That’s because the money teams have incredibly more money at their disposal now, and if a not money team creates a great team they will immediately lose their best players to the money teams.
Actually in Germany it is only Bayern in that dimension, and that without having some sheik or some oligarch behind them, and without getting these incredible sums the English teams earn from the TV contracts. Dortmund is far behind them, have only partly their potential.
Bayern is now so dominant in the Bundesliga that it becomes a bit boring, dominant like they never were before, not even in the 70s. But Bayern has this status only since 5 years, before they were only from time to time really good.
Why can’t the Italian teams compete any more with Real and Barca?
And how comes btw that the French teams only won twice in all 3 cups in 60 years?
In the Dutch league there are, luckily, two teams that are way above the rest: Ajax and PSV, so it remains at least a little bit interesting. Twente tried to close the gap and became champions once, but it turned out that they spent far more money than they owed, so now they’re in deep, deep trouble. They could even loose their licence.
Jonathan will know ore about the reason the Italian teams have trouble to compete with the likes of Braça, Real, Bayern. Juventus is doing rather well, but the Milanese teams are really struggling.
At least in England it seems that Leicester can win or Totenham who doesn’t win the league in a long time and its my favourite team in the England after Leyton Orient of course.
But it’s incredible with so much money to spend how MU or M City even Arsenal, abd they have won in Europe. I wonder how things will be when Ronaldo and Messi (and I don’t see anyone similar coming) retire. I still thing that Messi should try another league before he reach 35 that is, just to prove if is the player or the player plus the team system
And at the other end of the table, former European champions Aston Villa were relegated from the Premier League today having been in the top flight for 29 years. In years to come, this season will be referred to as “The Twilight Zone Season”, or maybe “The EPL 2015-16, sponsored by Stephen King”.
See, at Messi’s age there’s now a chance - a tiny chance, granted, but a chance nonetheless - that a switch to another “Big” league might not prove quite as fruitful as he might hope, by his own phenomenal standards. I think we can all confidently say that he would have dominated any league in world football throughout his peak years so he has little to prove as I see it, although if a late-career move to England or Italy or to a big-money club elsewhere (Bayern, PSG etc) did turn out to be anticlimactic there’ll always be short-sighted cynics suggesting, however incorrectly, that that move somehow tarnished his standing globally and historically. There’s always the prospect of the mindbending wages he can guarantee himself if he were to opt for a move to Manchester (red OR blue) or Chelsea, but I’m sure he’s not exactly skint as it is.
I think it’d be understandable if he went to America, dazzling the MLS with skills they’ve never seen over there and genuinely enriching his team, his teammates and the entire league, all whilst being able to significantly reduce his workrate (probably extending his career into his forties if he wanted as a result). It’d be pretty cool too if he maybe took on a player/coach project at a modest Argentinian club, see what he can build from the ground up.
Of course, if he was contemplating a switch to West Ham - and why wouldn’t he? - he really should have done it back when he was still good enough for us. We have Dimitri Payet now though so we obviously don’t want to take the step down to Lionel. I suppose we could always do with someone to throw petals on the ground in front of Dimi wherever he walks, lift him over puddles, provide him with 24hr massage/grooming, fluff and fold all his underpants, sing personalised sonnets to him etc so, maybe. Actually, if he could utilize his fancy footwork to get that lot done AND find time to nip down to Costcutters twice a day to fetch Slaven Bilic’s ciggies, he could be a useful addition after all. I guess it’s up to him, how much he wants to apply himself.
I think Messi is still hoping to bring the world title to his country. He’ll get one more chance, in 2016, when he’ll be 30. Four years later it’ll probably be too late, even for a man like Messi.
So far he hasn’t been lucky: in 2010 the team wasn’t good enough and they had a coach - Diego Maradona himself - who lacked all coaching qualities: Diego might have been the best player, as well as the worst coach ever. In 2014 Messi wasn’t top fit, he never looked like himself during the tournament. So I guess his choices will be made with 2016 in mind. A league like the French, where the opposition for the top teams (or the top team, there seems to be only one) isn’t as strong as in the Spanish or English leagues, might be a good choice for him. For a player like Messi, who’s under constant pressure and is always expected to lead his team to victory, being fit at the right time - in June, the end of a long season - is probably the hardest thing to do. And without a top-fit Lionel, I don’t see Argentina beat teams like Spain or Germany, or any other of the usual suspects
Messi is a wonderful player, no doubts there, but for me he is not a player who wins games on his own. By which I mean, at Barca he has 2 other top players for defences to worry about so he is allowed at least a bit more space and time. For Argentina he is the one and only so teams double up on him and he is negated. You could triple up on Maradonna and it wouldn’t help. He won games on his own. Without Barca, alongside him Messi never shines nearly so bright.
World cup are always a problem for top players because they normally took place at the end of a long season, so it’s normal for teams that depend a lot on one player (like Portugal), struggle if that particular player is not in his best form.
Not the case of Argentina who can put a strong and competitive team specially in the attack, so with Messi it’s strange they haven’t at lest won one Copa (but it seems that Messi has been in Europe for so long, that winning the Copa does not mean much).
The best players of Messi generation from Ronaldo to Robben they all have made in more than one team on competitive leagues. Messi arrived at Barcelona still a child (in need of a treatment from a bone disease that stopped his growing), and has been in Barça ever since.
That Barça team coached by Guardiola with Xavi and Iniesta and Messi was the strongest I’ve seen playing, a perfect mix of players and system, lsomething ike good old days Ajax but on steroids only Mourinho could disrupted them (and now Simeone with another breed of warriors), the Spanish league even if strong it’s not as competitive as the English one, were teams are not so uneven, (a Rayo Vallecano vs RM, is much different from an Everton vs Arsenal), so I think that a change could prove that he was not just a part (a magnificent one) of a system, but a player on his own that could be the best in any major competition, out of his confort zone.
He’s no Maradona, that’s for sure. But when he’s not in best form, Barça suffers a lot. I’ve watched the game against Atletico last week: Messi was far removed from his best form, seemed absent for entire parts of the game (don’t know what was wrong with him, an injury we weren’t informed about?) and the whole Barcelona game fell flat, they hardly created an oppornutiny in the 90 minutes. Barça has several first-rate players - Iniesta, Suarez, Neymar - but to me it’s Messi who makes the difference.
Leicester City clinched the Premier League tonight thanks to Tottenham only getting a draw at Chelsea. A monumental achievement for Leicester and a welcome change for all of us fed up with the same old teams winning every year. I think most of the country have been willing them to succeed for quite a while now. Great to see them finally do it.
Things are different in the premier league I know more competition, but in any case is like if Paços de Ferreira or Estoril had won the League here in Portugal, really extraordinary achievement, and regardless what happnes next year no one can take this league away from Leiceister.
Second major achievement for a ‘minor’ team within 48 hours: Atletico reaching the Champions League final at the cost of Bayern Munich
I know, they did it before, but I thought that would remain an incident, I wouldn’t have ever guessed that they would be in the final again two years later. As a fan of a technical, more polished type of football, I’m not too fond of Simeone’s team, but watching them play the likes of Barcelona or Bayern - teams with a lot more talent - you can’t help supporting them, so yes, the final whistle made me smile tonight.
A new final between the two teams from Madrid,? Or a all-outsider-final Atletico - Manchester City? I have no real preference.
I don’t think the enormity of this can be overstated. It’s like watching a man take flight, unassisted, before your very eyes. It’s literally impossible, you’d insist, even as it’s happening. It cannot be done. If I contemplate the sentence, “Leicester City have won the Premier League” for too long, I can feel something pop inside my brain. My powers of comprehension short-circuiting again, I’d imagine.
We’ll see. At the moment (21:57h) Real is leading 1-0
Personally I wasn’t too impressed by Bayern last night (haven’t seen the first match); they clearly have the better players, and they were dominant, yes, but their game felt a bit rushed. For most part they were doing exactly what Atletico wanted them to do: pumping the ball into the penalty box. That’s not the real Bayern game.
Not a big fan of RM, but they were much better th M.City in both gmes and only 1 nil for the 180 minutes cames short in my opinion. Really can’t understand City tactis at the end of the game, with 10/15 m to go and needing only one goal to go trough, they were palying like if they were winning.
To be quite honest M City never quite convince me, they have the players but they lack that extra something that big teams need to have, I cal them the typical plastic team, they look good but made of plastic not the real thing
I was ill, so I was at home and able to watch both semi-final games, yesterday and today, and I can tell you that the level of both games was very poor. Was this the very best European club football has to offer these days? In that case it’s not a real miracle that my PSValmost eliminated one of the finalists earlier this year.
As said, I wasn’t pleased with the Bayern game last night: so many good players, and then this type of opportunist football? Doesn’t make much sense to me. The Atletico players were leaning back, because they preferred the game to be played a) physically, and b) in a limited area: that’s their game, like that they are at their strongest and can also use their speed up-front (notably Griezman).
Tonight I wasn’t impressed by either of the two teams. City: yes, plastic team, as El Topo put it. And without Silva - the main with the brain - DeBruyne - the man with the golden feet - didn’t reach his best form. Real: lots of great players, but apart from Ronaldo none of them is the kind of player I’m really enthusiastic about (even Kroos looked like a normal player tonight). And I hope somebody breaks both legs of this Marcelo one day. What an irritating guy.
Yes, I’ll most definitely support Atletico in the final.
Com’ on Atletico!
An unforgettable day for PSV fans like Bad Lieutenant and myself: PSV grabbed the title from under the nose of big rivals Ajax
Ajax was in pole position: a win over De Graafschap (the current N°17 of the League) would have brought them the League title, but they failed to win their game: 1-1
PSV did what they have to do, beat PEC Zwolle (normally a much stronger opponet than De Graafschap) and thanks to this result they jumped over Ajax to the top position and the title
