Is Championship 6th best league in Europe?

[Artorius Horus T]

After English Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Seria A and Ligue 1
is Championship (EFL Championship) the 6th best league in Europe?

Financial capabilities
Top team's quality
Overall quality

Click to read more...

 

[Eye of Ra]

not even top 10

 

[Wee Baby Seamus]

Absolutely not

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

It’s actually the 2nd best league. Change my mind.

 

[hatterson]

Based on revenue per team, the championship is around 10th for financial power, although I believe a big chunk of that is via parachute payments.

 

[East Coast Bias]

FFS

 

[bleedblue1223]

Not sure if serious or troll poll...

 

[JeffreyLFC]

I laughed!

 

[hatterson]

Also 538 does a Global Club Soccer Ranking. It's obviously not perfect, but it's a way to try to statistically compare teams and leagues.

Global Club Soccer Rankings

Based on that ranking, the best Championship side is Leeds coming in at the 67th best rated team in the world. That would put them below the best team in 14 leagues. It would put them better than the worst team in every league. Based on the ranking they would be at least an average (mean) team in all but the PL, La Liga, and BL.

As far as average ranking, the Championship is 11th, although those numbers are weird since the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League are listed as leagues teams below to for some reason.

 

[robertmac43]

I would say its around the 12-15 range. Top 6 is more than a little stretch.

 

[YNWA14]

Also 538 does a Global Club Soccer Ranking. It's obviously not perfect, but it's a way to try to statistically compare teams and leagues.

Global Club Soccer Rankings

Based on that ranking, the best Championship side is Leeds coming in at the 67th best rated team in the world. That would put them below the best team in 14 leagues. It would put them better than the worst team in every league. Based on the ranking they would be at least an average (mean) team in all but the PL, La Liga, and BL.

As far as average ranking, the Championship is 11th, although those numbers are weird since the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League are listed as leagues teams below to for some reason.

This is neat. I would have thought Barcelona and Bayern would be swapped but these things are never going to be perfect.

Also I don't think the Championship is the 6th best league. There are a lot of good leagues out there outside of the top 5.

 

[East Coast Bias]

This is neat. I would have thought Barcelona and Bayern would be swapped but these things are never going to be perfect.

Not sure what specifically is the cause, but this model really likes the Bundesliga. I followed it closely last year, and they always had a few Bundesliga teams up high.

This year too - it has 3 in the top 11, 5 in the top 17.

 

[Blender]

10-15 range seems more reasonable. Probably the best 2nd tier league in the world.

6th is laughable. I can't tell if that's a serious opinion.

 

[robertmac43]

Probably the best 2nd tier league in the world.

I think this opinion is a pretty standard one. Cannot think of any other second league that would challenge for that.

 

[hatterson]

I think this opinion is a pretty standard one. Cannot think of any other second league that would challenge for that.

The 538 rankings have the big 5 countries second leagues in their rankings (Championship, 2. Budesliga, Segunda Division, Ligue 2, and Serie B). Championship is well above the other 4. Serie B is actually closer to League One than to the other second tiers.

League	Average	Best	Worst
Championship	49.2	67.6	34.4
2. Bundesliga	34.6	51.2	25.3
Segunda Division	34.1	51.3	25.1
Ligue 2	30.6	45.0	22.7
Serie B	25.1	41.0	15.3
League One	22.2	39.0	10.4

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[Albatros]

The 2. Bundesliga is the only one that can to some extent challenge, but even there the money is not the same. If we include the first leagues the Championship might narrowly miss the top 10, but it's really close.

 

[MaxV]

OP is a Finland fan.

Finn leads Championship in scoring.

Do the math.

 

[les Habs]

Good Lord.

Also 538 does a Global Club Soccer Ranking. It's obviously not perfect, but it's a way to try to statistically compare teams and leagues.

Global Club Soccer Rankings

Based on that ranking, the best Championship side is Leeds coming in at the 67th best rated team in the world. That would put them below the best team in 14 leagues. It would put them better than the worst team in every league. Based on the ranking they would be at least an average (mean) team in all but the PL, La Liga, and BL.

As far as average ranking, the Championship is 11th, although those numbers are weird since the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League are listed as leagues teams below to for some reason.

Looks like a lot of work to come up with a pretty bad list.

 

[Artorius Horus T]

OP is a Finland fan.

Finn leads Championship in scoring.

Do the math.

Just for 1 example, look at the quality players what played in the championship last season
and see how well and where they are doing this season... you do the the math.
- its just not Pukki you know

More and more Asian, Russian billionaires/millionaires are buying championship teams
and signing big name managers and relatively big name players with big money,
more foreign players play in championship than ever. - look at the teams in recent years
that has jumped from there to become permanent premier league teams, few even have
gotten serious success

There are teams that are former English league champions, cup champions, European cup champion(s) in championship,
the number of international level players is higher than ever, albeit not many top countries, nevertheless.

These days, big money transfers from championship to premier league or to other top leagues, happen,
younger or older players. Young top talent (british and others) keep arriving to the championship,
1 example; Birmingham bought Croatia's next star midfielder this summer from Dinamo Zagreb for about 10 million euro's.

 

[Corto]

It's not anywhere near 6th. Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Dutch, etc... All the teams would blow top Championship teams away.

But in terms of media coverage, exposure, production, stadium atmosphere, etc... It's top 10.

I love it. It's a bit raw (a lot of the best players tend to be kids loaned from EPL teams), it's focused on physical strength more than most league, but it's got that certain "something". I love the English football culture, I love their stadiums, etc.

 

[Albatros]

It's not anywhere near 6th. Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Dutch, etc... All the teams would blow top Championship teams away.

All? The top Championship sides would absolutely butcher the bottom feeders of these leagues.

 

[Outofbodyinhungary]

It's not anywhere near 6th. Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Dutch, etc... All the teams would blow top Championship teams away.

But in terms of media coverage, exposure, production, stadium atmosphere, etc... It's top 10.

I love it. It's a bit raw (a lot of the best players tend to be kids loaned from EPL teams), it's focused on physical strength more than most league, but it's got that certain "something". I love the English football culture, I love their stadiums, etc.

Turkish league is ass. Even the so called top teams aren’t even that good.

 

[Corto]

All? The top Championship sides would absolutely butcher the bottom feeders of these leagues.

Oooorrrr.... We can compare top teams to top teams and not top teams to bottom teams, that makes no sense.

Dinamo Zagreb would blow out Villa or Newcastle off the pitch - that doesn't make Croatian League better than the EPL.

Turkish league is ass. Even the so called top teams aren’t even that good.

Yes. That is why they consistently have teams in the Champions League, with Besiktas most recently making it out of the groups 2 years ago.

 

[Albatros]

Oooorrrr.... We can compare top teams to top teams and not top teams to bottom teams, that makes no sense.

We can, but that's not what you said. And on the other hand Stoke or Huddersfield are not worse than the bottom teams of these leagues either despite there being 24 sides in the Championship.

Dinamo Zagreb would blow out Villa or Newcastle off the pitch - that doesn't make Croatian League better than the EPL.

Zagreb would need to rely on good form even against the worst EPL sides, Newcastle and Aston Villa too have vastly superior resources. In fact Dani Olmo could well play for one of them next year but a big move the other way will never happen.

 

[Corto]

Zagreb would need to rely on good form even against the worst EPL sides, Newcastle and Aston Villa too have vastly superior resources. In fact Dani Olmo could well play for one of them next year but a big move the other way will never happen.

They just beat Atlanta 4-0. It's best Dinamo team in 10-12 years.
Yeah, Olmo's not going to Newcastle or Villa - though I wouldn't mind it, both are clubs rich with tradition and (hopefully) they can find their way back to greatness.

But that's not even the point. The point is that comparing the BEST Championship teams to the WORST teams in Russia, Holland or Portugal is a truly silly way to go around comparing leagues.

I love English football. I love the EPL, I love the Championship, and only Germany and France compare in football culture IMO (no, Spanish and Italian fan culture does not compare, it's absolutely horrible in comparison), but I do get the feeling that people who follow mostly the EPL tend to underrate other leagues, especially the non-elite teams.

So, no... Championship is not the 6th best league in Europe and it's ridiculous to suggest so, IMO.