Re: Rank soccer Leagues of the world
 

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rank the leagues based on overall talent or on the top teams?

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I think overall a good way to judge this would be to think about how well teams in the leagues would do if they switched with the corresponding team in the other league.

I think Manchester United and Chelsea would do as well or better than Real Madrid and Barcelona if they switched but I think after that I would expect most teams in Spain to do better than their corresponding team. That's why I put Spain higher than England. It's pretty close though.

I think Italy is a notch down for a similar reason.

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You realize you're saying that Man U and Chelsea would have an easier time with tougher competition in Spain?

Re: Rank soccer Leagues of the world
 

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rank the leagues based on overall talent or on the top teams?

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I think overall a good way to judge this would be to think about how well teams in the leagues would do if they switched with the corresponding team in the other league.

I think Manchester United and Chelsea would do as well or better than Real Madrid and Barcelona if they switched but I think after that I would expect most teams in Spain to do better than their corresponding team. That's why I put Spain higher than England. It's pretty close though.

I think Italy is a notch down for a similar reason.

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You realize you're saying that Man U and Chelsea would have an easier time with tougher competition in Spain?

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Sorry if I wasn't clear.

I think Manchester United and Chelsea would do better than Real Madrid and Barcelona did last year with that same league. I think they would get fewer points than they did in England. Similarly, I think Real Madrid and Barcelona probably would have gotten more points against the Premier League competition than in Spain, but not as many as Man U and Chelsea got.

The main reason for this view is that I think the top teams in Spain have significantly bigger problems playing consistently.

Re: Rank soccer Leagues of the world
 

Jared, I don't think MLS is closer to 17th than 7th. Plenty of coaches in MLS say its Championship or lower lever Premiership talent. That tells me a lot.

If I had to rank:

1. EPL
2. Spain
3. Italy
4. Bundesliga
5. Argentina
6. Dutch
7. MLS
8. France
9. Portugal
10. Someone.


MLS is much better than people say and the top 4 in Europe are so much better than the other leagues it isn't even funny.

Re: Rank soccer Leagues of the world
 

1. wnba
2. all soccer leagues

Re: Rank soccer Leagues of the world
 

dat, I rank you below anything thats ever been born.

Re: Rank soccer Leagues of the world
 

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dat, I rank you below anything thats ever been born.

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i rank u below soccer

Re: Rank soccer Leagues of the world
 

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Jared, I don't think MLS is closer to 17th than 7th. Plenty of coaches in MLS say its Championship or lower lever Premiership talent. That tells me a lot.


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I don't know a damn thing about professional soccer and the various leagues so can't comment on that.
But the fact that the coaches are saying this doesn't really tell you much at all imo.
Coaches in inferior leagues make exaggerated claims about the quality of play there all the time it seems.
They always tend to stretch it.

In college sports it was always the MAC is closer to Big 10 caliber play than most people think.
In minor-league baseball, independent leagues like the Northern League or Can-Am League will call the quality of play there "about AA level" when it was truly barely single-A level much of the time.
But 3 or 4 guys on each team had maybe 1 year of experience at AA so the because they had more than 1 player with skills to hack it up there even temporarily they would call it AA-ball even though it absolutely wasn't.


I would guess this is similar to the claims made by MLS coaches. Most teams have maybe a handful of players who could make it in Premiership without looking way over their heads. So they start to exaggerate the quality of play in the league in their own mind.
Do you really think MLS teams...and I mean FULL MLS rosters not just hand-picking an all-star team...could pass as a lower-level premiership team?

Again, I simply don't watch that much soccer and really don't know. But my hunch is that such claims by not-very-objective coaches just aren't that close to reality.

Re: Rank soccer Leagues of the world
 

I'd just like to point out the Bayern Munich is omg [censored] ridiculously loaded.

Re: Rank soccer Leagues of the world
 

Where does the LA Galaxy's performance against Pachuca place them?

I know that LA isn't exactly the cream of the MLS and they were able to hang in there through regulation. But wasn't the skill difference in this match pretty obvious?
Pachuca was blasting away almost all game long.

Re: Rank soccer Leagues of the world
 

The issue with MLS versus many smaller Euro leagues like Scotland is that they have 1 or 2 ridiculously good teams thanks to the UEFA money, and then a bunch of also-rans. Obv the best teams in basically any Euro league are going to be better than the best MLS teams, they can spend 20x more on players.