Maybe I'm biased, I go to DC games, very entertaining. I will also admit that watching Columbus is not recommended to anyone who wants to be alive in two hours time. Also, the championship games tend to be unwatchable. I don't compare MLS with Serie A as much as I do Serie A with the other leagues and where I want MLS to be in some time. Serie A isn't where I want it to be, needless to say. I fully admit that the italian teams are loaded with talented players, but the style is just slow, tedious, with a ton of drama. Much like watching the Italian national team, even. No one would say they were the most entertaining team at the World Cup. They won, they were the best at winning, but they eeked out a draw with the US, a bogus win over Australia. Serie A teams remind me of them. Teams that are solid, unspectacular, opurtunistic, where they do as little as necessary to win and often the most exciting event in a game is either a red card, a dive, or Kaka. Which is like watching an MLS championship game - plus the Kaka.
The fixed matches were not really fixed. I mean you had Moggi & Giraudo trying to use their influence on the FIGC to punish referees for making mistakes. In that sense you can say that they used their influence "to fix matches". However, a lot of this wasn't proven. I mean you had the recorded telephone calls but in actuality when the case was to go to court to the TAR LAZIO, the FIGC just told Juventus to stop and play a year in the Serie B and told them to wait for the arbitration hearing, which they did. Its not cetrtain that much could have been proven other than maybe influencing the refs to not make mistakes. At that point, the season was about to start and it was either suspend the season or have this thing end up in court for what could have been a 10 year long process..Juve would have or could have been banned by FIFA so they figured the heck with it we'll just play 1 year in Serie B and that it! As far as actually inventing goals or outcomes of games, it hasn't been proven and I seriously doubt knowing how Juve played under Lippi/Capello the last 4 years, that they could have been beaten all that easily. As far as the whole Italian soccer being affected in the future, it won't happen as Italy seems to as Bruce Arena said, "play right thru the scandal & we need a scandal too". This has been going on in Italy since the days of the Romans and if anyone has lived in Italy or even in Europe for that matter, they would understand what I'm talking about. Fullback Gigi Allemandi was banned in 1929 for taking a bribe for throwing a match. For the game in question he was voted man of the match and was quoted as never could go thru with it. He however, was banned just the same. He was pardoned by the FIGC and reinstated and Vittorio Pozzo picked him for the WC games held in Italy in 1934. He was a the best defender in all of Euroep and played that way and won the World Cup. Therefore, this is nothing new to Italian soccer! I would love for the MLS to have such scandals. I mean why not have a scandal and win a World Cup and/or maybe a few MLS clubs win the Champions League too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Serie_A_scandal
This thread has had little to do with what Italians think of their own league, however. It has a lot more to do with what some (presumably) Americans think about their league. I won't be as forgiving of scandal as the Italians are of their own league. Maybe for them it's a normal, oft-occuring thing, but for me it sticks out and how I think of the league in the future will be impacted. Not that it matters because I'm only going to watch Inter-AC games anyway, at least until they start playing some appealing soccer over there. It's a half-decent joke, but I wouldn't ever want the MLS to have a scandal like that. Unlike in Italy, that would be the death of our league.
How many people still boycott the British game due to Heysel and the subsequent European bans. That scandal was ten times larger. What about Olympique Marseille and their relegation? Scandals have been a part of sports everywhere, even in America. Baseball has a history of throwing games, betting and misconduct. Their more recent scandal involving steroids has not killed the game. The game survived. In the past college basketball has had problems with point shaving, but the game is still popular. Boxing has also been riddled with scandals. And I don't even want to mention all the individual player scandals like Kobe Bryant. Ten years from now nobody outside of Italy will remember the things that happened this season. And the few that will remember, will move on by then. As far as Serie A's popularity compared to the EPL, it may never become quite as popular. But the big Serie A clubs will always be strong enough to challenge for all the top European cups, which will keep them relevant for the foreseeable future. And through their success, they will maintain enough popularity to further sustain their success. There will always be a segment of football fans that will be attracted to Italian soccer. What I like about Italian soccer is that it strikes a nice balance for me between physical and tactical soccer with a touch of flair. La Liga I find to be mostly flair with little physicality. England on the other hand is very physical and very direct. It lacks the tactical dimension I see in Italy where a good attack to open up a defense requires several passes. A good attack in England is done with 3 passes and a quick shot. That being said I don't mean to belittle other European leagues. Being the soccer junkie that I am, I can get down with any style as long as the players show passion and quality.
I'm watching both games at the moment. Watched AC yesterday. Now try to get me to watch either of them play Catania. To Boloni: There's a huge difference between killing a league with a 150 year history (baseball and euro soccer) and killing a league that isn't accepted very well as it is with only an 11 year history. If you are in the process of trying to introduce a new sport into the mainstream, doing it amidst a game-fixing scandal would be death to your efforts. Baseball is as deep an american institution as there is. It is historically our #1 game, pasttime, with all the history of Euro soccer and the #1 team, #1 rivalry, all of it... I would say the Yankees are the #1 sports team in all the world. But look what has happened to baseball amidst the scandal of work stoppage and now steroids. Only the historically great teams sell out their stands, and some (like the Reds) can hardly get 15,000 people to a game. The game has been passed by the NFL, challenged in the culture by the NBA, you can't argue that it hasn't been hard hit by its own scandals of game credibility. Now compare that to a sport where it has an 11 year history and is only now being looked at by the mass sports culture. A scandal would be the end of it. Good 1-nil for Roma, by the way. Terrible diving though. EDIT: To comment on the major match fixing element of MLB... That happened almost 90 years ago and even at that point the leagues had been around in some form or another for 50+ years. Even so, it was a huge black mark and the state of the game looked grimm... Then came that Ruth fellow. Without him and the rise of the Yankees (basically, take away the Red Sox selling their whole roster to the Yankees over a 5 year span... allowing the Yankees to creat a super team built around Ruth) the game then might have been impacted beyond repair.
Yes. Good game from my countryman Chivu, I'm impressed he's even out there playing after that hit he took in Lyon. I thought Totti, Panucci, Mexes, Mancini, Taddei all looked good. De Rossi was so so. Vucinic was a good sub, Rosi not so much. It looked like Spalletti really wanted that 3rd goal, and I can't blame him. It won't be easy in Manchester. And what a crowd. That chanting filled my whole house and I was getting goose bumps the whole game.
& they say Italians are violent! Looks like the English haven't become tame much either! http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/6644490 Here are the match ratings for Roma. I read Totti played poorly but even when he plays bad, I've never seen him get below a 6 which in Italy anyway, is considered sufficient. ROMA Doni 6 Chivu 6.5 Mexes 6.5 Panucci 6.5 Perrotta 5.5 Cassetti 6.5 Taddei 7.5 De Rossi 6 Mancini 6.5 Wilhelmsson 7 Rosi s.v. Totti 6 Vucinic 7.5 I didn't watch the match however, I want everyone's honest opinion on whether this match was superior to watching an MLS match? Any thoughts?
Roma played well, they could of scored 3 or 4 on a luckier night. The two yellows to Scholes were legit, and it really affected MUFC for the rest of the match. The Rooney goal was against the run of play for sure.
As an Italian -American born and raised in San Jose CA, I had always known about Italy only thru RAI TV, cousins visiting in the summer, North Beach in San Francisco and of course all of my relatives living in this country and in NORTHERN CAL, NY & Canada. I had known about Italy & the Serie A also by following the gameson TV , watching the 90 esimo minuto, reading the gazetta dello sport , and then on the internet. Then I moved to Florence about 5 years ago and learned the mentality of the way things work over there. When I came back, I've noticed many different things here that I had never known about or ever realized while growing up and going to school in this country. As far as the MLS is concerned, I was the first person to arrive at Spartan Stadium on April 6th, 1996 (almost 12 years ago) to watch San Jose vs. DC. I've seen the MLS thru its heydey of 96 to its doldrums at least in San Jose from 97-2000 and then the loss of SJ, Tampa & Miami and now to all of their success with Beckham and SSS. I'm glad there is an MLS. I want the league to survive and succeed. Sure we all want honesty in any game or sport however, this is not always the case. If you think these very wealthy business men have acted honestly is not really speaking the truth. I can name very many incidents where the league has been in direct violation of FIFA rules that in many other country across the world would have been considered not only a league full of scandals but would have also been declared an outlaw league. For starters, you have one owner of multiple teams play in the same league. How can matches really be all that fair? You had the whole Landon Donavon situation/fiasco with him declaring he "would never go back to GMNY", then all of asudden he went to GMNY (FOR 6 WEEKS)? Then he came back and directly was placed on an arch rival LA? AEG , SJ GM Alexi Lalas & Co. knew exactly what they were doing. Lalas a year later found himself as their GM and you are telling me he had no clue of that scenario? They knew all along San Jose was going to move the very next year and Landy wanted to be home in LA. This is the craziest set of moves I've ever seen as long as I've grown up with soccer. For a susperstar player like Landon to be directly "placed" on an arch-rival franchise and with out being properly compensated and seeing that same player eliminate SJ in 2005 on the way to the MLS Cup is nuts. We talk of Juventus GM Luciano Moggi punishing the refs for making mistakes however, he was basically wanting the best for his club. This however, is not IMO a scandal but arranging which players play on which clubs is! When the Krafts owned SJ & the REVS they moved Jeff Baicher to New England another crazy move. We've seen many superstars "allocated" to NY & LA while other teams (I.E. San Jose) have been ignored! This is not saying those superstars had a positive effect on teams becuase they have not in many cases. However, they did bring in the fans and many of those same fans have stayed with their teams and I'm willing to bet had SJ had as many star players as LA had, San Jose would still have a team, not to mention maybe even 2-3000 more fans a match which is considered good by MLS standards. NowLA isgetting Becks and if he wanted to play Zidane? I thought the DP rule was only allowed one player per team? What about other teams? Why is this allowed if the initial concept of this league was to be a single entity and the "only competition (initially) was to have been on the pitch"? To say that the MLS is full of an innocent people is a little naive. Anyone can say that the MLS is innocent and not scnadalous and the SERIE A is corrupt but let's talk reality here.
This is so true. If this league ever becomes popular, journalists and analysts are going to find out about our corrupt system. Now that would be a dangerous scandal because it goes to the very core of the league's existence. In a sense we're lucky that we fly under the radar.
Exactly. If the MLS were the NBA, MLB or NFL or even the NHL, this type of action would not be permitted. Just becuase everyone keeps saying, "if it weren't for AEG, Lamar Hunt etc etc, we wouldn't be here" or "that the league would not exist", then everyone closes their eyes. Hear see and speak no evil!
To me there's a good bit of difference between a guided league operated from the top with the purpose of establishing a league... as opposed to specific teams and players within a league that run their own clandestine operations sabotaging the legitimacy of competition. Why Juve would do it when they were already the best team is beyond me, but even ignoring the Serie A situation. The MLS is trying to be established as a profitable, sustainable sports/entertainment entity. Run from the top, you give up a lot of the things that other leagues have (full team independence, etc.) to create a product that is sustainable. I think in the future if/when the MLS gets big, some will certainly look back and say "Look how corrupt it was..." But I think most will come to the logical conclusion that "There were a group of people who loved soccer and wanted it to hold a place in a country that didn't really care. So they did what they had to do to get it to a point of acceptance and sustainability. Along the way some people used it to their own gain, but in general it was people who wanted to make soccer an American sport." Of course that can devolve into how poorly managed it was, maybe the artificial influences went too far, it sold out to whoever was willing to foot the bill, etc. But at the heart of it I think is just a love of soccer.
I would just love to see what would happen in Spain if Ronaldihno was to be "allocated" from Barca to Real Madrid without any furor. Is it more fair for a GM (Juve's Luciano Moggi)to protect his own club by wanting the best refs for any given league or FIGC/Euro cup match or would you rather have GM's deciding outcomes of a given season by directly placing important players on the owner's favorite club? Which scandal more scandalous?
yeh....italian serie A is not top league in the world anymore. now its more like -1 Premiership -2 Liga -3 Serie A ps: but it might change again with big teams like juventus, genoa, napoli returning to serie A
I think the Premiership is a little more famous but head to head in Euro competitions in the 90's anyway, Italian teams dominted. Its no wonder why there was such an influx of Italian players who played well in the EPL, I.E. Vialli, Zola etc etc. Somefailed but as a general rule, itsbeen apositive for the Italian players in the EPL. English players on the other hand have had a tough time in Italy. I remember Welsh player John Charles and Irish Liam Brady players doing well in two different eras in the 50's & 80's respectively at Juventus butt herest have struggled. Paul Ince did ok at Inter when Englishman Roy Hodgson arrived but before then he was horrible. I'm not sure if its not knowing the language or if the football is just not played at the same level. This will be the year of Beckham in the MLS. I'm wondering how he will play with the Galaxy. Traditionally the Gals have always had Latin players so I wonder how his English game will play out in the MLS. Coming from a team like Real Madrid,in theory anyway, he shouldn't have a problem. Time will tell.
"The 90s" was a decade ago, y'know. Since then the EPL has added a fourth super team (Chelsea) and for example this year, all four EPL CL teams won their groups, three are still alive right now. Last year an EPL team was in the final after beating Juventus. Liverpool won the CL a couple years ago. All of this while English teams play a more congested schedule, play in a more physical and injury-prone league... and have to greatly modify their game from domestic to CL based on the vast differences in style. I think if you made a best XI from all three major leagues, the EPL's XI would look the most formidable. Less than half the team would actually be English, but that doesn't matter. And to go back to the MLS corruption thing: The youth of the leauge must be considered, the goal of establishing the league, etc. That all has to be considered. If LaLiga was trying to establish itself and had hardly been in existence for a few years and Ronaldinho was on Gimnastic, I doubt there would be many complaints if he left, came back and was put on Barca or R. Madrid. It isn't the perfect solution, but if there is central management and central ownership, you're creating a product, not a balanced league. That product is better with Donovan on LA.
Then what is the difference between this and the alleged or supposed match fixing matches in Italy? You are talking about a quasi game fixing league controlled concept. When you have one central owner of two teams deciding where important players are placed in the same league you are talking of someone controlling and/or deciding outcomes of certain matches and eventual championships. In 2000 Luis Figo was transfered for a record £38.7 million from Barcelona to Real Madrid. The move was hurtful to Barca fans especially after he swore he wouldn't transfer to Madrid. At least they were properly compensated, however. San Jose got nothing for Donovan unless you count 1 year out of 35year old Mark Chung who played well but that was it. However, they traded for him so LA/AEG gave them nothing. What MLS/AEG tried to do to San Jose in 2005 was beyond belief not only with the Donovan situation but with the whole team. For Don Garber to let them get away with this is ludicrous. Its like Joe Montana or Steve Young being taken from the 49ers and placed on the LA Rams. I mean who are we kidding here? This is a justifiable move by the MLS? AEG/MLS virtually stripped San Jose of its entire team and basically left the club the club for broke with maybe only 11 players in January of 2005. If it wasn't for Dom Kinnear & John Doyle's keen eyes for recognizing talent in getting the most out of outcasts, San Jose would have self destructed which is what the league was looking for. Instead the plan basically backfired on them as San Jose became the class of the league until the playoffs when Landy eliminated them. I hadn't herd a single ounce of praise from AEG/MLS and/or Don Garber until the franchise moved to Houston. All Tim Lwieke said at the AEG bike race "was they invested 20 million in the franchise" . He didn't say however, what the franchise brought to the league or the talent it brought into the league. Its like saving someone's life and then stabbing them in the back. What was the point? All they wanted was for San Jose to kick down the money to build them an SSS while they sat and reaped the rewards from it. This is why Lew Wolfe is trying to step in.
Actually, if you want to get technical a decade is 10 years whereas we've only had 7 winners in 6 & 1/2 years of this decade. The only EPL club to appear and win in a CL final this decade is Liverpool when they beat Milan in a heart breaker after Milan went up 3-0. Arsenal lost to Barca. Juventus & Milan had an all Italian final in England in 2003. Spain has had 3 Cups, Engalnd 1, Italy 1, Portugal 1 & GMY 1. If anything La Liga has dominated the CL in the 2000's. The decade isn't finished yet so we'll have to see. Italy has 2 teams in it right now with Milan & Roma. To tell you the truth I don't think they will go thru. I know Roma is leading but I don't trust them to beat Man United in Manchester. United already has an away goal so even if they win 1-0 they're in. The EPL has 3 chances to win it. 2005/06 Spain FC Barcelona 2 - 1 Arsenal FC 2004/05 EPL Liverpool FC 3 - 3 aet, 3-2 pen A.C. Milan 2003/04 Potugal FC Porto 3 - 0 AS Monaco 2002/03 Italy A.C. Milan 0 - 0 aet, 3-2 pen Juventus FC 2001/02 Spain Real Madrid FC 2 - 1 Bayer 04 Leverkusen 2000/01 GMY FC Bayern München 1 - 1 aet, 5-4 pen Valencia CF 1999/2000 Spain Real Madrid FC 3 - 0 Valencia CF
Yes, LaLiga does do very, very well in the Champions League, but that wasn't what we're talking about. I think the EPL has a serious disadvanage with their schedule and the fact that their teams have to be built differently for domestic compared to european games. But it is difficult to say that they aren't on a run of much success, when they have had a finalist for the last two years with a good chance for this year, plus the group victory of all four teams. On the other issue, you seem to be incapable of getting into a mindset of a league that doesn't have that established history or fanbase. Barca and Real have millions of fans, tens of thousands of members, and are billion dollar franchises. The MLS, for all the passion of groups of several hundred or at most a couple thousand, has nothing even remotely holding as much weight as LaLiga teams currently have. For all the craziness of people on BigSoccer, the larger population doesn't care. I don't care. Any team can get whatever player it wants if it can get the league established and stable. As traditions and histories are written, fanbases grow, each team gets its own individual owner and complete autonomy, then I'll be worried about what the league does. That's just not as important right now. In Italy they don't have these concerns, the things they do aren't out of a love of soccer, they're out of a corrupt desire to beat everyone else. We should all want to win, but breaking the rules has nothing to do with the love of the game. Also, another note, the posts here have seriously attempted to minimize what was done in Italy. Regardless of what you think, actions were committed that were known to be wrong before they were done. Juve and the other teams knew what they were doing was wrong, they did it anyway for no other purpose but to get an edge.
Actually, what we were initially talking about and/or the initial point of this thread was that the Serie A is no better than the MLS. Then somehow the conversation shifted to the EPL, La Liga or what have you being better than the Serie A (which I still can't & do not believe). As far as corruption is concerned, I'm not exactly sure where your argument is. I've known and worked with many people within the hierarchy of Italian soccer (Fiorentina when they were relegated to the C2 or 4th division in 2002). I've also known and worked with the same types within the hierarchy of MLS. I've found and seen just as much corruption if not more in the MLS as I did when I was in Italy. Therefore, there is corruption involved in every league in the world. We are only fooling ourselves to think that one league (the MLS) is less corrupt than any other league across the world because they most certainly are not. For that matter, in many cases they may even be more corrupt than others.
The single most obvious thing about this thread is the fact that most of you guys do not watch Serie A and, so, are talking out of your... Well, you know. More goals are scored in Serie A than in the EPL and they are actually scored as an end result of passing to break down the defenses which are ALSO better than those in the EPL. Due to various scandals the league has been watered down a bit but next season Serie A will probably have... Juventus Torino AC Milan Inter Milan Roma Lazio Palermo Napoli Genoa Sampdoria Fiorentina And will BY A WIDE MARGIN be the most competitive league in the world. And when Roma (not our best team) finishes off ManU (EPL's best team) next week you should all have a much firmer understanding of what I am talking about.
This is UEFA Cup history: '05 - '06. Sevilla - Middlesbrough 4 - 0 '04 - '05. CSKA Moskva - Sporting Lisboa 3 - 1 '03 - '04. Valencia CF - Olympique Marseille 2 - 0 '02 - '03. Porto - Celtic Glasgow 3 - 2 '01 - '02. Feyenoord Rotterdam - Borussia Dortmund 3 - 2 '00 - '01. Liverpool - Alaves 5 - 4 '99 - '00. Galatasaray - Arsenal 0 - 0 (4 - 1) EPL is hardly dominating. La Liga leads here also with 2 cups, followed by England, Turkey, Holland, Portugal, Russia all with one. I won't disagree that England hasn't improved, but they're not at a point where they can claim European domination. If anything, La Liga has proven to be the strongest league this decade.
How many sides, though, make the UEFA Cup a priority? Not many from the bigger nations. Those teams are usually teams on the cusp of qualifying for the CL in the current season and the money earned from that is exponentially more than what they would get were they to worsen their chances for the CL or a domestic league title by concentrating on the UEFA Cup. Hardly a great measuring stick, in my opinion.