Barcelona and Madrid do have an "easier" league to play in in relative terms.  

One sensible way to look at it is the table for half-time leads. The big two in Spain do crack over 50% for this statistic, Madrid are up at 68%, Atletico 44%.

http://www.soccerstats.com/table.asp?league=spain&tid=h

Comparable tables for England and Germany:
http://www.soccerstats.com/table.asp?league=england&tid=h
http://www.soccerstats.com/table.asp?league=germany&tid=h

There's a very clear difference in this statistic as you go from Spain down to Germany down to England, where Leicester has the highest percentage at 38% and the rest of the successful clubs are sitting at around a third of matches.

Leading at half time means coming out for the second half to convert a goal advantage into points. It means controlling tempo and effort, and it means a high chance of being able to use substitutes to manage player fitness and avoid recurrences of injury and suspensions.

As we all know our squad tends to get leggy during the most congested periods of the season, like the one we're in now. We struggle to deal with it because we need our best players on the pitch playing with maximum intensity in nearly every match.  

Meanwhile, the outstanding factor in Spanish football is the skewed distribution of TV revenue to the big two. You don't have to denigrate La Liga in general to point out that the quality gap to Madrid and Barcelona is huge. Atletico's progress in recent years is surely better interpreted as an outlier of canny management and great morale than as an indicator of the great depth of the league.

This is why I think Guardiola will end up being just another manager at Manchester City. Pellegrini was able to coach Madrid to nearly 100 points but he sure as shit can't manage that at City. 

Agreed, I don't think Guardiola will have it all his own way.
His team will have to play in four competitions three of which tackling is allowed.

Burnwinter wrote:

Barcelona and Madrid do have an "easier" league to play in in relative terms.  

One sensible way to look at it is the table for half-time leads. The big two in Spain do crack over 50% for this statistic, Madrid are up at 68%, Atletico 44%.

http://www.soccerstats.com/table.asp?league=spain&tid=h

Comparable tables for England and Germany:
http://www.soccerstats.com/table.asp?league=england&tid=h
http://www.soccerstats.com/table.asp?league=germany&tid=h

There's a very clear difference in this statistic as you go from Spain down to Germany down to England, where Leicester has the highest percentage at 38% and the rest of the successful clubs are sitting at around a third of matches.

Leading at half time means coming out for the second half to convert a goal advantage into points. It means controlling tempo and effort, and it means a high chance of being able to use substitutes to manage player fitness and avoid recurrences of injury and suspensions.

As we all know our squad tends to get leggy during the most congested periods of the season, like the one we're in now. We struggle to deal with it because we need our best players on the pitch playing with maximum intensity in nearly every match.  

Meanwhile, the outstanding factor in Spanish football is the skewed distribution of TV revenue to the big two. You don't have to denigrate La Liga in general to point out that the quality gap to Madrid and Barcelona is huge. Atletico's progress in recent years is surely better interpreted as an outlier of canny management and great morale than as an indicator of the great depth of the league.

This is why I think Guardiola will end up being just another manager at Manchester City. Pellegrini was able to coach Madrid to nearly 100 points but he sure as shit can't manage that at City. 

You've only selected one Premier league season to compare against - in particular this season where the league has been quite unpredictable.

To have a statistically significant sample, you ought to at least go back a few years. For example,

in 13/14 both Liverpool and City lead at half time 66% of the time
in 12/13 United lead at half time 61% of the time and Chelsea lead 53% of the time
in 14/15 it was slightly lower but all of Chelsea, City and Arsenal lead 47% of the time. However, the fact is that Chelsea had a 10 point lead by December and only tailed off the second half of the year.

These figures are on par with the other top clubs (give or take %)

Basically, I'm not convinced by your leading at half time stat.

Fair enough, live by the stat, die by the stat.

But I still think it's relevant. It's also relevant that in the sample of seasons you've just discussed five different clubs have been among the top two for that stat.

It's Barcelona and Madrid every single season in Spain, with Atletico trailing in third.

Who'd bet against Madrid and Barcelona finishing top two in any given season? In the last ten years they've occupied 18 of the 20 first and second places.

Atletico won the league a couple of seasons back though. And reached the Champions league final. And will most likely finish second again this season.

Personally I don't think it's any coincidence that the Premier league did best in Europe when the hierarchy of the top four was established between 2004-2009

Mirth wrote:

Atletico won the league a couple of seasons back though. And reached the Champions league final. And will most likely finish second again this season.

What does this mean though? Last ten years Barca and Madrid have raffled the title and both have won the Champions League—albeit with Barcelona dominating both statistics.

There's no way to make empirical observation do anything other than steadily prove the point that two clubs dominate the Spanish league in a way that no two clubs dominate the English league. And when you tie it back to the question of wealth …

Mirth wrote:

Personally I don't think it's any coincidence that the Premier league did best in Europe when the hierarchy of the top four was established between 2004-2009

Agreed. One thing history shows is that the CL has its own pressures and strategies and that players and squads usually need to build up their understanding of the competition to succeed. The one-timers from English football don't go far.

Biggus wrote:

jones wrote:

Well everyone here who disagrees with you actually watches La Liga and you don't so you don't know wtf you're talking about either.

I know that neither Crynaldo nor Messi did it on the world stage.

Yeah, international football lost its superiority gradually as the money in club football went to obscene levels. With that change, this concentration of all the best players in the world, first in Europe and then to fewer and fewer clubs, meant that for quite some time there are a number of clubs much stronger than even the best national teams. Been that way for quite some time now, which means that watching international football means you are watching worse teams than on any given weekend in club football in any of the major leagues.

Burnwinter wrote:

There's no way to make empirical observation do anything other than steadily prove the point that two clubs dominate the Spanish league in a way that no two clubs dominate the English league. And when you tie it back to the question of wealth …

United alone won the league 13 times in the last 23 years, I don't see anybody calling the Premier League a weak league for it. And that's leaving aside that Barcelona and Real would win the English title most years as well.

It's pretty simple actually, watch the league and you'll be able to assess the quality without relying on dodgy stats or anything else. It's easy to assume their opponents are all piss poor because of the recurring cricket scores but that's ignoring the fact that goal difference rarely influences the table standing (the GD between two competitors for the same spot is more relevant), for example yesterday's game between Real and Celta Vigo who were in the game for most of the match but then gave up after Real scored their third.

It's not about their opponents in La Liga being weak in an absolute sense. We know from watching them and playing them in Europe that clubs like Sevilla, Villareal, Valencia, Atleti have been hard to get past at different times.

But it's not controversial or incorrect to say that over the last decade, Barcelona and Real Madrid have together had a more thorough dominance of Spanish football than Chelsea, City, and United have of English football.

Before that, United did have the league in a pretty iron grip due to their unchallenged financial might. 

But right now it's hard to imagine Barca or Madrid dropping to sixth place like Chelsea did under Di Matteo, or struggling the way City are now, or United since Ferguson moved on. Everyone knows that Atletico's progress under Simeone has been a boon to a troubled competition.

The stats seem to bear it out, the results bear it out, reasonable theories about how money feeds into success fit the observations. I reckon despite your protestations, watching matches bears it out too … do you really disagree? 

I don't disagree that Barcelona's and Real's dominance is bigger than the old top four's dominance of the EPL, no. My protestations were mostly towards the first sentence of your post in that the Spanish two teams have an easier league to play in which suggests that the quality of the rest is lower.

But there are other arguments there which I disagree with like your opinion of Guardiola; not that I'm dead certain that he'll dominate the league immediately but we've seen clearly inferior managers come into the league and be immediately successful; Ranieri (who some probably will argue "knows" the league), Bilic who's just a couple points behind us or Pochettino who was a failure at Espanyol and has now been a success at two English clubs despite not even speaking the language.

I don't think speaking the language is that relevant, to be honest.

Guardiola might win a title at City—and if he does he'll have done no more than both his predecessors.

The expectation on him is far greater, to turn City into a genuinely dominant force in English football and take them deep into the Champions League. I don't believe he will do that, not because I think he's a bad manager but because I think there's no feasible way he'll assemble a group of players in Manchester as good the ones he's worked with in Spain and Germany.

Speaking the language makes a huge difference, several managers have touched on it before. It's possible to have your interpreter translate your directions and coaching but the man-managing part is virtually impossible if you're not talking to the players directly.

Guardiola's success depends on what your expectations of him are of course. It's unlikely he'll turn City into a European powerhouse because of their small stature compared to his prior clubs but he'll bring them a lot closer. Just like he did at Bayern, people are highly critical of him also because of some high profile losses in the CL but he actually made Heynckes' team a lot stronger.

City will probably dominate the next few years as long as he gets the players he wants which will most likely be the case. Not sure about "genuinely dominant force in England" though, can't see him stay longer than a couple years at any place.

How do you come to the conclusion that he has made Heyncke's team stronger?

Their attack went up several levels after he arrived. Bayern 12/13 is one of the most overrated teams around, of course they were a very strong side but were overreliant on a number of players, mainly Ribéry, Robben and Martinez.

Speculation of course but I'm pretty sure Bayern wouldn't be considered as Barcelona's equal had Heynckes stayed, he's an alright manager who got lucky with several key performers all peaking around the same time.

Interesting. I disagree of course.

jones wrote:

Speculation of course but I'm pretty sure Bayern wouldn't be considered as Barcelona's equal had Heynckes stayed, he's an alright manager who got lucky with several key performers all peaking around the same time.

It'll take a lot of plastic surgery to remould City's squad, but we shall see.

Were they any more reliant on Robben, Ribery and Martinez than Barcelona are on Messi, Suarez and Neymar?