La Roja has a new captain and his name is Isco. Spain is now Madrid heavy with current, past, and future Real Madrid players.
Barça will always compete because of Messi. He's covering up a lot of their weaknesses. But football teams are only as strong as their weakest links and Barcelona had a few that caused them to slip.
Poor Barca couldn't poach players and PSG took their heir apparent and Man City is also shelling out huge Middle East sheckles so why not b**** about it to the media. La Liga is pissed why? They will always have the 2 biggest prestige clubs. The thing is... They aren't wrong. It does distort the marketplace, but does it really weaken Barca so much that they can't still get a young guy like Dembele to get stars in his eyes if they come calling? One could say, La Liga is just falling behind the times by not finding the right funding sources (whatever that means). Does Neymar's move really swing the balance of power among the European giants? Are these super-team FIFA UT squads in Manchester and Paris ever going to actually spend that money cohesively and develop actual young talent? I'm intrigued by that answer. Makes you appreciate the Bayerns and Juventas more to see how they stay dominant. Not to say they don't also have the advantage of having the ability to poach talent from their leagues and countries as the sole #1 clubs respectively, but I respect the culture of BM and Juventas far more than any of the other giants. Arturo Vidal for instance. Common thread. Common views of what makes a good footballer. Man that guy is a beast. He's not flashy pants Real Madrid material, but he should be.
IMO, PSG's best case scenario is still winning Ligue 1 and maybe a quarterfinals exit in the CL. I also believe that La Liga will likely never be nearly as flush with cash as the EPL. The EPL, top to bottom, is a more complete league. Outside of the power 2 in Spain (maybe 3 if you include Atletico), that league is boring as hell and will never get the tv contract money. Germany is becoming a deeper league and it doesn't hurt that there are prominent Americans playing there. I had never paid a lick of attention to Dortmund before Pulisic. Now I try to watch every week. Silly as that may sound, they're not going to get the money from NBC or Fox the EPL does if the focus is only on 2 teams and there aren't any local ties to talk about (the last American in La Liga was Oguchi Onyewu for Malaga in 2013). Watching Real Madrid beat the living hell out of Levante just isn't interesting.
I think RM and Barca will always have the Spanish speaking audience (no small crowd) but yes they dont have as much appeal to potential American viewers as EPL, Bundesliga, etc. One thing that really sucks is watching European soccer on Pacific time. Man City v Liverpool at 4:30 AM Saturday? No way man.
Just out of curiosity, how much influence do you think American viewership has on European Football? Is it enough to give the Premiere League the boost to eclipse La Liga or is it more of a PL has been huge for a long long time? My personal opinion is that leagues don't matter as much any more. It's all about teams. Man U, Chelsea, Real, Barca, PSG, Juventus, Bayern Munich, AC Milan.. those are the teams that are going to matter because they have the money to spend on the world market. Maybe Atletico Madrid is coming up, but they share a city. That's a tough market to share when you're sharing it with the best there is. It seems like it's all about champions league these days.
I can only say that in Europe and Asia EPL is huge, then La Liga with El Classico mostly, then Bundesliga with Bayern and Dortmund mostly. Italian league and French League has been on a down. EPL is still the most competitive league, other than the German Bundesliga, teams behind Bayern.
I think the influence out of America and China is growing like crazy. If you were to ask someone their favorite La Liga team, 99/100 will be one of Barca or Real. Ask the average fan to name a team in France other than PSG. Ask the average fan their favorite EPL team and you'll get ManU, City, Liverpool. Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, Stoke, etc., etc., etc. I have friends that are West Ham fans. I followed Fullham when Dempsey played there, though I've been an United fan since I can remember following the EPL. The typical EPL game is a more competitive game than the typical La Liga game. Italy does have more name brands but I think their style of play just doesn't translate here. CL has kind of become a showcase for the teams outside of the EPL to gain some of the international market share.
City-Liverpool, Bayern-Hoffenheim and Germany-France (Basketball) today, guess I won't be leaving the couch.
holy hell... what a schitte outting. had all summer... klopp didn't even care on fixing his defense. spent all that time knocking on some mediocre breh who won't leave southampton. and what was mane thinking?
