IFFHS ranks the top leagues

Holland?Most of our clubs are better and richer nowadays.Russia and portugal?they buy our second tier players (just like Ukraine).As I said a million times,many of portugals teams are made up of players from our second division.

Brazil are 6th IMO. The top 5 are obvious it's just a matter of order.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Half spanish

Good Spanish lad Mole

Corinthians beat Chelsea in CWC = Brazil have the 2nd best league in the world? Lol hoookeey

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

Abramovich wrote:How is the Argie league above French lol.

More importantly how is the Brazilian league above the English, German and Italian?

Oh, I didn't realize the champion of the world was english, german or italian

It's a point-based system, so it makes sense that since a Brazilian won the South American CL (the liberator cup) and the CWC then they would be very high up on it.

It's clearly computed based on a function which heavily weights national team success. Which is somewhat irrelevant.

Hence the stupid results.

Blue Barrett wrote:Corinthians beat Chelsea in CWC = Brazil have the 2nd best league in the world? Lol hoookeey

And every other international club trophies...not to ention the past 3 libertadores.

It doesn't take national team success into it's calculations at all.

You have the formula?

http://www.iffhs.de/?bc83ccac3be8e00390b02fc5fdcdc3bfcdc0aec70aeed10a

Ah my mistake.

Their calculations simply weight the inter-national South American Cup competitions too high. If they're rating Copa Liberatadores and Copa Sudamerciana on the same level as CL and Europa they might as well rate AFC Champions league on a similar level.

Properly graded weighting would assuage some levels.

Even then they exclusively base it on continentalcup competitions so it has all the issues usually associated with co-efficent.

It seems to be a cumulative total so it really does surprise me Germany and Italy are ahead of England. Even under these skewed measurements you wouldn't expect it.

Take out the undue weight given to the South American cups (no where near the level of the CL or Europa League) it seems reasonable in terms of rating the European Leagues. Maybe Spain should not be so much higher than the Bundesliga and Serie A, but otherwise reasonable.

IFFHS, these are the people who consistently rank just about everything in an agreeably shite way, right?

I love it when they release new stuff, people get all uptight and dramatic.

Ganso wrote:Holland?Most of our clubs are better and richer nowadays.Russia and portugal?they buy our second tier players (just like Ukraine).As I said a million times,many of portugals teams are made up of players from our second division.

It's not just about the quality of the players though is it? It's about the application of the leagues talent.For example the Brazilian league probably has a similar amount of talent as the Dutch League but if the two leagues teams were to face off for example 4th place vs 4th place all the way through the league I would expect Holland to win comfortably.

Most teams in Brazil still haven't moved on from the past when teams didn't press as a team and keep compact from their defense to attack etc.Basically in Brazil the culture is to entertain instead of been pragmatic and therefore these teams would be beaten most of the time by teams with similar quality players but with a more modern disciplined gameplan.

Corinthians are one if not the only exception in Brazil and they are a very good team who convincingly won the Copa Libertadores and beat Chelsea.They are a team who are very compact and work very hard off the ball.

But they are the exception and not the rule,I have watched other teams in the league and the work rate off the ball as well as the spaces between their defense and midfield is huge.I have seen Neymar play and he can sometimes get a 20 yard run towards opposition defenses.That kind of thing rarely happens in Europe.

The good news though is that the Brazilian League does have the potential to possibly challenge the French League for 5th best League in the future because of the Brazilian economy but the culture their needs to change for that to happen,they should learn from Corinthians if they want to progress over there,and maybe then they will start winning more World Club Cups.

I disagree about the 20 yards of space thing,that happens often in every league,specially in the EPL and in the Bundesliga where you often have 2 CBs against the world type situations.Of course it happens more often over here,but still,you will find yourself in these situations in Europe too.

Its tough to judge since the only time our clubs face European opposition are in CWCs.Even so, we have won 3 out of the last 4 since 2005 against Liverpool,Barca and Chelsea.Only Santos lost to Barca,but I mean,its Barca lol.

worms wrote:Brazil the 2nd best league in the world Brazil is the best league outside of Europe though but still it would be about 10th place.

And the Argentinian League is rubbish compared to the average European League like Holland or France etc.

And you based that on what? I bet you never even saw a single game from the argentin league. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you but I hate when people diss something they have no clue about. Do you watch the French or Dutch leagues? Or is your assumption based on popular demand?

Like Dani said there is no good way to measure this. One thing is people will have different opinions on the leagues they prefer to watch. For example Ganso is Brazilian and will defend his league being a top league but he might not care for the Dutch league and won't rate them. Mole will praise the Epl because he is English and supports an English team but might not care about other leagues. These are just examples not to be taken to the exact words I used. I would favor the polish league above all and most of not all of you will say facepalm and other things but that is my preference. Obviously the quality is no where near othe European leagues but I think it's the best for me. Ofcourse I will be logical and rate the big leagues but there is no way to really put them in any order. I don't like the idea of dissing a league or team because they are not the flavor of the month. I hate when people will say x league or x team is shit when they have never experienced it. Just my crap I wanted to share.

Abramovich wrote:How is the Argie league above French lol.

Because ZLatan only arrived in August

white_star wrote:

worms wrote:Brazil the 2nd best league in the world Brazil is the best league outside of Europe though but still it would be about 10th place.

And the Argentinian League is rubbish compared to the average European League like Holland or France etc.

And you based that on what? I bet you never even saw a single game from the argentin league. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you but I hate when people diss something they have no clue about. Do you watch the French or Dutch leagues? Or is your assumption based on popular demand?

I have watched a few games yes,and some youtube highlights/player compilations and it's clear to me that it's a poor league by European standards.It's just like the Brazilian league in terms of poor defending,workrate and organization but with less quality.

The absurdity of measuring leagues aside, this is an unbiased formula, so we can't accuse them of bias.

We can however dissect and criticize the formula itself.

First, it is a formula that measures success, therefore it is not a list of the "best" leagues but of the most "successful".

Another thing is the undue wight given to SA cups. The cop is weaker than the CL. However, it is stronger than the shite EL. People under estimate non-European clubs.

Is it really so outlandish to claim that a Brazilian mid-table team would more than handle its own and probably win against a mid-table team in France, Portugal, Russia or the Netherlands? Hell, they would hold their own even in the top leagues as well. The difference between leagues is often exaggerated, most leagues have a couple of really outstanding teams, but the rest is about the same level everywhere.

Also, as noted by the notes in the OP, the key takeaway of the analysis is that the difference between 2, 3, 4 and 5 is marginal and thus indicates they're all about the same level.

Additionally, I agree that this i a most successful over the year list and it'd be a mistake to take it for anything else than that.

Lord Spencer wrote:The absurdity of measuring leagues aside, this is an unbiased formula, so we can't accuse them of bias.

We can however dissect and criticize the formula itself.

First, it is a formula that measures success, therefore it is not a list of the "best" leagues but of the most "successful".

Another thing is the undue wight given to SA cups. The cop is weaker than the CL. However, it is stronger than the shite EL. People under estimate non-European clubs.

The Europa League isn't shite and probably has higher quality football,teams and players than the Copa Libertadores.

This Atletico Madrid team,the Europa League holders would win that competition approx 8 times out of 10.

Teams that reached the latter stages of the EL last year(Sporting Lisbon,Shalke,Valencia,Athletico Bilbao etc) would all be favorites to win the Copa Libertadores.

Sorry man but modern day South American football isn't all that,it's still way behind European football in terms of quality,tactics, work rate, discipline,infrastructure of the leagues/competitions etc.

The Europa League gets a lot criticism, but it is a top level competition with some really, really good clubs competing in it. It's not unusual for the Europa League winner to beat the CL winner in the Super Cup or whatever they call it.

norton wrote:The Europa League gets a lot criticism, but it is a top level competition with some really, really good clubs competing in it. It's not unusual for the Europa League winner to beat the CL winner in the Super Cup or whatever they call it.

True enough, Zenit did it against Liverpool a few years ago year, Atl. Madrid did it against Chelsea. Personally i prefer to watch the latter stages of Europa League since they can be quite entertaining and also provide high drama (Man U last year) that isn't to say i dont view the early stages.

Spain lose one team in a two team league and still they are no 1? Lol..
Imagine city dropped out and utd were strolling the league with our only European compatriots doing anything in Europe being in the fcking Europa lge called everton and Sunderland..

Well if Bradford win the League Cup, Everton or Sunderland in the EL would be your least problem

(The IFFHS ranking has always been somewhat peculiar, BTW, so no need to fret!)