What is the fascination with Real Madrid?!

no no, by competetive i mean how strong every team in our league is compared to theirs. sorry was my fault for saying that incorrectly.

Why was my post deleted?

Sevilla pumped 'boro in the UEFA cup final, and Villareal knocked Everton out of the CL before the group stages even begun.
Anyway, I'd say that them having 10 different teams, in the last 5/6 years, qualify for the CL is proof that La Liga is more competitive than the Premier League; our "Big 4" isn't an indication to the quality of the rest of the league. Everton against Benfica/Sporting Lisbon is evident to that.

(25-03-2010 23:40 )Mister Gummidge Wrote:  Plainly and simply, glamour. Once you start earning a certain amount, a few extra thousand each week makes no earthly difference and you start picking your clubs based on what you want to tell your kids and grandkids you did in your playing career. The fact of the matter is, Real have the glamour and history on their side. In this country, only Man Utd and Liverpool have a long tradition of success in Europe's top competition. Juventus, AC and Inter have it in Italy and for a little while Ajax had it too. For now, Chelsea and Man City just don't have that aura of glamour, although it'll come in time. How long it remains is dependent on how long the success - and the money - lasts. Players used to queue up to join Parma, or Atletico Madrid, strong and wealthy sides in the powerful leagues. Not so much these days... Don't forget, even Barcelona, Roma and Lazio are second in a lot of players minds in terms of history and glamour.

I agree with this post apart from the bit about Barcelona. Try picking an all time Barcelona 11. They've historically had better players then AC Milan or Real Madrid.

They certainly have had some wonderful players, but they've very rarely had a full team of genuinely world class players in one go. Their comparative lack of European success compared to Milan and Real proves that. Ajax have more European Cup/Champions League wins than Barcelona do, as do Bayern Munich, Milan, Liverpool and of course, Real Madrid. Nottingham Forest had won it twice before Barca reached their second final (which they lost to Steua Bucharest). Historically, Barcelona have always been second fiddle to Real.

From 1990 onwards Barcelona have strengthened as a club and developed their own aura of glamour and success, but they spent many decades living in Real's shadow. Up until very recently, Barcelona was the club you joined when Real didn't want you, see the Luis Enrique/Figo transfer for that. That's beginning to change, but it took a lot of years to come about. When Barcelona met Milan in the 1994 final, the gulf in class between the two sides was readily apparent and showed in the scoreline.

Contrary to what the original post implies, Real Madrid isn't fascinating to everyone. Carlos Tevez turned them down last summer in favour of Man City. Then there's the case of the mightly Jermaine Pennant:

"Jermaine Pennant, having turned his back on the opportunity to join Real Madrid, is being lined up instead for a move to Wigan Athletic. Pennant, the Liverpool winger, has been accused in some quarters of blowing the opportunity of a lifetime, but as well as being unhappy at the personal terms on offer in Madrid, he was not convinced that he would play regularly for Real or that Ramos truly wanted him." (The Times)

(25-03-2010 22:20 )jimbo5030 Wrote:  Fans in Spain don't have proper songs, their league is nowhere near as competetive as ours.

How are you measuring the competiveness of the leagues?

(26-03-2010 10:38 )admiral decker Wrote:  How are you measuring the competiveness of the leagues?

There are several ways you can do it, but top half against the bottom half is one of the best ways. If you take the number of points the top half of the table has and compare it to the number of points the bottom half of the table has you get a measure of what the difference is between the two.

On this basis the English clubs in the top half of the table this season have a greater advantage over the clubs in the bottom half of the table than the top half of the table clubs have in Spain. I calculate that the difference in average number of points is 26% greater for clubs in England than in Spain and even when adjusting for the number of matches played, which is higher at the moment in England, it still comes out that top half of the table clubs here have a 24% greater margin over the bottom half of the table clubs do than is the case in La Liga.

The calculation, adjusting for number of matches played, is as follows: In England the top half of the table has 83% more points (0.804 points per game on average) than the bottom half, but in Spain it's only 67% (0.693 points per game on average). Taking the difference of 16 and dividing it by 67 gives almost 24% greater advantage to the top half clubs here compared to the advantage in Spain, so on this basis jimbo5030's claim that the English league is more competitive is quite wrong. Overall La Liga is the more competitive league.

Any other methods of calculating the competitiveness of the leagues are welcome if anyone has any suggestions.

Pennant is now doin very well in spain for zaragoza and for the first time in his career is playing with some consistency. The real move was a loan for the last 6 months of his contract at liverpool with a view to a permanent deal but he knew that they only wanted him as cover until ronaldo joined and granero rejoined.

As for tevez, reals president came out as soon as they offered him a contract and said that finacially they cannot compete with man city and like manchester united, were not happy about paying 35m for him.

By competetive I mean quality throughout the league for example if 1st from the EPL played against 1st from la liga and so on, the majority of winners would be the english teams because on average we have more depth and therefore more quality.

As for the songs, I recently went to barcelona for a stag do, on the sunday we went to the nou camp (which can I say is huge and amazing) and before we unforgivingly left at half time because we were literally freezing in just t-shirts in the evening in the stadium, watched barca play against getafe. There was one chant that they used for everything, to cheer ibra, messi and iniesta and then to have a pop at the ref while waving papers and scarfs and also in support of pique when he got sent off for an absolutely apalling challenge. The chant was like a crowd full of zombies shouting iiiibraaaa for ibrahimovic and meeeessiiiii and so on. Was rather drab in the crowd if I'm honest. Thank god for the amazing goal from messi. I know I deserve to be lambasted for not staying the whole game but now I can tell my kids ( when I have them) that I saw messi play in the flesh and I saw him score an incredible goal, that's good enough for me. Being a big chelsea fan, I go up the bridge whenever I can afford it and as u all know we are not the loudest fans in the world but it shits all over the atmosphere at the nou camp and they had more than double the amount of fans.

If you were a player Why would you choose Manchester over Madrid ?
besides the obvious of the weather,the midlands isnt exactly the centre of culture

(26-03-2010 13:09 )jimbo5030 Wrote:  if 1st from the EPL played against 1st from la liga and so on, the majority of winners would be the english teams because on average we have more depth and therefore more quality.

It would be close, very very close, but I think the Spanish clubs would win more of the matches. Real Zaragoza would most likely beat West Ham, Valladolid would most likely beat Burnley, Racing Santander would most likely beat Bolton, Osasuna would most likely beat Wolves, etc etc.