Moring all,
With the Champions League and Europa League draws taking place today can’t help but notice a possible turning of the tide.
If what the media say ‘the English premier League is the best in the world’ is true, then how come only two out of its four teams are in the draw?
Everyone has a go at the Italian League, saying it’s too slow, it has no money, it’s not what it was 10 years ago yet it is the only league to have 3 teams(Napoli, Inter, AC) represented in the CL draw and 2 in the Europa.(Udinese, Lazio)
England’s two team representation puts them on a par with such ‘massive’ leagues as Russia and France.
Then there’s the Europa League fiasco. England seems to be the only league who doesn’t take this competition seriously and it shows with only one team in the draw. (Stoke)
So what do we put the poor showing of England teams down to this year?
A blip? Probably. You can’t ignore the fact that English teams have performed very well in the CL in recent years and if it wasn’t for Barcelona, there would have been more English winners.
Unlucky? I don't think so. Neither United nor City played particular well in their group matches. You could argue that Arsenal or Chelsea was convincing either but at least they got the job done.
Not bothered? I think English clubs failure to take the Europa League seriously will come back to bite them. Why give England 3 or 4 places in a completion if there just going to treat it like reserve matches. Other leagues who take it seriously deserve more places.
Thoughts please?
Champions League/Europa League
posted on 16/12/11
If what the media say ‘the English premier League is the best in the world’ is true, then how come only two out of its four teams are in the draw?
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Despite the blips, England still tops UEFA coefficients for this season alone (as well as the rolling 5-year ranking):
http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method4/ccoef2012.html
The only objection I have is that I don't think any league is as far ahead of the rest as the apologists would have you think.
It's interesting if you toggle back over the last 10 seasons (links top right of the page posted above) to see the best-performing nations in each season. It returns some pretty surprising results:
2011 Portugal
2010 Germany
2009 Ukraine
2008 England
2007 Spain
2006 Romania (!)
2005 England
2004 Spain
2003 Italy
2002 Spain
The rankings are the weighted averages of all the performances of all of the clubs from each particular league. This means that if a country only has 4 teams in Europe but all 4 do well, they'll have a higher ranking than a country with 8 clubs if half of them perform poorly.
Nevertheless, it does show that even the clubs from some of the more obscure leagues are capable of doing well in a given season.
Their problem is that those seasons are normally a flash in the pan. They can't sustain the same standards consistently - but it does show that they can be quite competitive if things go right.
The reason England are top is that even though you've only topped the rankings once in the past 5 years, you've clearly been the most consistent, finishing 2nd in all of the other seasons.