Premier League vs La Liga - Which is the best?

For years, the English premier league as been the undisputed king of football. Producing the best teams, the best drama, and the best competition. However over recent years the quality of football coming from our shores pales in comparison compared to that of the likes of Spain's La Liga.

In the 2007 - 2008 season the English premier league had all four representatives in the UEFA Champions League quarter finals, and three of the four teams in the semi finals where also from the premier league, the exact same scenario took place in the following season. However in the 2014 - 2015 season not a single English team made it past the first knockout round. However in the 2013 - 2014 season, the final of the champions league included two Spanish teams, Real Madrid and Athletico Madrid. and in the 2014 - 2015 season Real Madrid and Barcelona both progressed to the semi final of the competition, with the Catalan giants eventually winning the competition.


The English top flight boasts to have the best competition out of Europe's elite, poking fun at leagues such as the Bundesliga & La Liga for constantly having one or two front runners year after year. However in recent years this theory can perhaps be proven otherwise. The premier league may claim to provide the best competition, but the title race in England has only really seen the addition of Manchester City in this century, with the 'big four'(Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool) dominating England, even with Liverpool dropping down the table in the last few seasons. Well if it was a battle of those said teams season after season England may still have a case for the best competition, as a five way title race is very rare in football. However it isn't as straight forward as that. Since the introduction of the premier league we have seen five different teams walk out champions, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and Blackburn Rovers. Now, if you remove the pre mentioned sides, only two other teams have featured in the top two of the Premier League (Newcastle United and Aston Villa), but like Blackburn Rovers these two sides have since dropped off massively, and are no where near the title picture.

Season after season the Premier league, which claims to be the most competitive of Europe's top leagues, is dominated by the same big names, however if you look deeper, the competition again takes a hit. Two of the 'giants' of English football have failed to win a league title in a long period of time, Arsenal have not been champions on England since 2004, and Liverpool have failed to win a title in the premier league era! This reduces the competition levels even more, meaning since 2005 only Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea have been crowned champions of England. However, although Manchester United have won the most league titles since that year, in the last couple of seasons we have seen a decrease in success for the red devils, which has lead to Chelsea and Manchester City dominating the division. These two teams have won one Champions league title between them (Chelsea 2012), how can the Premier league claim to be the best league in the world if out of their two front runners, they have only one champions league title between them? When the Champions League is seen as the elite competition of European football. So not only do the English top flight sides pale in comparison in Europe's elite competition compared to other European league competitors in recent years, but it also fails to produce the 'competition' that had made it famous.

The main reason other European Leagues have, particularly La Liga, have struggled the stake a claim for the best league in the world is the lack of competition, between 2003 and 2013 Only Barcelona & Real Madrid won the league title in Spain, and this is perhaps the main reason for an argument against the Spanish top tier being the best in world football. Since 2009, La Liga has also had, without a doubt, the two best players in the world, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the two men who have won the last seven Ballon D'ors between them. However many people have said that due to the poor quality of sides these two players where playing on a weekly basis, because of this, although those two players where playing of Spain's shores, it does not contribute to La Liga's argument to be the best.

However, just like the performances in the champions league can argue against the Premier League for being the best, it helps argue La Liga's case. In the last seven years, four of the seven champions league winners have been Spanish clubs, including the winners of the competition for the last two years (2013-14 Real Madrid & 2014-15 Barcelona). Being the top competition in European football, the success in the champions league by Spanish clubs really helps argue the leagues case for being the best.

Despite Continental success, until 2014 the argument still stood against La Liga that the competition level was far to low to be considered the best, that is until Athletico Madrid won the league title, at the home of the Catalan giants Barcelona, in the same season Athletico also reached the champions league final (losing after extra time to Real Madrid). In their attempts to retain their title in the 2014-15 season Athletico pushed city rivals Real Madrid all the way in the battle for second place, showing that Diego Simeone's side have the capabilities to compete with the best in Spain, showing that the competition levels in the domestic league in Spain is increasing. Also players such as Neymar, Luis Suarez, Garath Bale, Toni Kroos, James Rodriguez and many other big signings have helped increase the quality of players playing week in, week out in Spain. The increasing competition, dominance on the Continental stage, and outstanding class of players really makes it hard to argue against La Liga being one of, if not the best the best league in Europe.

Other leagues such as Germany's Bundesliga & Italy's Seria 'A' both also could have claim to the spot as Europe's number one league, but both perhaps are missing either the competition in the League, for example, Bayern Munich's dominance on the Bundesliga. Or the competition on the bigger stage, such as Seria 'A' , the Italian top tier only have had one finalist in the competition since 2010 (Juventus 2015).

In my opinion, the La Liga has recently became the out right best league in the world, personally i believe the dominance on the Continental stage by Spanish sides is to big to ignore, and the lack of success for English teams in recent years is the reason for them being knocked off of the podium. Will the Premier League ever get back to the top of world football? only time will tell and with Lionel Messi's Barcelona currently dominating world football, and Cristiano Ronaldo's goals leading to success for Real Madrid, La Liga looks like it could be on top for a long time.

 

The resurection of Seria 'A' - the Italian job

In the middle to late 1990's Italy's top flight was seen as the pinnacle of club football, with players such as Zinadine Zidane, Ronaldo, Alessandro Del Piero, Herman Crespo and Gabriel Batistuta, Seria 'A' was seen as the hot bed for footballing talent. However, despite relatively high levels of success between 2000-2010, the top flight of Italian football was in decline, both in its domestic competition and continental success. Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan won a historic treble in 2010 however, an aging side meant that the Italian giants could no longer produce against the other European sides such as Barcelona and Manchester United, the two sides that reached the next seasons Champions League final. With other front runners AC Milan stars Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva jumping ship to the French champions PSG, and Juventus still feeling the backlash of the 2006 controversy which saw the old lady relegated to Seria 'B', the Italian top flight looked set to sink into insignificants on the European stage.


However last season, for the first time in five years, the Champions League final included a Italian side. Juventus. And despite the defeat to Barcelona, the old lady's performance in the competition shows that the Italian league is still showing signs of light! heading into the 2015/2016 season, Italian sides have been very active in the summer transfer window, and it looks very much like Seria 'A' is getting back to where it was. Today I will be looking at the front runners of Italian football and trying to see if those sides look like spear heading an Italian resurrection in European football.

We'll start with the champions, the old lady, the most successful domestic side in Italy, Juventus. Juventus have won the Seria 'A' title in each of the last four seasons, and have really taken advantage of the decline of the Milan giants AC and Inter. The old lady became the first Italian side in five years to reach a champions league final in 2015, eventually falling just short to Barcelona in the final, however, knocking out holders Real Madrid in the semi-finals really showed how far the club have came since one of the darkest periods in the clubs history. Following a match fixing scandal in 2006, Juventus where stripped of their 2004/2005 2005/2006 Seria 'A' titles and relegated to Seria 'B'. With the Italian giants having some of the worlds top stars signed at that point, playing in the second tier of Italian football was just not good enough, and certain top players including Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Fabio Cannovaro, Patrick Viera and Lilian Thuram all left to find success elsewhere.




 Despite claiming the Seria 'B' title at the first attempt and achieving immediate promotion back to the top flight, Juventus would feel the backlash of their relegation for many years, struggling to attract top European names to join. This lead to the berlin based side having to promote from within, which in many ways turned out to be a blessing, with current first team players such as Claudio Marchisio getting their chance to shine. Italian striker Giovinco (now playing in the MLS) also forced his way into the team and was a solid starter for Juventus for a number of seasons. Giorgio Chiellini, who now is one of the outstanding centre backs in world football also found a new role in the side during the season Juventus spend in Seria 'B'. Many factors have lead to Juventus being able to recover their once great form since the 2006 incident. The continued brilliance of Italian number one Gianluigi Buffon, and the addition of world class players such as Paul Pogba and Sami Khedira have show that Juventus are once again a force to be reckoned with in Europe and despite starting this season weaker then expected domestically, a win away at English league leaders Manchester city on match day 1 of the champions league has shown that last seasons runners up have the possibility of going one better this time round.


Now lets look at last seasons runners up, A.S Roma. Roma have spent much of the last decade as a side that wasn't quite good enough, the side from Rome had to settle for Europa League (formally the UEFA cup) as a successful season. With many top players leaving Roma over the years, it made it very difficult for them to mount a serious and consistent title challenge. With first team players such as Eric Lamela, Alberto Aquillani, Jeremy Menez and Philipe Mexes constantly leaving the club, Roma had one constant, their club captain Francesco Totti. The Italian is a club legend, and is one of the most loyal players in world football, he has stayed at Roma throughout his entire career, despite many offers from much bigger clubs, offering much more money. Totti has been putting in fantastic performances throughout his career, despite his age, he is still the outstanding player in many of Roma's matches and is at large, a big factor in their resurgence of recent seasons.


At the start of the 2013-2014 season, Roma had a major over hall of their squad, with an incredible 31 players moving in and out of the Stadio Olimpico in that summer. And it appeared to have a major effect, with Roma finishing second in Seria 'A' and spent most of the season leading the way, only for Juventus to walk out champions towards the end of the season. The same fate awaited them in the following season, after making a brilliant start to the season, a poor run of form at the turn of 2015, saw Juventus again take over the side from the capital, and Roma failed to capture the title they looked like winning for a lot of the season.


A strong squad, combining the experience of legends such as de Rossi and Totti, potential of players such as Juan Iturbe, Kevin Strootmen and Radja Nainnggolan, has seen Roma recapture the quality of football which had been missing from Rome for a while. Rome right now look like the strongest challengers for Juventus's recent dominance of Seria 'A' and they have started this season showing the same sort of form they have been for a couple of seasons. A draw with last seasons treble winners Barcelona on match day one of the champions league has shown that they have the quality to really be a force in Europe, and help boost the quality of the Seria 'A' back to where it has been in recent years.


The final side I'm going to look at is the last Italian team to win the champions league, the 2010 treble winners Inter Milan. The reason I'm choosing to look at Inter instead of city rivals AC is because Inter are my tip to end Juventus's recent dominance. As I previously mentioned, Inter won a famous treble in 2010, becoming the first Italian side to achieve the feat and knocked Barcelona off of the top of European football by beating them in the semi-finals. Since the end of the 2009-2010 season, Inter have struggled to reproduce the form shown by Jose Mourinho's side. A combination of an aging squad, a lack of stability in the managers position and failing to hold onto star players has seen the side that had been dominating Italian football fail to qualify for the Champions League in any of the previous 4 seasons.


An 8th place finish at the end of last season saw Inter Milan reach a new low, failing to qualify for any European competition for the 2015/2016 season. This caused a drastic change for the Milan club, with many new stars being brought to the San Siro, as well as a large proportion of the squad leaving the club. With 39 players moving in and out of the San Siro in the previous summer, the squad that had failed drastically in the previous campaign, saw few survivors for the upcoming season, and it appears the changes have worked!


The additions of players such as Kondogbia, Miranda, Felipe Melo and Steven Jovetic has seen Inter win each of their opening four Seria 'A' games, leading to them leading the title at this early stage of the season. Without the distraction of Europe, Inter can spend all of their attention trying to regain domestic success and reclaim the Seria 'A' title.


Overall all of the sides mentioned today appear to be rejuvenating the Italian top flight and maybe soon we could see another Italian side leading the way in world football.