European Football - who's best?

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The English league is the best league because it mixes the muscle, no-nonsense, physical side of the English game with the flair and trickery of the foreign games.
I don't base that opinion on European trophies. Just entertainment value. It has the most sucessful marketing because it is the best to watch.

 

The English league offers the most exciting matches...granted, that's the truth, but the best league ? No mate, that would be the Spanish Primera Division, which has at least 5 titlecontenders of equal strength, opposed to England where Arsenal only has Chelsea to worry about.

 

Dont say that, Manure beat Arsenal today.

I have another glorious piece of news! AIK have been relegated from the Swedish First division! AIK is one of the biggest clubs with perhaps the largest following, almost all sonofbitches. It is such a glorious day! How sweet it is to see the mighty fall. There is no joy like glee. Their replacements? A tiny little team from the north of Sweden, aint sports grand? *does a little dance*

AIK being relegated is ecquivalent of AC Milan being relegated in Italy, Ajax in Holland, Real Madrid in Spain or Manure in England.

 

Thats all I meant. I think 'best' has to be measured in entertainment value. As at the end of the day, football is a sport. Sports are meant to be entertaining.
Spanish is 'possibly' (I would argue this myself) the most competitive as regards the eventual winner, but is now way near as entertaining as the English league.

I spend my money to see entertaining games.

 

Yeah, i know Man U beat Arsenal today, but as long as they keep losing points against teams like Fullham, one can hardly call them contenders.

What's all this talk about AIK ? I thought Djurgaardens was the champion of Sweden ?

 

Man U will turn things around now. I expect them to finish 3rd. Bolton and Everton won't last the pace.

 

Djurgården are the champions yes, for two years running. They wont win this year though. AIK is another Stockholm club which hasnt been as succesful lately but which have had an even greater fanbase than Djurgården.

 

Been away for a little while, but I am suprised at the volume of the response.

@Barmy Army - did this thread inspire you enough to change your name? Joking aside I agree with the majority of your statements.

@Joacqin (you must be!) - If you read my post you will find my opinions are based on talent within the squad rather than results.
As I think I stated in a previous thread - Sweden as a unit are greater than the sum of their parts. You and a couple of others totally overrate them (someone even suggested they would beat France! WTF). To put this into perspective if Sven could pick a squad from Sweden and England I'd imagine only the Swedish players below would get a look in -
Larrson (In his prime - is he retired yet?) but he would never have been anything like as prolific in a more competitive league
Ljunberg - at his best - but inconsistent mostly
Ibrahimovich - still relatively unproven might get the odd subs appearance
Mellberg - a very good defender - would probably make the England squad - but would not play ahead of at least three of the english defenders.
Other than that Ulrika Jonson might get into Svens hotel room, but for a different sort of talent entirely.
Seriously though a team that regularly caps Marcus Allback - cannot be regarded in the same league as England.
In terms of Beckham - United have suffered badly since he left. I actually think the guy needs a bit of a rest - and he will be back to his best he was excellent in the last England match, apart from the 2 challenges.
As for Croatia, Romania and Wales being better than Eire - Darkthrone you are wrong.

 

Ibrahimovic is arguably the best and most athletic striker in Europe, and i DID see him play every week. He picks his moments, and has a lousy character, but his ballhandlingskills are unmatched. I even have higher regards of him than Henry or V. Nistelrooy.

And obviously you haven't seen Romania play in a long time, because at the moment they are one of the better sides in Europe, equal to the Czechs as a team. They are in our qualifying group, and i expect a tough battle against them in Bucarest. No way the Irish are better than this Romanian team. We might get lucky though, when Mutu is charged guilty of cocaine abuse, without him they are a lot less dangerous.

 

I think it was me, and I say it again. France is bad, IMHO, they are worse than Sweden, England, Germany, hell, they are even worse than Denmark.

This will be fun.

You mean that Larson isn't successfull in the Spanish league? Damn, the results and news must lie to me. Not even free from propaganda in the sports nowadays.

I agree on this one, but Christian Wilhelmsson is much better.

W.T.F?? He is making a great success in Juventus, world's best club right now, and are better than most of the English attackers, including Owen but not Rooney. I consider Zlatan and Rooney quite equals.

I agree except that he would be much better than a lot of defenders there. He is a team player who hasn't got too much attention and therefore fights much more than the English divas to get his fair share of the attention.

Now, where is Wilhelmsson? Isaksson?(Who is MUCH better than your sucky goalies.)

And if England is so ****ing good and Sweden is so lousy, how come that England hasn't won against Sweden since the qualifications 93(IIRC). It's not like they haven't met a lot of times or so.

 

I wonder what sport you watch which you seem to think is football Oyster.

First off, I do not think Sweden would beat France, they *could* beat France but Sweden is one of those teams who can beat anyone, and lose against pretty much anyone. I wonder where the hell you got the idea that I overrate Sweden, I dont have any illusions about my national team. It is a consistent team with some flares of raw talent nowadays. Larsson is making a great impression in Barcelona and is probably playing the best football in his life at the age of 32. Ljungberg has finally started to deliver in the national team and just not for Arsenal, why Caleb thinks Wilhelmsson is better is beyond me. "Chippen" is adequate, not more. Mellberg is one of those abundant centrebacks I spoke about earlier, great players but every team tends to have great centre backs. As for Allbäck, well what can I say? Theoritically he has no place even in the Swedish team but the man scores goals for Sweden, lots of goals and he always plays great in the Swedish jersey. One shouldnt forget that the times he really got the chance in Villa he performed quite well but for some reason he never got a consistant chance which probably had a reason but he still had periods where he scored quite a lot of goals for Villa.

In a roundabout way you are touching upon my entire point Oyster, not many if any Swede would make it into the England team. Yet Sweden consistently beat England and reaches international results as good if not better than England. This isnt because Sweden is very good, it is because England sucks, no matter how famous line up they have. England always overrate themselves and underestimate their opponent. Eriksson have tried to do something about that and havent you noticed how England play nowaday? They play like underdog teams, inherently defensive and just waiting out the opponents mistake instead of creating their own game. That is the game of teams like Sweden, Greece and Denmark, not the game of great football nations.

 

Can you back that up somehow? Croatia beat Sweden in the Qualifiers, they played a decent EM and didn't look bad playing against England or France. As for Romania, cf. what Pac Man said.

Maybe I'll grant you Wales. They lost against Poland a fortnight ago - they miss a bit of luck these days. A year ago, when still playing the Qualification for EM, they were amongst the insider's tips for the championship; together with the Czechs. They lost a bit of momentum since then, ok. Still, I like seeing Ryan Giggs play...

[EDIT] Joacqin, since when has the Danish style been defensively waiting for the other's mistake? If anyone had a fresh and crispy offensive style for the last decade, it has been the Danes.

 

Nope they have not. It appears they have that yes but the entire foundation for that is the defence. The Danish teams have in a traditional Scandinavian way always built their teams from behind. Only way they could ever be able to unleash the "Danish dynamite". Denmark real strength are and have been big strong players and teamwork and with the occasional splash of colour added by players like the Laudrup brothers, Tomasson or Grönkjär. You should keep in mind that when they won in -92 their best and most technical player, Michael Laudrup, was not playing removing most of the fresh, crispy offensive from the team. They won with hard work, morale and endurance.

 

Hmm...my two cents here...

Firstly, I would agree with Joacqin that the English Premier League isn't all its cracked up to be. Myself, I follow the UEFA champions league, Spanish Primera Division and the Italian Serie A, and comparatively, I find the level of football in the English League, to be frank, of a lower level.

Secondly, I really don't remember all the teams in the first post, so I will just say that Italy rules ALL!! J/k! But they ARE my favourite team, and they are turning out to be very good. I could be a tad biased ( ) but ah well, its an IMHO!

 

Joaquin, I get the feeling you don't really know what you are talking about. I don't mean that nastily, I just don't think football is your strong point. You are very opinionated, stubborn and argumentative in your opinions, I don't mean offence with that. But lets be honest with each other, they're pretty poorly thought out aren't they? You just seem to love arguing everything, lol . I'll go into what I mean about your points later - just got home from work .

Caleb, you have a pretty good idea of what you are talking about and I respect your opinions more than Joaquin, but you tend to over exaggerate and emphasis certain facts of consequence to try and back up really weak arguments. And ignore other things that go against your arguments. Although, for the most part, you have got good opinions, you just seem to have a heavy bias against the England side. I'll post later with further details if I can be bothered. I just need to sit down, chill out and crack a beer open .

And don't be so hard on Oyster guys . He made a little bit of sense and if you read between the lines of his post, you can see what he is trying to get across. He just over exaggerated a little bit.

 

Funny that Barmy that is the exact view I have of your football views. Secondly, I never said anything about the Premier League really, my attacks have been towards the English national team.

 

Heh, you must be the only one in SP history who do that.

Examples?

Not too much of a bias, I am just tired of the Swedish news that sucks up to SVE and the Englismen in general.

Plus, they are waaay overrated.

 

@joacqin
Please listen to Barmy....

 

Thats what I was refering to.
Anyway, I'm chilled from work now, lol...

Let me first agree with you here. Sweden are a very strong side. Graft, determination and hard work has never been an issue for the Swedish side. They also now have some real talent and quality in their side. Zlatan Ibrahimovic in particular is a player I really rate and a few seasons in one of Europes top divisions will really bring him on better than his time at Ajax. He will be some player in a year or two. Quality. And I rate Mellberg as one of the best centre backs in the Premiership, maybe not so much on defensive duties (although he is certainly in the top 10 on this aspect) but more his presence and danger from set plays. Terrific defender. And an on form Ljungberg is very frightening. Sweden are a very good and solid side. Just a few World Class players in certain positions short of being a 'Brilliant' side.

I personally believe that at least 5 or 6 players would make it into an England squad (not first team, I can't say that as England have always played a rotation, except in big games). Those would be. Larrson, Ibrahimovic, Mellberg, Isaakson, Ljungberg and maybe Edman.

?? No they don't. I can't recall the last time Sweden beat England and especially not in an 'important' game. Sweden get results, similar to England, but thats because they are a good hard-working side. A match between us in quarters/semi's of a big tourney would be a titanic battle, but I can't help but feel that England would edge it.

Firstly, this isn't the case. Secondly, England by no wild stretch of even the most hardy England hater do England 'suck'. We have a 'famous' line up. But you a belittleing it there. Our players are famous for being good players. That's how they got their fame mate...

How familiar are you with todays game of football? Very?
Todays game is veering away from attacking, flowing football and flair. Todays teams have realised that having a stable defensive foundation and not letting the opponent score is, surprisingly, the best strategy. Just look a Chelsea, or any of the Italian teams for that matter . It's not a tactic used because of a devoid of class, but a tactic used to win football games. And England don't play this way exclusively, but only when teh occasion calls for it. England can play breathtaking flowing football, when the situation calls for it . Safety first.


My initial post claim was that England have the strongest team in European football, I stand by that claim. We will see what happens in Germany 2006. Will be a very good tournament!

 

Heh, I had a long post written out telling you people why I am such an expert on football but I wont bother. I am confident in my knowledge and dont really feel challenged when people so obviously abysmally ignorant dont agree with me.