Ok, here we go It's based on how the teams of a country do in the UEFA Cup and the CL. Looks like a good measure for competitiveness to me. Got a better one?
Is there a current UEFA ranking of teams? I would be interested to see how that stacks against the odds I put up earlier.
How can Real afford all this? From what I understand, they're hurting quite a bit. They had to sell facilities just a couple years ago. There are some discussions about them going bankrupt in the next 3-4 years. Manchester United's investment in a young Rio that they can afford makes considerably more sense than Real's investment in an aging Ronaldo. Real will be odds-on to repeat their CL victory this year. But I don't like their future outlook at all. They're old and broke.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/trank02.html 1 Real Madrid Esp 25.214 16.000 36.285 31.305 38.428 147.233 2 Bayern München Ger 16.500 22.178 29.535 35.531 29.750 133.495 3 Manchester United Eng 17.892 23.718 28.250 25.083 30.785 125.729 4 FC Barcelona Esp 9.214 12.000 37.285 27.305 30.428 116.233 5 Lazio Roma Ita 26.142 22.000 28.000 18.906 11.285 106.334
This is how the story goes : A few years ago, Real had overspent almost to the point of financial collapse. Their debts had risen to about 175 - 200 million €. At that time, Florentino Perez wanted to become president of Real, for which he had to be voted in by the members of the club. To make people vote for him, he promised to buy Luis Figo from Barcelona who was playing great at the time and considered the best player in the Spanish league. Such a transfer was unthinkable, considering Real's financial situation. Figo didn't really want to go to Real, but in order to force Barcelona to raise his salary, he had signed a treaty with Perez stating that if Perez became president of Real, Figo would leave Barcelona and play for Real for mucho €. It was just a negotiation tool for Figo, and the election of Perez over Sanz, the Real president at the time was deemed highly unlikely. Now, the promise of signing Figo surprisingly convinced the Real club members to elect Perez and Figo suddenly found himself in the situation that he was considered the greatest traitor of Spanish sports history. And Real had to find money for the deal. Real's training complex was a huge area in the middle of Madrids business quarter but unsellable due to its status. It was labeled as "park or sports equipment" area, because the local planners had decided that the zone was to be full of leisure areas for the neighbourhood. To finance the Figo deal, Perez, who is a rich business man, member of the Spanish "popular party" and was on Madrid's city council convinced his buddies in the party to change the status to "residential or office areas" and suddenly the value of the training ground was in the stratosphere. Real sold the place, the neighbourhood lost it's only green spot and instead of 175 - 200 mio € debt, Real had 175 mio € in cash on its hands. And so, the next spending spree began, all financed by Madrid's city council - of course Real has already spent quite a bit of the surplus. But how does it matter when it serves the self-glorification of senor Perez? Stay tuned for the next Real Madrid bacruptcy drama, which is inevitable to follow in about 3-5 years....
Those UEFA rankings don't really tell how good a domestic leagues is from top to bottom. The bottom of the table teams in the EPL would whoop up on the Bundesliga bottom-feeders IMO. Of course, those rankings don't really say much, except how good your top 6 or whatever teams are.
No way. The Bundesliga is at least equal, but probably superior to the English Premier League. Please.
So, what do you have to back that up? With these arguments we're entering the realm of pure speculation.
This is all pure speculation anyway. Statistics don't really tell the whole story. For example, last year Chelsea lost in the UEFA Cup because they were supposed to go play in Israel. Lots of big players did not want to go (as you can imagine) and they lost to a inferior team. So the EPL didn't get points it might have otherwise gotten. Just one example and not saying that makes up the difference but it proves my point I believe.
That Chelsea incident is a unique exception, and doesn't disprove the validity of the stats. Now, the stats definitely don't tell everything, but if you talk about which league is best and why, you have to base the argument on facts. The UEFA ranking is the best factual measure I can think of. But if you bring up other facts that back up your opinion about the premiership being #2 and far better than the Bundesliga, bring em on and I will listen. Claiming stuff that can't be backed up won't convince me, though.
Besides, I think every country has a story like this, so I guess it evens out over 5 years. IIrc, it was two years ago when 2nd league team Union Berlin made it into the German Cup final. They lost, but because the winner (Schalke04) was second in the league and made it into the CL, Union played in the UEFA cup. Now, guess what? They dropped out almost immediately and lowered the team average on the UEFA country ranking for Germany. So, for the sake of the argument, I can claim that the numbers for the Bundesliga are lower than they should be because a 2nd league team participated that one year and for that reason, the numbers must be seen in an entirely different light, the Bundesliga is better than everyone thinks bla bla bla
By the way, Bayern München officials were making fun of Real after the Ronaldo transfer - here some "free" translations by me. "Real has a problem: They will buy 17 more forwards, but still suck on defense. So I am not worried" - Uli Hoeness, GM of Bayern Munich. "On paper, they have the best team, but only until the next time they have to play us" - Karl-Heinz Rummeniggge, CEO of Bayern Munich. "They have big deficits on the defensive end - only once they start buying some good central defenders and a good goalie, we might have difficulties". --- Yeah, I know that Bayern lost to them last year, but Bayern has become a million times better with the subtraction of Effenberg and the additions of Ballack, Ze Roberto, and Deisler. I can't wait to see that matchup. These statements add some more fuel to the fire. This could be a fantastic rivalry for years to come - with Man U also in the mix. Don't get them wrong - it sounds like they have a big mouth, but I think these statements were made mainly to get media attention to this rivalry - these guys are normally not people who talk bad about opponents. Figo named Bayern as their main rival in an interview yesterday.
