What is your favourite football league in the world?

Plan M

Plan M

Banned
27 September 2007
Manchester United
I used to be a huge lover of Serie A and La Liga but seem to have lost contact lately as I only ever seem to watch The Premiership these days so hopefully this thread will give me some insight to what leagues you guys love and why.

So, what is your favourite football league in the world and why?
 
Bwin Liga (Portuguese League)

Not so spectacular as Premier League our Liga Española but very interesting. FC Porto, SL Benfica and Sporting CP always fight for title but there are some teams like Vitória Guimarães, SC Braga and Belenenses that show very good football. Our league is full of young talent. Example: Quaresma, Di Maria, Adu, Miguel Veloso and Geromel.
 
The_Special_One said:
Bwin Liga (Portuguese League)

Not so spectacular as Premier League our Liga Española but very interesting. FC Porto, SL Benfica and Sporting CP always fight for title but there are some teams like Vitória Guimarães, SC Braga and Belenenses that show very good football. Our league is full of young talent. Example: Quaresma, Di Maria, Adu, Miguel Veloso and Geromel.
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Thanks for the info :)

I remember watching Benfica v Porto, maybe last season or the season before - spectacular attacking football on show, a real joy. :)
 
I watch both EPL and La Liga leagues, but on any given day if I have a choice, I'll probably watch La Liga.

First of all I think it's very competitive. Apart from the top 2, you regularly get different teams every tear competing for the CL spots. Last year it was Sevilla, before that it was Osasuna, before that you had Real Betis and Villarreal. This year itself, there's great competition between Santander, Espanyol, Atletico and Villarreal.

Then I think the overall quality of players is better. You need only get world class quality in the top teams, but also great footballers in the mid table teams. This is why, any team can be expected to upset the top teams, which obviously makes it more exciting for the neutral. And there's so many top class players spread over the league. Fernando Torres, who is setting the EPL alight, was not even in the top 5 forwards of La Liga IMO over the last year. Villa, Milito, Eto, Nistelrooy, Forlan and even Kanoute (who is very clinical) were better than him. Same goes for midfielders and defenders. I can name number of them, who could all play for top class teams.

Plus I feel La Liga is much more technical. Premiership is fast, and physical, but La Liga is more tactical and technical. There's less emphasis on being fast. It really lets you get into the game. This doesn't mean they don't play good, quick passing football. Just look at Barcelona, Sevilla or even Espanyol on their day (especially against Villarreal).

That's it I guess :D
 
I like la liga alot but imo nothing comes EPL for excitement and sheer drama and many many moments of sheer class.
 
i love all the top 5 (serie a , liga, ligue 1, premiership and bundesliga). they're all great (for different reasons) and my preference usually changes every year, according to the quality of the football expressed by them (last season it was la llga, this season is serie a).

i try to follow them all, even if it's getting really hard coz of the lack of free time.

anyway serie a has "something" the other leagues won't ever match........

1151511883ilaria200001db8.jpg


:mrgreen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilaria_D%27Amico

i love football.... but some things just come first :mrgreen:
 
I watch all leagues but for me its this order:
La Liga;
EPL;
Bwin;

La Liga first cous i love barça (Leo Messi :p) so it needs to be on top of all, EPL for obvious reasons the game is always played with more passion and in a more intense way then any other league, Bwin just because of Benfica my Fav team here (or at least, it was... >_>).
 
My favourite league; League One. :mryellow:

It's grass-roots, players playing for their place week in week out, but not so grass-roots that games finish with ridiculous scorelines.

For watching on TV, it has to be the Premier League, purely because I tried to get into Italian football last year and I just found it really slow, almost farcical, and boring. One of the last games I watched finished with that guy punching the cameraman, which I thought was absolutely ridiculous. I would love to watch La Liga but it's impossible with freeview television, you only get a 2-minute roundup of an entire week's worth of La Liga at 4am in the morning on a Sunday. Not going to happen.

I don't think Premier League football is that great, far from it, I feel more and more detached from it with each new foreign signing I've never heard of and each English player sold to Grimsby Town as a consequence. But it's the only thing you can watch a decent highlights package of without having to pay £££.
 
By far The PremierLeague and La Liga.

I think Budesliga is like The PremierLeague (very paced, physically stong) but it's almost under rated.

About the Ligue 1 is totally like the Bwin Liga, only the wages and budgets are superior...

It's a pitty that clubs from Bwin Liga have small budgets and new stadiums with low attendances except the 3 big ones (Benfica, Porto, Sporting).

I believe if the teams had more money to spent, it could be more interesting and perhaps C. Ronaldo, Nani and Anderson
wouldn't gone to Man United so easily.

Our domestic league is good and full of talented football players, small teams play also some quality football but our football needs good business investors to get the right direction that it needs!

;)
 
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My favourite league is the Premiership because my team play in it. Last year I got really into La Liga but I don't watch it so much these days (even though I have Sky Sports) as the quality of the picture gets on my nerves (I know that sounds stupid). I also find La Liga a little boring at times (yes I said it, La Liga can be boring!).

The Premiership churns out some awful matches too - take Blackburn v Bolton on Sunday. I nearly fell asleep in the first-half. Also, if Fulham are playing I turn it over, I can't stand watching them play. But there are the classics too, like Man United v Newcastle on Saturday (I went to Old Trafford for the game, I didn't watch it on tv) which was full of goals. It's games like that what makes the Premiership the best league in the world as I feel in Italy and Spain once a team is 2 or 3 goals ahead they just play keep-ball and don't go for more.

I think Serie A has gone downhill in quality over the last 10 years. It used to be my favourite league in the world, moreso than the Premiership - these days it doesn't do it for me, even the Inter v Milan derby last December was a poor match. I feel that money plays a part in it - if the Italian clubs could match what the English & Spanish teams offer for wages then the quality and big-named stars may return?

Because I get Setanta Sports free with Virgin Media I watch a bit of Bundesliga which is QUALITY in my opinion. I sometimes watch some French football if it's on but I get bored with Lyon winning every year.
 
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Plan M said:
My favourite league is the Premiership because my team play in it. Last year I got really into La Liga but I don't watch it so much these days (even though I have Sky Sports) as the quality of the picture gets on my nerves (I know that sounds stupid). I also find La Liga a little boring at times (yes I said it, La Liga can be boring!).

The Premiership churns out some awful matches too - take Blackburn v Bolton on Sunday. I nearly fell asleep in the first-half. Also, if Fulham are playing I turn it over, I can't stand watching them play. But there are the classics too, like Man United v Newcastle on Saturday (I went to Old Trafford for the game, I didn't watch it on tv) which was full of goals. It's games like that what makes the Premiership the best league in the world as I feel in Italy and Spain once a team is 2 or 3 goals ahead they just play keep-ball and don't go for more.

I think Serie A has gone downhill in quality over the last 10 years. It used to be my favourite league in the world, moreso than the Premiership - these days it doesn't do it for me, even the Inter v Milan derby last December was a poor match. I feel that money plays a part in it - if the Italian clubs could match what the English & Spanish teams offer for wages then the quality and big-named stars may return?

Because I get Setanta Sports free with Virgin Media I watch a bit of Bundesliga which is QUALITY in my opinion. I sometimes watch some French football if it's on but I get bored with Lyon winning every year.
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there are plenty of big namend stars in italy, and French football is far more competitve then the EPL IMO. My favorite league is League One in france.
I think they at times can play the beatiful game as it was meant to be played. I watched Rennes vs Marseille over the weekend and that was pure class.
 
Jack Bauer said:
My favourite league; League One. :mryellow:

It's grass-roots, players playing for their place week in week out, but not so grass-roots that games finish with ridiculous scorelines.

For watching on TV, it has to be the Premier League, purely because I tried to get into Italian football last year and I just found it really slow, almost farcical, and boring. One of the last games I watched finished with that guy punching the cameraman, which I thought was absolutely ridiculous. I would love to watch La Liga but it's impossible with freeview television, you only get a 2-minute roundup of an entire week's worth of La Liga at 4am in the morning on a Sunday. Not going to happen.

I don't think Premier League football is that great, far from it, I feel more and more detached from it with each new foreign signing I've never heard of and each English player sold to Grimsby Town as a consequence. But it's the only thing you can watch a decent highlights package of without having to pay £££.
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Jack is you wanted to wacth every premeireship game in your home, how much does it cost? how much does coverage of seire a, bundesliga, la liga, and french league one cost? Can anyone break it down for me, how much it would cost and what type of coverage you can get in the UK?
 
Basically you cant.

Sky sports costs around £40 a month. That gets you around 5-10 live EPL matches a month, plus 1-2 La Liga a week. Setanta is an extra £10 a month and gets you 1 live EPL game per week, plus a few live matches from the Dutch, French, Portuguese and I think German leagues each week. Serie A has 1 live match and a highlights show each week on a free channel and that's it I think.

Shit.
 
I'm looking into getting one of the dodgy foreign satelitte systems they have in pubs which get you all the matches for about £150/year plus setup but I dunno if its sensible to be honest.
 
jumberto said:
I'm looking into getting one of the dodgy foreign satelitte systems they have in pubs which get you all the matches for about £150/year plus setup but I dunno if its sensible to be honest.
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well you sound like a level headed lad , go on ya know you want to :roll:
 
I know people who brought over a Sky dish from Italy and got coverage of the whole Serie A, most of the prem, including saturday games, most of la liga, most of the bundesliga, SPL, and ligue 1. Yes, Sky Italy is that good. I really miss it thats why I go to the bar every weekend to watch Milan. The coverage is in original language as well.
 
jumberto said:
Basically you cant.

Sky sports costs around £40 a month. That gets you around 5-10 live EPL matches a month, plus 1-2 La Liga a week. Setanta is an extra £10 a month and gets you 1 live EPL game per week, plus a few live matches from the Dutch, French, Portuguese and I think German leagues each week. Serie A has 1 live match and a highlights show each week on a free channel and that's it I think.

Shit.
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so if you live in manchester you get united games every week, or does it vary? I mean do you guys have local tv stations that carry the local teams?
 
No mate, the whole country gets the same. No channel is allowed to show live premiership matches except Sky Sports (and now Setanta which gets 1 a week). Saturday 3pm kick offs are not allowed to be shown live because the FA (I assume it was them) were worried that fans would stop going to the stadiums (maybe they should worry more about pricing them out with high ticket prices).
 
jumberto said:
No mate, the whole country gets the same. No channel is allowed to show live premiership matches except Sky Sports (and now Setanta which gets 1 a week). Saturday 3pm kick offs are not allowed to be shown live because the FA (I assume it was them) were worried that fans would stop going to the stadiums (maybe they should worry more about pricing them out with high ticket prices).
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do they show the 3pm games in bars? what about local games that are not on sky or setanta, can you watch those at a bar?
 
jumberto said:
Well, some pubs have dodgy foreign satellite systems which are sort of illegal and are being cracked down on. But that's the only way to get every match. This is what I was thinking of getting installed in my house but I'm not sure.

Read this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4949998.stm

and thishttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6594775.stm
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thanks mate, this all pertains to wales as well correct?

im asking these questions cause i got into a stupid argument with my welsh buddy who insitis you can thru sky get every game, and i told him, we actually get more games then you guys do.. which from the looks of things true... :( and way cheaper. I pay $20 for sentata plus fox soccer channel, and i usually get most of the games from the weekend and always the 3 pm games, sometimes 3 at once, then the rest shown later in the day..
 
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Yeah it does. Anyway lets get back on topic. Pm me if you want to know any more mate.

My favorite league is the Premiership. I've always loved it. I find it hard to follow other leagues with the lack of coverage in this country (see above lol).

I like Bundesliga and La liga and Serie A equally really. All good to watch. I've never even seen a Ligue1, Eredivisie or Portuguese league match. Not my choice though.
 
Plan M said:
I think Serie A has gone downhill in quality over the last 10 years. It used to be my favourite league in the world, moreso than the Premiership - these days it doesn't do it for me, even the Inter v Milan derby last December was a poor match. I feel that money plays a part in it - if the Italian clubs could match what the English & Spanish teams offer for wages then the quality and big-named stars may return?
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u know mate, many people in europe keep talking about serie a's decline...... but i honestly consider this such a platitude.

the amount of star players argument is pretty wrong imo. first of all, i'm not sure the premiership has more star players than serie a. but that's not the real point. in fact the quality of a league can't be "measured" by the amount of star players. i mean, how many cristiano ronaldos or fabregas dooes the premiership has? do they represent the premiership standard? of course not, exactly as ibra or nesta don't represent the serie a's standard and sergio ramos or ronaldinho don't represent the liga standard.

the real quality level of a league can be measured by considering mid-class players, coz they are the real standard, they represent the majority of the players. if u wanna really consider what our leagues have to offer, then u have to look at the liveranis, the vannucchis, the simplicios or at the reo cockers, the dioufs, the malbranques, etc...
theese players will give u a reliable "image" of the average quality level of a league.....
and if u consider theese players, well la liga and serie a have much more to offer.

serie a went trough an economical crisis, due to may different factors, but this didn't have any effect on the quality of the football......
actually nowadays serie a is much more beautiful than 10 years ago.
10 years ago our fist 10 teams were much strongers than today..... but our last 10 teams were much more poors than today.
and, exactly as it happens for the players, u can't judge a league just by looking at the man utds or the inters.... our leagues have 18\20 teams and u have to consider all of them to express a fair judgement.
the english standard can't be found in man utd's football, exactly as the italian standard is not represented by roma's football...
u have to look at our mid-class teams... do u think aston villa is a better team than palermo? is manchester city better than fiorentina? or or west ham better than catania? or bolton better than lazio?
that's the real way to "rate" a league.

and even if u would consider theese points, your final judgement might still be inaccurate. because football is not just about big individual plays. our players (no matter if they are stars or not) have to play together. and the football a team can produce depends mostly by the tactical guide.
try to imagine how man utd would play today if sir alex would have left cristiano ronaldo on the midfield line (instead of lining him up 15 meters ahead of it). our coaches have a vital role...
just to make an example, this season udinese's roster is so poor, compared to last season's udinese. they sold so many good players this summer (iaquinta, muntari, natali, de sanctis...). nontheless this season udinese plays much better than last year, thanks to a new coach... even if the team is poorer, talking about the roster.

and this also explains why ligue un, which has less "star players" than serie a and premiership, still offers some great football. there are many mid class french teams wich display a more entertaining football than many english teams.... and as much tactically interesting as serie a's teams.;)


It's games like that what makes the Premiership the best league in the world as I feel in Italy and Spain once a team is 2 or 3 goals ahead they just play keep-ball and don't go for more.
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some things to point out here.
- every team in the world always plays to score. but u can do it "wisely" or not. if u're winning by 2 or 3 goals and u still keep pushing with both sidebacks (like it often happens in premiership), well, this is not a prove of quality football... at all. this is a wrong move an amateur's mistake. u might find it more entertaining.... but talking about quality football, this is just a mistake.

- holding the ball or slowing down the game it's a hardest football exercise and it shows ability and coordination. it's pretty easy to keep pushing for 90 minutes (if your legs can afford it). but forcing your opponent to a slower pace is a great challenge and it implies some serious playmaking abilities.
it's pretty natural to run, when everybody around u is running. the real challenge is to stay cool and dictate your tempo, even when your opponent is trying to push :)

- the reason why u see so many goals in premiership is mostly do to some unappropriate defensive line ups.
i use to watch a show on monday night with some friends. this show is called "mondo gol" and it shows the highlights of all the matches played in liga, epl, ligue un and bundes.
well, my friends's most frequent comment, during the epl highlights is "come on mate, this goal was ridiculous! how can u get excited by league like this. no team in italy would ever do such a stupid mistake!"
the point is that in serie a even the poorest team still has a tactical imprint and education, that allows it to control stronger opponents.... and that's the reason why u don't see many goals in serie a (but that's not tottaly true, btw)..... and that's also the reason why many people outside italy consider serie a "boring". they just can't appreciate the difference between serie a and epl, they are just looking for some nice actions, no matter if those actions born from terrific mistakes.

by saying this i don't mean to say the premiership is poorer than serie a, of course. they're just different, with different good and bad aspects. everyone has his own preference, someone might prefere the epl, someone serie a, someone ligue un... it all depends by your personal likes.

so what i'm trying to say it's just that serie a today is not reall poorer that 10 years ago.
as i said we went trough an economic crisis, but this didn't have any effect on the quality of serie a's football. because this crisis just forced us to focus more on our youth schools. 10 years ago a roma could have bought a benayoun or an anderson for x millions....nowadays instead roma can't afford theese outcomes, so they gave a chance to guys like de rossi and aquilani, letting them grow. and look at what players they are now. nobody would never exchange de rossi for anderson or aquilani for benayoun or montolivo for reo cocker...
that's another factor too, imo. u guys have agbonlahor, bent, lennon, bentley.... and then? how many pazzini, montolivo, aquilani, cerci, barzagli, canini, zaccardo, rosina, cigarini, dessena, giovinco, quagliarella, mesto, molinaro..... etc. are now playing as starters in epl teams?
so, as u can see having less money doesn't mean having less quality. there is a team in spain (sevilla) who was facing bankrupt just a couple of years ago.... but still, spending their few euros wisely, they were able to raise a fantastic team. do u know how much did sevilla paid dani alves or adriano or escude?
and the same goes for serie a. my hometown team's annual incomes are less than derby county's annual incomes! but still we were able to raise a team with players like amauri, simplicio, barzagli, guana, zaccardo and miccoli (just to make a couple of names).

serie a didn't have any decline. actually, if u look at the whole league, the quality of the football improved a lot.
the real reason why many people still feels like serie a had a decline is that the other leagues made huge steps foward.
so while 10 years ago, serie a was by far the best league in the world, nowadays many others leagues in europe can offer a (different but) as much intersting football.
that's all ;):)


@ Clockender: u're not trying to compare that drag queen to ilaria d'amico, arent'u...
:lol:
 
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