The English Premier League is the greatest league in the world. Just ask someone, anyone at all, and the line will be parroted back at you without fail. When dealing with these infinite someones, the correct response is “Watch. More. Football.”
From top to bottom, the EPL is of course the most competitive football league right now, there’s no dispute there. However, that doesn’t mean it’s the default league to watch. At almost any given moment, there is a game going on in some other country that will feature more skillful players, better technique, and, most important of all, full-stop crazy shit. Hell, there was a Romanian league game where a guy scored a double hat trick. That’s six goals. Six. And in the Russian Premier League, a game between CSKA Moscow and Spartak Moscow ended in double red cards. Somehow, that’s not even the wildest RPL moment in recent memory:
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You should totally watch the Russian Premier League; it’s good for you.
All that wonderful soccer goodness is what the overriding EPL narrative renders into mere noise. The common, accepted and totally bogus narrative is that every year in the EPL, there are seven teams fighting for the title. That is simply not true, it sounds lovely, but it’s just not the case. Those seven teams are competing for the chance to play in Europe. Or, more specifically, they are competing for a place in the Champions League, because another common element of the EPL narrative is that the Europa League is a waste of time and resources, and hinders a team’s chances of winning the Premier League. Of those seven Champions League teams, maybe two to three can dream of competing for the title.
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This year, the two teams that are going championship or bust are Chelsea and Manchester City (and Arsenal until March). What’s funny about the situation with those teams is that until 2003, when Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea, they had no business winning the league. In the 12 years prior to Abramovich’s purchase, the Premier League had only three champions: Manchester United, Arsenal, and Blackburn. Since Abramovich’s purchase of Chelsea, the Blues and Manchester United have won the majority of the domestic trophies, even with Manchester City picking up a sugar daddy in 2008 that funded its two EPL trophies. That’s not much in the way of drama nor parity for a league branding itself as the fount of competition.
The true competition occurs below the first tier, with teams like Liverpool, Everton, Tottenham, and once-superpower Manchester United. Those teams are engaged in a battle for fourth that lasts much longer than the battle for first. By Christmas, you’ll always be able to separate the contenders from the pretenders, which is basically the case for every European league.
In La Liga, it’s eternal rivals Real Madrid and Barcelona, with Atletico Madrid now threatening to crash the party on a more regular basis. In Serie A, Juventus endures as the obvious choice year in and year out, but Roma, Napoli, and Fiorentina always aim to put a dent in the Old Lady. As for the Bundesliga…well, the Bundesliga has Bayern Munich and Bayern Munich is Bayern freakin’ Munich.
The reason these leagues don’t get as much hype as the EPL is that the EPL knows how to market itself better than everyone else in world soccer. They have one of the best television deals in sports and the benefits reaped from the revenue sharing of that deal makes even the relegation battles interesting. Consider that once the title is decided, fans begin to focus on the best of the worst. To the teams in the bottom of the table, 17th place is akin to first, since the three teams who come last in the league get relegated to the lower tier of the Championship. That means, since they are no longer part of the Premier League, they no longer get PL money, and that would be a disaster. (To ease the pain, the Premier League does give those relegated teams parachute payments of 60 million pounds over four years.) The end game is that the EPL’s television package makes the drama of crap teams playing crap soccer into artificial euphoria.
Another reifying aspect of the narrative is that the crap teams in the other leagues are worse than the EPL’s crap teams. There is a sliver of truth here, but the crap teams of, say, La Liga are judged through the prism of playing against juggernauts like Barcelona and Real Madrid. Put those second-rate teams against level competition and it would become apparent that the Sevillas and Athletic Bilbaos of the world are better than the Newcastles and the Crystal Palaces. The lowly Europa League proves this.
Hell, the best teams in Europe don’t even play in the EPL. Sure, there’s Chelsea, who has probably vaulted into the top tier by buying talent, mostly from La Liga, and you can maybe make a case for City, but the best of the European best are located elsewhere.
Your top teams in Europe right now are Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Bayern Munich. Barcelona and Real Madrid are basically all-star teams, with the Catalan outfit boasting Luis Suarez (who moved from Liverpool this summer after scoring 31 goals in 33 games), Neymar Da Silva (the guy who was pegged to be the savior for Brazil in the World Cup this last summer), and Lionel Messi—commonly regarded as the best player in the world. Madrid isn’t too shabby either. The team’s front six comprise quite possibly the strongest attacking contingent in the world, with (surprise, surprise) maybe Barcelona giving them a run for their money. The attacking trident of Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, and Gareth Bale could probably score 100 goals between them this year regardless of who’s behind them, and the fact that they have Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, and World Cup darling James Rodriguez in the midfield is borderline unfair.
Meanwhile, the German champions Bayern Munich are out treating the rest of the Bundesliga as a farm team, plucking most every starlet who dares shine for an outfit other than their own. Manager Pep Guardiola plays an aesthetically gorgeous brand of attacking football (but don’t you dare call it tiki-taka) and won the Bundesliga in his first season by 19 points. Pegged as the favorites for the CL crown after winning it in 2013, Bayern were eviscerated by eventual champion Real Madrid. Only a God can kill a God.
Still, the EPL remains the most exciting, well packaged league in the world. However, it does not, at least not in 2014, feature the best players nor host the best teams. Those days are long gone, and the quality of play can leave an awful lot to be desired. Luckily, we live in a world where we can watch any brand of football we want.
So, again, here’s my plea to you: Watch. More. Football. Watch La Liga. Watch Serie A. Watch the Bundesliga. Hell, watch Eredivisie. It’s all pretty dope.
Follow Ahmad Alowaish on Twitter.
