Monaco's Project: PSG/City way or Anzhi/Malaga way ?!

Berbatov last night in friendly in Columbia:

The reason Malaga failed is because nobody can match Real Madrid/Barcelona spending power, and Malaga were never going to overtake the top two...
The reason Anzhi failed is because Russia is sh*t and nobody wants to play there for any ammount of money... plus nobody watches their league.
Monaca is an attractive destination, they only really have PSG to compete with and the club has some kind of history (albeit not the MOST illustrious).
If the owners are smart and move the club forward one step at a time, the club can be a success. Hopefully FFP will force them to keep it calm and not full-on 'City' it with wholesale changes accross the board. But I can see it working out

sports' french bias has gone into overdrive in this thread

No top star wants to play in France. Even silva said he didn't want to leave Milan for Paris.
Their owners should have taken over a club in Spain. Bossing Madrid and barca in their own back yard would have made them the world wide juggernaught they think they are.
Now they have a 33 yo ibra and a want away Cavani up front.

33 y/o Ibra > Any striker that has ever played for United, bar Cantona

Ibra is nothing. I'd take Daniel Sturridge instead of him.
The most overrated player of a generation.
But then TA knows all about overrated strikers...
Benzema reminds him of Brazilian Ronaldo after all..

Sturridge > Ibra



Just when I thought I'd read the most ridiculous things already on GL

Serie A is in decline ,  but it is always better than Ligue One so far  , simply.
If we want to consider 1/2 clubs ok  ( but how much rating the Monaco ? ) , but Serie A is superior for overall quality .
On the other hand many clubs continue to take from Italian clubs  because there are always many talents

Blue Barrett wrote:
Just to chime in here, Falcao actually had no choice in that transfer due to 3rd party owners. If it were up to him, I'm sure he would have prefered a move to Chelsea at the time.

Agreed

Donuts wrote:well honestly i see France as the third best place for players to go now, it surpassed Italy with the money they give players, and many people would love to live in france.
seems to attract all the wives and families.

France is only Paris?

Mario Gomez decided to play with Fiorentina , Italian club of EL dimension, hardly he would have chosen to play with Saint Etienne

Falcao, Moutinho and Rodriguez chose to play in Monaco.  Drogba wanted to return to Marseille but OM didn't want to pay his wages; which was the right choice.  Bielsa is after South American and Spanish players right now.

It's all about the money and then location.  Serie A are broke... even Juve is broke

And Falcao could have just stayed at Altelti... just like Moutinho and James. But Monaco offered them a lot more money. The only league that has an issue with 3rd party ownership is EPL... all the others are fine.

Who's Ibra?
This isn't a my right back > thread but he only does well in one pace leagues.
You need pace. Football has evolved.

sportsczy wrote:Falcao, Moutinho and Rodriguez chose to play in Monaco.  Drogba wanted to return to Marseille but OM didn't want to pay his wages; which was the right choice.  Bielsa is after South American and Spanish players right now.

It's all about the money and then location.  Serie A are broke... even Juve is broke

And Falcao could have just stayed at Altelti... just like Moutinho and James. But Monaco offered them a lot more money. The only league that has an issue with 3rd party ownership is EPL... all the others are fine.

Aren't two of those leaving first chance they get while mourinho isn't wanted
Ditto Cavani

sportsczy wrote:Falcao, Moutinho and Rodriguez chose to play in Monaco.  Drogba wanted to return to Marseille but OM didn't want to pay his wages; which was the right choice.  Bielsa is after South American and Spanish players right now.

It's all about the money and then location.  Serie A are broke... even Juve is broke

And Falcao could have just stayed at Altelti... just like Moutinho and James. But Monaco offered them a lot more money. The only league that has an issue with 3rd party ownership is EPL... all the others are fine.

okay. but I talk about overall quality.

2 clubs don't make a league.

Robespierre wrote:Serie A is in decline ,  but it is always better than Ligue One so far  , simply.
If we want to consider 1/2 clubs ok  ( but how much rating the Monaco ? ) , but Serie A is superior for overall quality .
On the other hand many clubs continue to take from Italian clubs  because there are always many talents
Agreed

Yup.Once a mediocre league,always a mediocre league.They just happened to hit the jackpot this time with them Arab owners.Lets see how far the league can 'develop'.

to be fair, Falcao didnt chose Monaco. He was sent there because he belonged to a 3rd party owner who had the power to sell his rights to any club he wanted.

I don't suppose you recall Ibra's goal against England Cyberman?

But, on topic, I wouldn't put the French league above Serie A...
PSG > any italian team... but everyone below PSG can't even compete with any of the top 5 in Italy...
I hate to be a hater... but Italy hasn't declined THAT far.
France is better than Portugal though...

you can find the answers to all these questions in this chart

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficient#Current_ranking

Hapless_Hans wrote:you can find the answers to all these questions in this chart

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficient#Current_ranking

Well... clearly I was wrong about Portugal.
Clearly Benfica's showings in the EL has made them superior in UEFA's eyes to Italy and France...

teamanarchy wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:you can find the answers to all these questions in this chart

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficient#Current_ranking

Well... clearly I was wrong about Portugal.
Clearly Benfica's showings in the EL has made them superior in UEFA's eyes to Italy and France...

well, but look at the chart, so far they're still riding on their points from 2010/11. Once these fall out of the calculation they'll likely drop behind Italy again.
Pending on what happens next two seasons, of course.

Coefficient ranking is rubbish anyways...
Everybody that knows anything knows it...

why is it more rubbish than, say, going by personal feeling?
lol.

Judge with your own eyes.
English and Italian clubs famously don't care about Europa league. Spanish clubs do for example.
It seems to be a football cultural thing

Hapless_Hans wrote:why is it more rubbish than, say, going by personal feeling?
lol.

Because, how a club performs in cup competitions is what determines it right? Or how a country's clubs perform...
But, say, hypothetically, England has 4 clubs playing in the UCL...
In February, after all clubs secured a place into the knockout rounds, only 2 points separate ALL of these 4 teams at the top of the BPL.
None of these clubs can afford to rest their players on the weekend fixture before the round of 16 games, and subsequently several key players are fatigued for the CL fixtures in every team and all four teams are eliminated from European competition. The Premier League title race goes down to the last day with three teams all still with a chance to win the trophy on that final day. The winning team claims the title through goal difference.
The Premier league season goes down as perhaps the greatest in history and no fan in the world will deny the sheer quality of the Premier League.

Now, the UEFA Coefficient sees one thing from that entire hypothetical scenario:
"all four teams are eliminated from European competition"
And from this it draws the conclusion that English teams are worse than (say for instance) Spanish teams, where, going with the hypothetical scenario, the league was won half way through march and teams could afford to rest players before every Champions League game.

So if a league 'famously does not care about Europa league', in what way does that factor in a judgement on what's the better league?
Results matter, period.
If you want to weigh other factors as well, fine, then name them, but to dismiss results by pointing to some 'cultural thing' is not really sound debate.

CL and Europa league is where teams from different leagues meet.
The results from those meetings constitute the coefficient ranking, whether you agree with the details of the mechanism or not.
So for me, this ranking is by no means more rubbish than people spouting their personal preferences as facts.

Football isn't about numbers, or results.
You cannot apply a few statistics to this and that and come out with an accurate reflection of which team is better than the rest.
Ranking leagues is just doing that on an even bigger scale.

UEFA Coefficient ranking says that Spain has the best league in the world...
BUT, even though I prefer the style of play of the Spanish League and love watching Real Madrid, I know, deep down, that the Premier League is superior.
Now, I don't want to spark a essentially pointless debate, because this is based largely on subjective reasoning, but League quality is about so much more than how teams fare in once-off continental games.
It's about crowd attendances, Competitiveness, Playing style and pace, and marketability... amongst a whole other host of factors.

At the end of the day I like to watch the Premier League more than anything else because I like how it's presented. When John Dykes is on the Match day live panel, it makes me feel like I'm watching something that has been really well and professionally produced. And when I hear John Champion or Clyve Tyldesly or whoever commentating on the game, they actually sound like they can speak English AND know quite a lot about football. It does also help that the football is generally of a very high level of quality too... But, being in Media, I've come to appreciate these things.
Sorry about the rant, but that's why I can't stand these "rankings".
Enjoy what you enjoy and stop looking for some statistic to validate your opinion.

teamanarchy wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:why is it more rubbish than, say, going by personal feeling?
lol.

Because, how a club performs in cup competitions is what determines it right? Or how a country's clubs perform...
But, say, hypothetically, England has 4 clubs playing in the UCL...
In February, after all clubs secured a place into the knockout rounds, only 2 points separate ALL of these 4 teams at the top of the BPL.
None of these clubs can afford to rest their players on the weekend fixture before the round of 16 games, and subsequently several key players are fatigued for the CL fixtures in every team and all four teams are eliminated from European competition. The Premier League title race goes down to the last day with three teams all still with a chance to win the trophy on that final day. The winning team claims the title through goal difference.
The Premier league season goes down as perhaps the greatest in history and no fan in the world will deny the sheer quality of the Premier League.

Now, the UEFA Coefficient sees one thing from that entire hypothetical scenario:
"all four teams are eliminated from European competition"
And from this it draws the conclusion that English teams are worse than (say for instance) Spanish teams, where, going with the hypothetical scenario, the league was won half way through march and teams could afford to rest players before every Champions League game.

oh I understand absolutely why this ranking is not an perfectly accurate measurement. Me posting it was for most parts a joke to those debates "Ligue 1 < Serie A" "No, ..." etc pp

But following your example, was La Liga wrapped up in March? Is your hypothetical scenario actually accurate?
I don't think so. Fact is, English top teams consistently got their arses handed by Spanish teams recently, so that for me points to the Spanish being the better league at the moment.

Now if you name other factors, competitiveness, appeal, excitement, etc, ok sure but you have to actually show why the PL has more of that.
You can't just claim it and expect everyone to go along with it, as many posters do.
Or those usual claims of the Bundesliga not being competitive etc.