On USA right now--great game for 1st place in EPL. DeGruyne scores in 1st 5 minutes for MC. Both teams played mid week in Euro Champions quarter finaals and have to play again this mid week.
LIverpool vs Man City for 1st Place
- Thread starter BrooklynRed
- Start date
Liverpool ties at 12 minute mark
Great 1st half as MC led 2-1 but 1 minute into 2nd Liverpool ties it at 2-2
Ends in 2 all tie as did their 1st game. Could meet again in UEFA Champions league if they move on. @ teams to watch and enjoy. Be Bruyne a special player
OOPS--they play each other next Saturday in the FA Cup semifinals.
TX Redman
Well-known member
I think Man C. have a slightly easier run in. Liverpool are in line for the quadruple, even SAF in his heyday could only manage a treble! Both could meet in the CL Final but Real Madrid and Villareal (Unai Emery!) will not go quietly. Great to see Christian Eriksen back and what a week for the Gooner faithful! Fourth place trophy is back on. And what about BM? Ten in a row in the ultra competitive Bundesliga...
Bundesliga highly competitive. Funny. I'm assuming you were being sarcastic with BM's payroll60% higher than Dortmund, almost 3 times BL and 3-5 times everyone else. Also Lampard marching Everton straight to the Champions League for the first time in 68 years. Ouch.
You want to talk salaries? How about the top teams in PL and La Liga who apparently have no qualms about spending multi millions to get the players they want/need? Nice to have oil money greasing the skids.
Spending all that money in La Liga didn't help Barcelona recently---S/T debt estimated at over 1.5 B, could afford to resign the face of the team, MessiYou want to talk salaries? How about the top teams in PL and La Liga who apparently have no qualms about spending multi millions to get the players they want/need? Nice to have oil money greasing the skids.
They're still sniffing around some pricey transfer possibilities, apparently they still have ambitious goals for the near future.
If you want to talk about the poster children for "the money's no object" club look no further than Real Madrid who seem ready to splash big euros on the likes of Mbappe, Haaland, Lewandowski as a striker, and a few others at other positions. PSG, the team I love to hate also fits the bill. In the PL you have multiple offenders: City, United. Liverpool, Arsenal, Newcastle and Chelsea once they get their situation resolved are all running around waving mega bucks at transfer targets.
Meanwhile Bayern, who seem to be chastised for being the most fiscally responsible team in the Bundesliga are looking at potentially losing multiple players because they can't meet their salary demands. Sule's already out the door and Lewandowski and Gnabry are also flirting with leaving. They're also probably going to sell Tolisso, Sabitzer, Roca, Sarr and perhaps some of their younger talent because they're in a pandemic induced defecit.
You want to talk salaries? How about the top teams in PL and La Liga who apparently have no qualms about spending multi millions to get the players they want/need? Nice to have oil money greasing the skids.
Re BM, I'm not talking about how much money they spend, I'm talking about how much more money they spend than all of the other teams in their league. I am talking about intra-league parity, not inter-league parity. Logically you would need intra-league parity in spending to have the ultra competitive league as was stated in the original post. And an ultra competitive league would not have the same champion for 10 consecutive years. Sorry if my point was not clear. Still unsure if the OP was being sarcastic.
PSG vs the rest of the French league is another good example where it is believed they have 18 of the 20 top salaried players in the league. La Liga is only different in that there are 2 teams at the top. At least EPL has four teams dominating spending with Arsenal close behind, it's a much flatter curve which is more in line with real parity and competitiveness. PS Newcastle isn't even in the top 10 . . . yet.
Now if you are more interested in UCL and the other inter-league competitions then of course how much Man U spends vs. Dortmund is relevant to your position, but irrelevant to whether the Bundesliga is an ultra-competitive league or not.
I get it that Bayern have the biggest salary base in the Bundesliga, but in the next year or two that could change. They're looking to cut costs even thought hey're the most fiscally responsible team in the league, and that could result in significant departures. Dortmund and Leipzig could be closing the gap fast.
As far as the PL is concerned, it's a competitive league and it's hard to repeat as champions because you've got 4 or 5 teams that are willing to spend obscene amounts of money to get the players they covet. I follow PL but not as closely as Bundesliga, but aside from Leicster's freak title a few years ago, it's been the same financially wealthy four or five teams trading places as they add more talent in a cost is no object race to supremacy.
The money grubbing teams were quick to sign up for the Super League and it wasn't until Bayern and Dortmund said no and the English fans raised a ruckus that the PL big boys dropped out reluctantly, in the "interest of their fans".
Yes to all that but having 6-7 top teams is more competitive than 2 or 3 so let's see how the Bundesliga progresses. That 5 different PL teams have raised the banner over the same 10 year period, and two others - Arsenal and Tottenham - have made multiple appearances in the top 3, is an indication of the competitiveness at the top that you don't see in the other 4 top European leagues in this modern $$$ era, except maybe Italy. PS I know Juventus pretty much dominated the last decade too but the variety of teams in the top three was broader and of course the last two years Juventus' domination has subsided.
Who owns the top 6-7 teams and what are their salaries for players/staff? I wonder of those 6-7 teams that were ignored by the Super League felt like, not to mention the other "poorer" teams in the PL.
City took Real 4-3 in first leg of semifinals of UEFA Champions league 4-3. Next week at Madrid a 1 goal lead may not be enough. DeBruyne scored for City while Benzema had 2 for Real--a scoring machine. has about 14 goals in 10 UEFA games.
Tomorrow-Liverpool/Villareal at 3PM on CBS
Tomorrow-Liverpool/Villareal at 3PM on CBS
I am unsure what any of that has to do with the discussion of what league is the most competitive. BM's payroll would be the highest in EPL if they played there, not 2-3 times their closest competitor like it is in Bundesliga, but still the highest. And you talk like there aren't poorer teams in the bundesliga. It's ridiculous. While every team is poor comped to BM, many are more poorer than others. PS I get it, you were disgusted at the Super League, but again I don't see how bringing that up is relevant to a discussion about parity within European soccer leagues.
I'm not discussing parity, I'm discussing teams that have oil money flowing in and are prepared to spend as much as they want to get the players they want. If Haaland goes to City it's going to cost them well over 100M euros between transfer fees and salary. If City can't make the deal there are two or three others waiting in the wings. You can talk all you want about Bayern, but they're not going to be able to make major signings because they're financially unable to do so unless they get big bucks for Lewy and Gnabry, and even so they do they won't be able to afford anybody of real quality who can replace them. You honestly think that if Lewy was on any of the top PL teams they would hesitate for an instant to meet his 30M euro salary demands?
So let me get this straight. Bayern, who has 13 players making over 10 mill Euro (vs 4 for city), and a payroll 60 million Euro more than City, and is already paying Lewandoski 6 million Euro more than KDB (Man City's highest paid player) is suddenly pleading poverty. That's very funny.
But to bring it back the original discussion was someone claiming the Bundesliga was highly competitive. And it really isn't nearly as much so as others.
But to bring it back the original discussion was someone claiming the Bundesliga was highly competitive. And it really isn't nearly as much so as others.
Sorry, need to edit my bad KDB makes as much as Lewandoski. All else remains the same.
Watch what happens with Haaland