damn it, I deleted the reply i was making. good thing i found an article that makes my argument, and with "facts" to boot!
link
There is a difference between the same two (or three, or four) teams winning the league and the same two teams winning virtually every game. It is not normal for four- or five-goal victories to be more common than one- or two-goal victories, but that is what is happening. Last season, Valencia finished third. They were 39 points behind the champions. The season before the gap was 25 points and the season before that 28. Before that, Sevilla were third. They were 27 points behind.
That is a reality. It is a footballing and a financial fact. It is also self-perpetuating, it creates an upward spiral for the big two and a downward spiral for the rest. Jordi Alba has signed for Barcelona from Valencia, Luka Modric of Spurs will probably sign for Real. Over the past three seasons, a case can be made to say that the Spanish league has taken the best player from the Premier League (Ronaldo, Fábregas), Serie A (Kaká, Ibrahimovic) and the Bundesliga (Sahin). But that case depends on you treating the Spanish league, Barça and Real as synonymous, acting like they and they alone are the Spanish league. Which is exactly what they do. It is what they do, the TV operators do and the media do. It is what many fans do, too.
Spain play in Puerto Rico on Wednesday evening. Another transatlantic friendly no one cares about and four days before the season starts. The only debate is whether Real and Barcelona's players will play the same number of minutes. No one cares about the rest.
The big two keep improving; for the rest, standing still is as much as they can aspire to. This summer Valencia's most expensive player cost €3.7m. Sevilla's cost €3.5m. They are the highest-priced signings outside the big two. Most cannot even do that.
This summer, Real and Barcelona have spent more money on players for their B teams than half of the league has on players for their first teams. Instead players depart. Even on the Costa del Sol. The one team that could in theory have challenged the big two was Málaga. But a year after spending almost €60m on players, their Qatari owner, Sheikh Al-Thani, has pulled the plug. Santi Cazorla went, Salomon Rondon, too, and there may yet be more leaving.
The bottom line is that people want to watch the best players and, in that sense, Spain's top league remains the best in the world. If you want to see Messi and Ronaldo play, you have to watch La Liga. But because of their dominance, because of Real and Barcelona's power,
other good players are no longer on display.
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when russian/ukranian teams are winning europa the past couple years does anyone outside of their countries' care?
you can't say malaga or bilbao or even athletic "dominate" when the first two have at the most a couple of good months, and the second never does anything beyond the europa league (while teams like Lyon have eliminated real madrid teams that cost more than 20 times their roster)
up until 2010, korea had the exact same best finishes as spain in the WC (4th place, a couple of quarters; they even had some good head to head results). Did anyone EVER consider korea to be NEAR spain on a football field?
upsets are upsets. having a good tournament is nothing to be ashamed of, but it doesnt make a team a powerhouse.
just for you, stat man, by country:
Italy 12 CL finals, 9 UEFA= 21
Spain 13 CL finals, 7 UEFA= 20
England 12 CL finals, 6 UEFA = 18
Germany 6 CL, 6 UEFA = 12
so is Italy the best or do we have to start adding qualifiers for time periods? what if we add world cups? or what if, there's more to it than ing stats?
and thanks for the links about this barca team. I much rather you argue with opinions than irrelevant, contrived stats. now if you can show me a link of where *I* said this barca team is forgettable, that will help me understand your post a little better.
ps.: you still havent acknowledged that other teams have "won all the tournaments that they have played on a season". just in case you don't intentionally want to look like a liar, it wouldn't hurt to recognize the mistake.
pps: right now its easy to say that the best clubs beat their home NT, but in other eras that was not the case, and I suspect in the future that will change back and forth. This economic model hasnt proven itself to be sustainable to just assume it will continue like this forever, and the next time Brazil has a great generation of players it will go back to being <insert european club here> wishes they could afford the brazilian NT as its roster...