State of La Liga

shadows

Member
OK guys ..I thought it would be appropriate if this had a thread...

Real have won the last 18 games and today we shipped 6 past them...Come on Real is 2nd place team..is doomsday nearing for Liga and its competiveness??
 

Beast

The Observer
yes...
Barca aside.. u have the players and the quality to still be competitive (par the EPL IMO ).. the huge decrease of the liga quality (as shown last year & this year ) is very alarming..

the 2 tough tests we faced was Liverpool & Barca and we all know where this went ..
a team gets 6 @ home and a defeat home & away in the CL yet we managed an impressive run based on will not players.. still 20 + points off Seville...

next year it will be the same Barca & Real in a league of their own and the rest are fighting for peanuts.. a bad reflection of how good our teams will be ... the EPL sides crashed you last years and us as well ..it all comes down to next Wednesday
if you crash out to Chelsea (Which i'm predicting a long time ago ) then maybe it's the liga who should do like the Premier league and start a new body to take care of business ... cause this competition is heading to the abyss

this is not a dig @ barca before some close minded member turn it to Barca vs Real.. we've been discussing this issue in the Liga topic the last 2 weeks
 

Cule Angles

Visca el filòsof!
It's an entertaining league, it's a league which provides a very attractive brand of football but at the moment the competition is weak. There's no denying that this Barça is a world class side worthy of winning any league title over the course of history but we haven't really been stretched and the fact that a really poor madrid side came so close to giving us a title fight and is so far ahead of the rest does speak volumes. Unfortunately Valencia, traditionally the 3rd side, is in a total mess and Atletico can never be relied upon to get their shit together.

For the league to progress Barça and Madrid must accept that they have to share their television money. At the beginning of the season in the preview guides that the papers produce every team's annual budget is published. Numancia's total annual budget is 6m€ - that's less than Messi's wages, JUST Messi's. We have to follow the lead of the EPL and now Serie A to break away from the 2ª and agree to sharing of TV money and get a detailed league calendar drawn up at the start of the season so that foreign broadcasters know which games they can show and when. The process of deciding on the matchday just a week ahead of fixtures undoubtedly makes the "product" less attractive to foreign fans and TV producers alike. In addition Spanish employment law needs to be changed so that La Liga sides can contract players from the age of 16 in line with British sides who are able to poach youth products from La Liga with alarming ease at present. These three steps would allow for the quality of all sides outside of Barça and Madrid to be improved and their financial futures made more secure. It would allow sides like Sevilla to keep their star players rather than constantly selling them on to survive. At he moment La Liga is seriously struggling in terms of depth of quality with the only winner likely to be whichever of Barça or Madrid isn't in crisis.
 
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ronsytler

Guest
Would you guys say that the level of defending in la liga is sub par?
Because I have been hearing things along the lines of Barca and Messi score so many goals in la liga because of very bad defending, and if C. Ronaldo played in la liga he will be scoring 40 goals a season.
 

maz

I walk the line
Problem is this....madrid and fcb are modifying their squad to compete in europe. They both have a combination of brolic and flair. However the lower teams in la liga outside of the big 6 (fcb, madrid, atléti, villarreal, valencia, sevilla) seem to be content enough to compete in an 18-team league (i.e. 3rd to 20th place including sevilla, valencia et al). Its almost as if they look at the fixture list, see the 4 fcb and madrid fixtures and cross them off and say "ok so we have 34 matches to try and get points".

On the other hand the teams in the epl are moulding their squad in order to be able to compete against the big 4. The style of play you can see by the big teams (e.g. quick tempo, decent technique, quality centre forward) is replicated by all teams in the league. Only difference is smaller budgets and transfer power means the quality gets slightly lower as you go down the league.

What CA seems logical. I dont understand the idea of teams negotiating their own TV contracts. We signed that €1bil contract with mediapro (or was it sogecable?) while the lower teams must not get hardly any money from TV.

Although i wouldnt call valencia a mess. They gave us a tough game and they have looked on form in the past few weeks. It has taken time for emery to rejuvinate the lacklustre (physically and mentally) squad he inherited from koeman.
 

Cule Angles

Visca el filòsof!
Would you guys say that the level of defending in la liga is sub par?
Because I have been hearing things along the lines of Barca and Messi score so many goals in la liga because of very bad defending, and if C. Ronaldo played in la liga he will be scoring 40 goals a season.

There's a different philosophy which at times makes it easier to score goals but nothing should be taken away from this side, to play football like they have done is absurdly difficult in any league. Premier League fans like to make us out to be a defensive shambles but for all of that we've conceded the sum total of 1 goal in out last 4 games against Premier League sides.
 
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London_Messiah

Guest
Some nice posts here. Still, I don`t think La Liga will ever get as much coverage as Premiership gets. Just go on ESPN, CNN or Asian major sports sites and you`ll see that they take EPL as NBA of European football. I`d like to think it`s the language thing but tbh. La Liga executives have done little to promote the Spanish league.
 

Warik

New member
TBH I don't buy the "look at the gap between Real and Sevilla" thing, sure it is a HUGE gap, but then there is a 13 point gap between Arsenal in 4th and Villa in 5th in the EPL.

Many English fans are saying that Barça thumped Real shows the gap, and maybe it does, but then Chelsea got thumped by Man Utd also. The Liga is a race to 3rd, the Premiership is a race to 5th. Very few teams in England have any realistic aspirations of breaking into the Top 4...it is a monumental task made harder because the top 4 continuously buy up the to players from those other teams who challenge them to add to their squad depth. Carrick, Keane, Berbatov, probably in the summer Barry and possibly Young from Villa...even Lennon or Modric from Spurs...

How many times apart from Barça in last couple year with Milito+Alves+Keita do you see Real and Barça taking players from other teams? not often... It is nowhere near as often as it is in the EPL. English fans say that is because the general quality of player the league isn't good, which isn't true at all as we can all vouch for having known about players like Cazorla, Joaquin, Silva, Senna, Villa, Navas, Kanoute, Fabiano, Raul Garcia, Cani, Rossi, Nihat, Llorente, Vicente and many others who would be good enough for the big 2....

English fans talk about the quality in depth....BULLSHIT. How many EPL clubs play well in the Europa League/UEFA Cup? Man City couldn't take out Hamburg...Spurs lost to Shakhtar...hardly any do well there now. La Liga clubs been so much better in recent seasons and IMO the Europa Leagues increased revenue from matches will actually benefit competition in ALL European leagues. Missing out on the CL for a Villarreal or Sevilla won't be an unmitigated disaster anymore.

Thing need to change, we do need to adopt the EPL model and distribute the TV rights equally, but I think we are kidding ourselves if we say the EPL is much more competitive on the whole, it isn't. The English dominance has mostly come about from the same 4 clubs consecutively qualifiying for the Champions League. The Europa League and the 6+5 rule will help alot, then a reworking of TV rights and La Liga would be back on top as it certainly isn't short on quality players and definitely isn't an undesirable league to play in...as many English pundits admit.

We also have to adapt on the pitch which Barça have been quickest to do, buying physically and mentally tougher players. Real were too fragile and bossed about against Liverpool in both legs...we might not be there YET but we are moving in the right direction...but in terms of talent and skill no one can keep a straight face and say Sevilla, Valencia (right now), Villarreal and Atletico are much worse than the top 6-7 EPL teams.
 

Beast

The Observer
Agree with CA, Warik you make me wonder when was the last time you checked the EPL table & the liga ??

you are comparing 4 teams near each other with 2 teams on one side and the other 18 on a different island ... having 4 competing teams generate better quality then a 2 horse race.. you are talking about the gap between the 4th and the 5th..i'm talking about the gap between 2nd and third.. again for the second consecutive year is quite huge
you are talking about a joke of a goal difference with the highest after Barca and Real is 15(Valencia ) Atletico Madrid (13 ) and 3rd place Seville (10 )... brilliant defense ain't it ? the big 4 in the EPL are 40's & late 30's.. they have at least a competition anyone of them can go on top.. something we don't see anymore in the liga
you talk about UEFA cup Man City unable to beat Hamburg while the liga sides crashed so early on they didn't even have the time to reach the last 16 ... with all of them crashing to humble sides to say the list
Racing out from group stage same for Seville who came 4th in the group stage behind Standard Liege,Stuttgart & Sampdoria.. that same 3rd place Seville... only Valencia survived the group stage coming second behind the mighty St. Etienne and Depor behind CSKA Moskow

of course Deportive crashed in the following stage from the mighty AAB the champions (i kid you not ) of Denmark and Valencia to D Kiev... that's the third round Sir.. not the Fourth Round, the Quarter final or the Semi's.. and you are mocking Man City who crashed in the Quarter finals ?? if Aston Villa didn't act with stupidity and gave UEFA cup some serious attitude they would have reached later stage ,instead O'Neil decided to try to steal the 4th place from Arsenal which he failed in & crashed out by sending a 2nd line selection to Russia

we all love the liga style & Games.. but it's turning to much show and no substance ..

the problem of sharing the the TV rights is neither Barca nor Real would give up the cash cow .. they are clubs owned by members and no one will give away more money for the rest of those 18 poor bastards (ok take 3 or 4 not that poor ) the solution is more the 6+5 which is more realistic then waiting for Barca and Real to give up 100 Million Euro and settle for 50 to accommodate the Racing,Depor & Getafe's of the liga
As CA said Numancia transfer kitty is equivalent to Messi annual wage it's absurd
 

Cule Angles

Visca el filòsof!
One thing I would say Beast is that Arsenal aren't title challengers anymore, it's a big three + 1 to make up the CL numbers in England right now. Only the luck of the draw has got Arsenal this far in the CL.
 

Guardian

New member
Have you seen Villarreal recently? They're horrible!

Is that another argument to defend La Liga, ca? They are horrible but still one point behind Valencia and a CL spot, the same Valencia who are not better and they are fourth!
The bad thing is that Valencia will be worse next season, I'm not sure whether Sevilla, Atletico or Villarreal will be better, it depends who will paly in the CL, while in EPL Man City, Villa, Everton and Tottenham will get stronger and stronger.
 

shadows

Member
Is that another argument to defend La Liga, ca? They are horrible but still one point behind Valencia and a CL spot, the same Valencia who are not better and they are fourth!
The bad thing is that Valencia will be worse next season, I'm not sure whether Sevilla, Atletico or Villarreal will be better, it depends who will paly in the CL, while in EPL Man City, Villa, Everton and Tottenham will get stronger and stronger.

CA is correct man..Arsenal have the luck of the draw thats why they are still there...Roma was/is scrub..and still they took them to penalties where neither keeper wanted his side to win:p and Villareal well they arent playing well either even though they are still in the race for 4th..Moreover they played @ the Emirates w/o Senna as well..
 

Beast

The Observer
lets not forget that Villarreal also had the luck of the draw mate.. they played PAO in the second round.. a very easy draw for them
 

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