It’s safe to say this season has been pretty disappointing for the Premier League in Europe. All clubs (barring Chelsea and maybe Stoke) have endured a rather disastrous campaign with the top two clubs in England being knocked out of Europe’s second competition, Europa League, by relative minnows after Manchester United were outclassed by Athletic Bilbao, 11th in La Liga and Manchester City conceded two silly goals at home meaning they didn’t have enough time to claw their way through against Sporting Lisbon, a distant 4th in the Portuguese Primera Division. So is this year just a blip for English clubs or is the Premier League not as good as it used to be? Can we still call the Premier League the best league in the world?
The Premier League has been very successful in recent years of the Champions League with an English club reaching the final 7 times (2 of them winning the final) in the 7 finals since Liverpool beat AC Milan in the famous 2005 final. This year however, much like 2009-2010, English clubs have faltered except Chelsea, who reached the semi-final last night but face the untouchable Barcelona in the Semi-Final.
However, in Europe, many teams appear to have surpassed the English big teams including Barcelona, who many believe are the best team ever, Real Madrid, who would win all trophies possible in most other generations and Bayern Munich, who have some players English clubs can only dream about attracting. This is mainly caused by the fact all world stars seem to have departed the British Isles such as Cristiano Ronaldo who has been replaced at Manchester United by Ashley Young who certainly can’t be classed as on the same level. So it may be quite a while before we see an English team lifting the big Champions League trophy again.
As well as this, many arguments are made that the standard isn’t as strong throughout the rest of the league, usually because Barcelona and Real Madrid generally ease past most teams in La Liga but don’t Manchester City and United both do this in England? Therefore with City and United being inferior to the two Spanish heavyweights, surely that means the teams further down the league can’t be any worse than the teams in the lower echelons of the Premier League.
So, the Premier League may not have the best players or the best teams but it is still certainly the most exciting as at the start of a Premier League season, it is possible many teams could win the title whereas at the start of a La Liga season everybody is certain that only one of two teams, Barcelona and Real Madrid could win the league. Despite this, there isn’t necessarily a correlation between quality and excitement. Watching La Liga weekly you can see exceptional players playing outrageous football that simply can’t be matched in the physical, fast paced Premier League. Which is the best league in the world? My vote goes to La Liga.
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