The Champions' League Thread 2013-14: Page 35 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

The Champions' League Thread 2013-14

Timbob

40 years old and still going at this level. That's insane.

y va marquer

Just seen that United won 5-0.
I genuinely thought they might lose tonight

y va marquer

Douglas Costa - never heard of him before he scored this tonight

Volante

Another angle:

Klaus

Alfonso wrote:
Volante wrote:
Bundesliga is bobbins, bar Bayern I doubt any of the teams in that league would finish top four in England.

Dortmund would finish above City, Spurs and Liverpool.

They finished beneath Leverkusen last season.

SimplyThePest

No they didn't, they ran second.

Volante

Dortmund finished a single point above Leverkusen last season and they're three points behind this season.

Anyway, the Premier League is miles better than the Bundesliga and Dortmund only managed 66 points last season. 4 games less than PL, still pathetic given the state of that league.

Klaus

SimplyThePest wrote:
No they didn't, they ran second.

Okay, they did. They finished a single point ahead of them in a league with a single cup competition, a winter break and 34 league games. Well done.

They wouldn't be anywhere near the top of Premier League if they played in England. Certainly not ahead of Manchester City.

Volante

In Germany they only have Bayern that are a stronger club than they are. In England they'd have United, Arsenal, City, and Chelsea, not to mention the likes of Spurs and Liverpool who can rival them to sign players. How many teams in Germany will give you difficult games in comparison to England?

Klaus

There's Leverkusen and Mönchengladbach. Schalke at a stretch though they're playing like Aston Villa at the moment. Dropping points against anyone else is considered a waste. The entire lower half of the Bundesliga table is Championship dross, and not in an entertaining way.

Klaus

To elaborate further, Bayern went on a 14 game winning streak at one point last season. They won 29 games out of 34 in total. The trajectory is only slightly worse this year. People complain about La Liga being onesided but have a look at what has happened in Germany over the last few years. They're well on their way to undo all the good that came out of the restructuring in the last decade. Bayern are as strong as ever while Dortmund and a few others are trailing behind and scooping up the talent they can't take on board.

Volante

They're probably going to finish this season unbeaten too.

Klaus

It looks that way, yeah. Can't see anyone beating them at the moment. There might be a loss or two off the back of a Champions League fixture but they are widely expected to finish unbeaten. World class team in a third rate league.

Volante

Guardiola rotates very often and they never seem to miss a beat, other teams just aren't nearly good enough to capitalize on the few mistakes they make.

Clrnc

y va marquer wrote:

Douglas Costa - never heard of him before he scored this tonight

Didn't he put us to the sword few seasons ago?

Claudius

Agreed with Klaus. Bundesliga is another mickey mouse league. Dortmund would be Liverpool level in our league, methinks, which at the moment is competing for a top four place. But over several seasons, they could not keep up with United, City and Chelsea.

There was an article in Soccernet yesterday about just this and the case for European Superleague. Even Bayern (Hoeness) admits that Bayern and Dortmund are too good for Bundesliga.

Contrast with England where there are on average 2 massive games every weekend.

Burnwinter

Worth noting that England's only as competitive as it is because people keep funnelling megabucks into second rate clubs.

Claudius

And a few other factors as well...

rich teams enriching smaller teams by picking up their prize assets (e.g., Everton Fellaini)
rich teams sending out their excess players to smaller teams (E.g., Everton Lukaku)
mad TV money flowing throughout
balloon payments encouraging risk-taking by owners
etc.

Burnwinter

Yep. Plenty of trickle-down and the historic prestige of the league is what's led to the investment. Still, it's the most competitive league mainly because of the doping.

Irishgunner

y va marquer wrote:
Douglas Costa - never heard of him before he scored this tonight

Isn't he the guy who Ferguson wanted as a replacement for Ronaldo? Was too expensive in the end so they went for Valencia.

« Previous Page Next Page »