 149 goals for Newcastle, Heerenveen, Feyenoord, AC Milan and Køge. So you're not impressed by the danish league players, but we still have 2 norwegian NT players and three swedish NT players - plus the, probably, most expensive player in scandinavian football right now, Mohamed Zidan. You are again HIGHLY subjective. Stick to facts. You mention a row of names I don't know and claim they are far better than NT players from all of scandinavia. Why should I believe you - or rather, how could I? "Well, in FIFA 2005 the Norwegian teams are far ahead of both the Danish and Swedish teams with the players in the Norwegian league as well being far better." And everybody with a tiny bit of knowledge in the genre knows that the FIFA games are not anywhere near accurate - especially not compared to the database from SI Games which, to boot, has several other factors in the judgement of players than the few the FIFA games need. As said - you twist and turn facts so they fit in your extremely biased view of the truth.
OMG, try and post some FACTS for once. Your posts are full of false impressions and narrowminded, dimwitted thoughts that have no root in reality. Let's do an example: See, you post THEORIES. In THEORY, a league won by the same team 13 years in a row, would be uncompetitive. In REAL LIFE, it's a whole different issue! Rosenborg, Vålerenga, Brann, Viking, Molde, Odd Grenland, Bodø/Glimt, Tromsø, Ham-Kam, Lillestrøm, Lyn, Stabæk, every single taem has been in the fight for the gold/silver/bronze the last 10 years. This is a FACT, not just a/your false impression. Ehm, are you kidding me? Casillas, Buffon, Canizares, Barthez, Howard, Kahn, Hildebrand just to name a few, were far better than Smeichel when he retired. "Still the best" - LOL and btw: You are being subjective and passing off your own little oppinion as as a fact. And yes, "need", but the players in FIFA 2005 very much represent their true skills compared to others. I'm not interested in taking part in this discussion any longer, as your narrowminded brain fails to see the truth about the Norwegian Tippeligaen for what it really is: The best and most successful league in Northern Europe, today, and has been for the last decade. Again I refer to this site: http://www.royalleague.com
Bruiser: Casillas, Buffon, Kahn etc might be good - but how many times have they won goalie of the year? Champs League? championships? cups? European Championships? Fact remains, Schmeichel is still one of the most winning goalies - and fact remains that Man Utd's Alex Ferguson _STILL_ miss that safe man in the back - even after trying several NT goalies, Barthez, Bosnich and Howard among others. Yet again you take on the minor things and completely ignore the statistic proof that your darling Iversen isn't really a very good striker - especially not compared to Jon Dahl, Ebbe Sand, Henke or Zlatan Ibrahimovic. You also ignore the fact that the "minor" league in scandinavia has several NT members from all scandinavian countries - and still has some of the most expensive players on the international market right now - Kristiansen, Kahlenberg, Zidan to name a few. Again you ignore that the danish club results in the same timeframe you claim to be the important one are _at least_ on level with the norwegian. And of course you also ignore the whole point. You claiming Norway has the strongest league is subjective, it is nothing but an opinion stated by a very persistent and very patriotic mind. But thank your God that the Drillo era is gone. Your NT seem to be allowed to actually play football now - maybe we'll even see your awesome supertalented players amaze us in Germany 2006. Of course, we might as well see Greece take that one as well..
Not to forget Danish Silkeborg winning the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 1996... and just in case that someone (Bruiser ) wants to claim that the Intertoto Cup is a small-league, low level tournament (e.g. like the La manga Cup) that is very easy to win, then perhaps I should add the complete list of all previous winners below : Spain: 1998: Valencia 2000: Celta Vigo 2002: Málaga 2003: Villarreal 2004: Villarreal England: 1999: West Ham 2001: Aston Villa 2002: Fulham Italy: 1998: Bologna 1999: Juventus 2000: Udinese 2003: Perugia Germany: 1996: Karlsruhe 1998: Werder Bremen 2000: VfB Stuttgart 2002: VfB Stuttgart 2003: Schalke 04 2004: Schalke 04 France: 1995: Bordeaux and Strasbourg 1996: Guingamp 1997: AJ Auxerre, Olympique Lyonnais and Bastia 1999: Montpellier 2001: Troyes and Paris Saint-Germain 2004: Lille Denmark: 1996: Silkeborg According to France Football’s "Ballon d’Or" rankings, Peter Schmeichel was named "European Goalkeeper of the Year" 4 times (1992, 1993, 1997 and 1999)... He was also voted the 5th best player of all in 1992, behind Marco Van Basten, Hristo Stoitchkov, Dennis Bergkamp and Thomas Hassler... No Norwegian player have ever been among the 5 best players of any year and No goalkeeper have ever gained better honours than Schmeichel except for Lev Yashin who won the "European Goalkeeper of the Year" award 7 times and also was selected as "European Player of the Year" in 1963.... .
Kahn won the CL with Bayern in 2001 or something, Casillas won the CL with Real Madrid I think two times? That's not even the point. Liverpool FC's Steven Gerrard is undoubtedly one of the worlds best footballers, but he's never won anything. So the "not having won something" tag you put on players is a poor measure of skill. What manager Alex Ferguson thinks of his old goalkeeper is of no importance, fact is that those keepers I mentioned showed alot better keeping than Schmeichel did in his last year. "Statisticly isn't a very good striker" ? HAH! Since when did LAST years performances count for THIS years performances?? Iversen is in my eyes a better striker than both Sand and Tomasson. The fact that he's been eyed by Barca as a replacement for Larsson says alot too. I "ignore the fact" ? How do you know how much Iversen is worth? Fredheim Holm? Soma? Sæternes? Nope, I'm not. Rosenborg have qualified for the CL 9 out of 10 times, have gone to the quarterfinals there, Brann went to the quarterfinals in the UEFA cup in the 96/97 season, Vålerenga went to the quarterfinals in the 98/99 season, Molde qualified along with Rosenborg to the CL in the 99/00 season. There's probably also some I'm not remembering. I've seen enough Danish football thru my sisters danish boyfriend, and I think the Tippeligaen holds an higher level of football than the SASligaen. Not to mention direct meatings between Norwegian and Danish teams; Rosenborg's outclassing of Brøndby in the CL qualifying leading 0-3 away until they let their tempo drop, and now the RL games. I'm glad the SEMB era is gone. Our NT is still using some spectres from Drillo's football, such as good penetration football. It helps to variate, keep our attacks hard to forsee. With some better defending and some key players back in form, we'll beat Italy at home and win the group to qualify to WC in Germany
Ok, Then lets look at the real facts from the last 10 years. Rosenborg have won all the Norwegian Championships, while ther have been 4 different Champions in Denmark... 5 different teams have won the Silver in Norway just like in Denmark, 6 different teams have ended at the 3rd place in Norway while it's 8 different teams in Denmark, the same pattern you got in 4th place with 7 Norwegian and 8 Danish teams... So surely the Danish league is more competitive than the Norwegian... Champion: Rosenborg (10) Brøndby (4), FC København (3), AaB (2), Herfølge. 2nd: Molde (4), Lillestrøm (2), Brann (2), Vålerenga, Bodø/Glimt. Brøndby (6), FC København, Silkeborg, Vejle, AGF. 3rd: Viking (3), Brann (2), Stabæk (2), Lyn, Strømsgodset, Bodø/Glimt. Silkeborg (2), AB (2), Esbjerg, Farum, FC Midtjylland, FC København, AGF, OB. 4th: Tromsø (2), Viking (2), Lillestrøm (2), Stabæk, Odd Grenland, Molde, Brann. OB (2), Lyngby (2), AaB, FC Midtjylland, Viborg, Vejle, Herfølge, AGF. In all 12 teams: Rosenborg (10) Brann (5) Molde (5) Viking (5) Lillestrøm (4) Stabæk (3) Bodø/Glimt (2) Tromsø (2) Vålerenga Lyn Strømsgodset Odd Grenland In all 14 teams: Brøndby (10) FC København (5) AaB (3) Silkeborg (3) AGF(3) OB (3) Herfølge (2) Vejle (2) AB (2) FC Midtjylland (2) Lyngby (2) Esbjerg Farum Viborg .
I belive the three leagues are very even. What i dont understand is the swedish hate against RL. They are complaining about off season, low temprature, no one cares etc Even if there was no RL, swidish teams still have to play frendly matches to keep in shape. Why not play against better teams than they normaly would. The top teams in Denmark and Norway are far better than Swedish level two teams. Yes its cold in the winter and no amazing crowds. But the RL crowds are bigger than Djurgården-Cafe opera, and its just as cold for the players and spectators. so my question for the swedish people is: WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO LOSE??? kanskje man måsta man vara svenska for at forstå?
Exactly what I mean. There are 4 Norwegian teams with over 5 medals, while in Denmark there's only 2. There are more top teams in Norway than in Denmark.
Bruiser: When I look at the ability of a striker I look at number of goals scored. Fact still remains that Iversen was a flop in Tottenham, a mediocre PL club at the time. That is still the only "hard" league he's tried. Jon Dahl, regular for a CL-winning side, Danish NT topscorer at both latest WC and EC - and going for the best Danish goalscorer of all time. I'd still say Solskjær is/was the only striker from Norway at that level, alltho I've always fancied the Flo family. I'm not doubting you have talent in Norway, they just need to proove themselves in the big leagues before they can be called "star players" - just like the danish and swedish players need to. Kahlenberg and Leon Andreasen are major talents as well, but they are still some way off being real stars. At least we agree that Drillo was a bad thing for norwegian football. Don't get me wrong - I'm not a hater of norwegian football/players. I just think you, except RBK, are still a little behind the two other leagues. The gap has been closed a lot over the past few years, and you'll prolly be at least on par within 2-3 years, just like your NT will. I'm actually looking forward to seeing Denmark, Sweden and Norway playing nice football in the coming WCs and ECs. At least Norway isn't embarrasing anymore, as they were under Drillo. (If I could pick one man in modern football that never should have been in it, it would be him.)
Looking at the stats, then Carew still need to prove himself in one of the top 5 leagues... 20 goals in 84 games In Spain does not make him in even close to be in the same class as e.g. Solskjær... http://www.vi.nl/vi/show/id=40053/dbid=31182/typeofpage=40054/sc=8460d2 http://www.vi.nl/vi/show/id=40053/dbid=5764/typeofpage=40054/sc=30cc8f .
That's funny you think that, since the Norwegian teams have been better than the Danish teams in the RL, and other meetings in the UEFA CL qfing.. I still see Tippeligaen as the strongest league in Scandinavia, there's no doubt. About the NT: I think we're already at your level. We could've just as easily won in Italy as we lost, and we beat Scotland away, who hadn't lost at home in a WC qualifier for 40 years, and we rolled right over Slovenia. And that's even without Bakke and Solskjær. Me too. Although we're not quite playing that great football yet, we'll be there in a years time. I hope to meet you guys there. Embarressing? We beat Denmark 2-0 in København in a friendly before the 98 WC, how's that for embarressing? The fact was that we didn't play embarressing football, just cynical and boring football. And no, the man who never should've been our coach, was Semb. Drillo did alot for us, brought us up to 2nd place in the FIFA rankings and was top 10 a long time. That was before Semb took over and totally ruined us. He didn't settle before we we're all they way down at 48th place.
Bruiser: "The fact was that we didn't play embarressing football, just cynical and boring football." Aye - and that's what I meant with embarrasing. You had some major offensive talents in the Drillo-era and, even tho you did manage to get some results, you could have gotten much more out of that team. Heck, that team, player-by-player, was imo better than the Denmark who won the EC92. Instead, you played cynical, statistical and boring football. 'Tis strange tho. The most succesful Danish NT coach is still the most unpopular (Richard Møller Christensen) - seems it's the same with Drillo. Either way, I hope Hareide continues in the way he seems to be going - your future might look better than the danish - at least till we get rid of Olsen for a fresh face.