The Soccer Thread

[Survivor]

Just out of curiosity how would you guys rank the top 10 leagues in the world based on talent and quality football played?

[wr50l]

That was a cross that was lucky to go in imo. not sure why keller was cheating so far nearpost either. Bad defending, bad goalkeeper positioning too. Sick goal however.

:cgjuggalo:

[spiker]

Just out of curiosity how would you guys rank the top 10 leagues in the world based on talent and quality football played?

I'll try my noob hand at this. The Top 5 seems easy enough, anyways. If there is more than one league in these countries, assume that country's top league, obviously.

1. England
2. Spain
3. Italy
4. Germany
5. France

The top 2 are set in stone, I think. You could probably mix up 3-5 depending on how you view it. I know a lot of people loathe Serie A football and would probably rank them 4 or 5. 6-10 is going to be tough for me but here goes:

6. Netherlands
7. Russia
8. Scotland
9. Portugal
10. Turkey

Be gentle on me. I feel like Brazil should be up there because of the quality of footballers that come from that country. Otherwise, I just don't know. Besides Netherlands being an easy #6, everything else was a lot harder to list.

[spiker]

After looking a list of UEFA league champions, I would probably flip-flop Portugal and Russia.

[Survivor]

Oh it's great to wake up to some good old fashion toon controversy. It looks like captain Kevin Nolan is headed to relegated West Ham and Joey Barton had this to say about it on twitter:

Great player, leader, captain, person, trainer and mostly a friend for life. Devastated to see him SOLD! #mejoseandjonasnext.

[Bigpapa42]

I like your thought, Heels, but I would probably still put Spain above Germany. The Bundesliga has become the only league where I will sit down and watch any match, regardless of who is playing - don't even really do that for the Prem anymore. Its hard to criticize La Liga for having Barca and Madrid be dominant when Germany has one dominat team. Bayern have 22 league titles since the Bundesliga formed in '63 and 5 in the past decade. They win every other year. The difference is that there is constant change in who the other good teams are, instead of just the two. Even if I prefer watching the Bundelsiga, I look at the top teams and I'd expect the Liga side to win. If I take mid-table - Hamburg and Freiburg vs Osasuna and Espanyol - I'd still take Liga. Despite my preference, I still think Liga gets ranked above.

I might even put Portugal above France, to be honest. Porto look awesome, while the top French clubs seem to have dropped off. Russian and the Ukraine are hard to grade - they have real quality at the top, but the lower clubs in the league can be outright atrocious.

[1ke]

1-England
2-Germany
3-Spain
4-Italy
5-France
6-Portugal
7-Holland
8-Turkey
9-Russia
10-Ukraine

First off the biggest gripe people will have about my list is Germany over Spain. I don't have a problem if people rank Spain over Germany, but for me, Germany is more enjoyable league top to bottom. In Spain it's Madrid/Barca and everyone else.

Once you get past Holland, everything else is essentially a crap shoot. I love the passion in Turkey, and they have some quality players playing there. Russia is flush with cash and has lured many a top player from the leagues just a cut below the best in the world. I selected Ukraine over Belgium simply because the Ukrainian league is also a rich league and they bring in a ton of Brazilians so when I do manage to see a Ukrainian team play, they're not terrible.

Ill go along with this. Spain is a joke after the top 2. Something along the lines of a 20+ point gap after the top 2. I do rate Holland a bit better that Portugal though.

Scotland 12
MLS 13

[BigHouseUSA]

My rankings would be the exact same as Heels', except I haven't looked into who to pick at ten. The others I just kind of picked off the top of my head.

[wr50l]

Spain reminds me of Scotland in that regard. After the top two, there's a huge gap in points.

It's really just a one horse race historically.

[BigHouseUSA]

Saw Joey Barton give an interview in an Arcade Fire shirt months ago, now that he has a twitter it's been revealed that he is a full-blown hipster. Awesome.

[FirstTimer]

An ESPN writer in his most power rankings had Real Salt Lake in the Top 10 for World Soccer Clubs.

[spiker]

An ESPN writer in his most power rankings had Real Salt Lake in the Top 10 for World Soccer Clubs.

He probably meant Real Madrid.

[killgod]

An ESPN writer in his most power rankings had Real Salt Lake in the Top 10 for World Soccer Clubs.

They are top 3 in CONCACAF, but wtf?

[Fappin Raptor]

Is there a link? I'm kind of curious to read this.

[spiker]

I found the Power Rankings. The comments are hilarious.

http://myespn.go.com/s/conversations/show/story/6443329