Alexi Lalas: MLS on Par with Premier League

[TheRover]

They already have a FA Cup/Copa Del Ray etc. style cup in the U.S. Open Cup.

[JaredL]

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They already have a FA Cup/Copa Del Ray etc. style cup in the U.S. Open Cup.

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Yeah, I know. The point is if they eliminated the playoffs this cup would be a much bigger deal than it currently is. I could easily be wrong here, but I don't think it's very important for MLS teams. Is that right?

[TheRover]

Oh, I have no idea. I just thought you were saying they didn't have one. I agree with you anyway.

[valenzuela]

Jared ure case has one big flaw. English teams were banned for 5 years after Heysel

[JaredL]

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I was under the impression that the Brazil league was pretty weak since so many top Brazilians play in Europe. Is league on the rise?

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You'll find a lot of those youngsters who are bought at an early age are loaned out to Brazilian teams to continue development. It's a fascinating league and you'd be amazed at how much these players are actually paid. Don't forget that some players do decline the chance to play in Europe.

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I can't watch south american leagues, every single game has a "all star game" feel to it, horrible defense and offensive players who try to pull some crazy move every time they get the ball.
There are plenty of talented young players but that doesn't make it watchable for me.

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I may get [censored] for this from all the premiership fans, but this is similar to the reason I don't think the premiership is the top league. Admittedly I don't watch a ton of matches, but the premiership feels to me like what you've described here without the crazy moves.

When I watch highlights shows a lot of the goals seem to be terrible defense more than good work by the attackers. This I find strange since the defenders tend to get away with more physical play than in other leagues.

I think this is the main reason English teams traditionally underperform when they play in continental competitions.

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I have to disagree with almost all of this. Outside of Italy the PremierLeague is probably the best, defensively, in the world.

MLS looks like its coming on but I think he's overdoing the hype if he genuinely think any MLS team could live with ANY Premiership team. Thats what makes the premiership so good because ANYBODY can beat anybody on any given day. Boro for example over the past 2 years.. Beat Man utd 4-1, Chelsea 3-0, draws away at Old Trafford/Emirates. It still doesnt change the fact were a pretty mid-tier premiership club it just adds to why the PremierLeague is the best league in the world because anybody can get a result and that makes it exciting.

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It’s becoming less and less true the money from the champion’s league has thrown the balance off. FA cup giant killing seem to becoming a thing of the past, Look at the increase in the number of teams doing the double in the last decade, Arsenal’s unbeaten season a few years ago. Id like to see a fairer division of money across the whole football league Scarborough FC has just been dissolved after 128 years and Leeds united nearly bankrupted them selves chasing a champions league place.

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There are a lot of reasons to like the premiership, but I don't think this is one of them at all.

Why don't I continue my thread trend of posting a little recent data?

Here are the number of points for the top two, middle two, and bottom two in England and Spain for the last 5 years.

England
2007: 89,83,52,50,34,28
2006: 91,83,51,50,30,15
2005: 95,83,47,46,33,32
2004: 90,79,50,48,33,33
2003: 83,78,50,49,26,16

Top team average: 89.6
Second place average: 81.2
Average of median points: 49.3
Second to last average: 31.2
Last place average: 24.8

La Liga
2007: 76,76,50,49,35,28
2006: 82,70,52,46,36,24
2005: 84,80,51,50,29,28
2004: 77,72,51,51,39,26
2003: 78,76,50,47,35,32

Average for champion: 79.4
runner up: 74.8
Median: 49.9
2nd to last: 34.8
Last: 27.6

Obviously given the above, it's going to be similar but here are the number of combined losses for the four champions league qualifiers in the last 5 years.
England: 31, 26, 24, 27, 26 average = 26.8
Spain: 31, 34, 31, 33, 35 average = 32.8

And wins by the bottom 3 combined:
England - 20, 21, 20, 18, 23 avg = 20.4
Spain - 23, 24, 21, 22, 25 avg = 23

So while the median team is pretty much even in the two leagues, the top teams get a lot more points in the premiership than they do in Spain and the teams at the bottom do significantly worse. The top four teams combined in England average six fewer losses than their Spanish counterparts while the bottom 3 combine for nearly 3 fewer wins. There is significantly less parity in the Premier League.

[valenzuela]

oh and btw the MLS sucks, I think the chilean league may be better.

[KDawg]

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Jared ure case has one big flaw. English teams were banned for 5 years after Heysel

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I pointed that out already, and noted how far behind they were for a good 5-8 years after the ban was lifted. Outside of ManU winning the Cup Winners Cup in 91, english teams were far behind for most of the 90s because of the ban

[iron81]

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They already have a FA Cup/Copa Del Ray etc. style cup in the U.S. Open Cup.

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Yeah, I know. The point is if they eliminated the playoffs this cup would be a much bigger deal than it currently is. I could easily be wrong here, but I don't think it's very important for MLS teams. Is that right?

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Its definately below the MLS Cup, but they take it seriously. They usually run their A teams out unless the match is against some bush league semi-pro team.