Rank the 'Big 5' European Leagues

[Hadoop]

How would you rank them?

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[Hadoop]

Here's my order (considering each league as a whole):

1. La Liga
2. English Premier League
3. Bundesliga
4. Serie A
5. Ligue 1

Edit: Decided to swap EPL and the BuLi on second thought.

 

[Cassano]

EPL
la Liga
Serie A
Bundesliga
Ligue 1

 

[Baxterman]

EPL
La Liga
Serie A
Bundesliga
Ligue 1

 

[Luigi Habs]

EPL
La Liga
Serie A
Bundesliga
Ligue 1

This is the correct order. The only debate is between EPL and Liga. EPL have more parity and just better mid and lower table clubs overall.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

EPL
La Liga
Bundesliga
Serie A
Ligue 1

 

[cgf]

This season, the past 3-5 seasons, or moving forward?

WTF how do 3 of you have the EPL ahead of La Liga?

 

[YNWA14]

This season and moving forward:

1 - EPL
2 - La Liga
3 - Serie A
4 - Bundesliga
5 - Ligue 1

Though I could see the BuLi overtaking Serie A if they get their **** together.

 

[Baxterman]

This season, the past 3-5 seasons, or moving forward?

WTF how do 3 of you have the EPL ahead of La Liga?

I guess it depends on whether you favor a top heavy league or a league with more overall ability.

Obviously Barcelona and RM are great but how much are they ahead of Man City or Chelsea right now?

I would take Tottenham, United, Liverpool, Arsenal over La Liga's 2nd tier of teams easily as well.

I honestly don't think it is that tough of a decision but I also don't think much of Valencia, Sevilla or Villareal and see AM as starting to decline as well.

 

[Hadoop]

This season, the past 3-5 seasons, or moving forward?

To keep it simple I only considered this season (i.e the first half which has already happened but also some consideration to the reminder of the season since some teams have played better/worse then they are the last 4 months). To consider previous seasons would have required accounting for teams that have since been relegated which is tricky.

WTF how do 3 of you have the EPL ahead of La Liga?

I'm also quite surprised. IMO La Liga have both the best no. 1 (in their league) and no. 2 teams in the world, as well as the best teams 7-20 compared to all other leagues.

 

[YNWA14]

Real Madrid just lost a CL group to Spurs, and have been far from convincing this season. They lost a CL group to Tottenham. Let that sink in.

 

[Evilo]

And are european and world champions.

Let that sink in.

 

[Hadoop]

Some more reasoning behind my rankings since they seem to differ from most on here. In an effort to be objective I split the teams in each league into 3 tiers based on their current positions in the league and then ranked the leagues based on the teams in each tier, thus coming up with 3 rankings as shown below before combining them into the final ranking shown in my previous post.

'Big 5' Leagues ranked based on top-tier teams (i.e. No. 1-6 teams)

1. EPL
2. La Liga
3. Serie A
4. BuLi
5. Ligue 1

'Big 5' Leagues ranked based on mid-tier teams (i.e. No. 7-13 teams)

1. La Liga
2-3. BuLi*, Serie A (I think they are too close to call)
4. EPL,
5. Ligue 1

'Big 5' Leagues ranked based on bottom-tier teams (i.e. No. 14-20 teams)

1. La Liga
2-3. EPL, BuLi* (I think they are too close to call)
4. Ligue 1
5. Serie A

* For the Bundesliga I took teams 7-12 as the mid-tier teams and teams 13-18 as the bottom-tier teams instead.

 

[Evilo]

Lower table french teams are better than Serie A's. Easily.
Serie A is really 2-3 good teams, 2-3 average and crap.

 

[Luigi Habs]

Lower table french teams are better than Serie A's. Easily.
Serie A is really 2-3 good teams, 2-3 average and crap.

Did you mean Metz is better than Benevento?

Both leagues bottom teams are crap. They should have sticked with 18 teams.

 

[cgf]

Did you mean Metz is better than Benevento?

Both leagues bottom teams are crap. They should have sticked with 18 teams.

Ironically in germany there is a growing push to expand to 20 teams with the rise of Leipzig and the new money clubs pushing more historic clubs into the second division, which has caused some of them to spiral (see 1860, Munich); while the second division has risen in quality at a faster rate than the first division over the past ~3-4 years.

And tbh my biggest hesitation is that I'd hate to see my eiserne slip into the first division like that. If we could earn it first, then I'd probably be in favor of the expansion in a few more years...as the new tv deal filters larger sums of money down the pipeline.

 

[Hadoop]

Lower table french teams are better than Serie A's.

On second examination I have to agree with this. A few half-decent Ligue 1 teams are languishing this season.

Serie A is really 2-3 good teams, 2-3 average and crap.

Completely disagree with this though. The Serie A teams in the 7-13 range are pretty decent compared to the others in the big 5.



How would you rank the 5 leagues?

 

[Evilo]

Did you mean Metz is better than Benevento?

Both leagues bottom teams are crap. They should have sticked with 18 teams.

Fortunately, the bottom teams are not limited to 1.

 

[Alex Jones]

Pretty sure a lot of lower Serie A teams never really recovered financially.

I'd rate the leagues

La Liga
EPL
Serie A
Bundesliga
Ligue 1

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

Any list that doesn't have la liga on the top should be thrown in the garbage... why we'll just look at the champion league the past 10 years.

Half a season changes nothing. EPL can over take La liga but the likes of Manu/Liverpool/Chelsea have to improve immensely. Also city must win in Europe.

 

[East Coast Bias]

This year alone

La Liga
EPL
Serie A
Bundesliga
L1

 

[Deficient Mode]

I see the recency bias comparing the Bundesliga and Serie A is pretty extreme

 

[cgf]

Even on this season alone I think it's a tough case to make purely on quality & league play. The BuLi had a few naive teams in europe this year and a few bad teams that snuck in thanks to the poor campaigns from more experienced teams last season, which has spoiled the leagues results in europe this go around. But Bayern are the strongest team in either league; and the clutch of Hoffenheim, Leipzig, Gladbach, Schalke, Dortmund, Leverkusen match up well with their italian counterparts. Outside of Koln's historically impotent campaign the BuLi's bottom tier is stronger than Serie A. So is it the midtable teams where Serie A have such a decisive advantage?

 

[Deficient Mode]

Even on this season alone I think it's a tough case to make purely on quality & league play. The BuLi had a few naive teams in europe this year and a few bad teams that snuck in thanks to the poor campaigns from more experienced teams last season, which has spoiled the leagues results in europe this go around. But Bayern are the strongest team in either league; and the clutch of Hoffenheim, Leipzig, Gladbach, Schalke, Dortmund, Leverkusen match up well with their italian counterparts. Outside of Koln's historically impotent campaign the BuLi's bottom tier is stronger than Serie A. So is it the midtable teams where Serie A have such a decisive advantage?

Serie A is way more entertaining. It's also significantly slower and purely from a winning standpoint not superior football from top to bottom.

 

[East Coast Bias]

I see the recency bias comparing the Bundesliga and Serie A is pretty extreme

It definitely is, and I only based it on this season alone. And I really could be convinced either way on the 3/4 spots.

Dortmund and Rb struggling (based on their standards) and what looks like an easy Bayern title vs what looks to be an interesting 3/4 team race in Serie A thus far swayed me. The poor showing in europe for the Bundesliga didn’t help.

I’ve found Serie A, specifically Roma and Napoli to be so much fun to watch this season so far.