da cassino： Sunday night’s El Clasico game was a wonderful spectacle. It was played at top speed for 90 minutes and was full of incident and drama.
da gbg bet： Real Madrid vs Barcelona is probably the biggest game in the world. Both stadiums are huge and iconic, both kits are too. And all 22 players on the pitch are, without fail, world class. They are the best two teams in Spain, and possibly even the best two teams in the world.
In England, there has always been a debate as to which league is the best in the world, and it’s always between the Premier League and La Liga. And whatever the answer, last weekend’s top game in Spain shows just how far ahead of England’s top clubs these two are.
As if Barcelona beating Premier League champions Manchester City at a canter in their Champions League tie wasn’t proof enough of their superiority, the pulsating game at the Camp Nou on Sunday proved that both of these teams are capable of playing top quality football against other top clubs. High-performance football in high-pressure games played at high-pace.
When Real or Barca lose a league game, though, it is always a shock. Games between the top two and the other teams in the league can almost seem like they have foregone conclusions before the match even begins, and Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo rarely disappoint, scoring not just goals, but multiple goals – hat tricks even – in most games. Their goalscoring stats are phenomenal.
But it’s hard to imagine this happening in England. It’s hard to imagine Chelsea vs Leicester being as simple a match for the league leaders as it would be to imagine a simple game for Barcelona against bottom of the table Cordoba.
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Games in England’s top flight are fast paced and non-stop, but they are also much more competitive than they are in Spain. That’s not to say that La Liga isn’t exciting or that it’s not as good, but the amount of money pumped into the Premier League means that English clubs dominate the list of the top 40 richest clubs: Burnley are higher placed than Ajax.
More money for the smaller clubs means that they can compete against the big boys more readily – Leicester’s ascent to the Premier League meant they could break their club record transfer fee twice this season, bringing in Leo Ulloa and Andrej Kramaric for £8m and £9m respectively.
La Liga doesn’t have this luxury, and it shows. The bigger teams can win the games against the smaller clubs easily, they don’t need to exert as much energy to win, and they get to play an unhindered game a lot of the time – sometimes these games resemble training matches, allowing Barcelona, for example, to practice their slick passing game in a real-match situation, but without actually having to break much of a sweat.
I’m being harsh on La Liga here, and it’s not all that bad. But it is the case that the two big clubs in Spain (plus Atletico Madrid perhaps, although they have faded somewhat this season) are that far above the rest, and this highlights how the Premier League is the victim of its own success. At least from a European perspective.
English clubs failed in Europe this year, and that’s partly down to England’s competitive league. It’s also partly down to poor tactics and simply coming up against better teams too, but having to play so many games at such a high intensity (without a winter break, I might add) and then go head to head against a team who are winning games in their league with ease and without physical exertion is tough.
The Premier League’s success is also its downfall on the European stage at the moment. There’s not a lot that can be done to fix that, really, and the clubs will just have to soldier on. But they’re spread too thin in many ways.
The Premier League gives us quality and excitement every week, whereas La Liga gives it to us two times a year. That’s the difference. But boy are those two times worth the wait, because the two teams playing – despite their less competitive league – are still head and shoulders above any English team just at the minute.
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