Is La Liga superior compared to other top 4 leagues like English Premier League? I have witnessed La Liga's dominance in Europe so I was wondering if they've been superior to other leagues.

Watching too much football lately.

17w ago

I assume that your question goes more along the lines of which league has better teams overall.

I’m going to start by saying that La Liga and EPL are certainly a tier above the Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1. While there are teams in these leagues that can compete with anyone in the continent (FC Bayern, BVB, Juventus, PSG), we can generally say that the teams in these leagues are weaker than English and Spanish teams. The data confirms this, by means of UEFA association and club coefficients.

Now, we can move on to the tricky EPL vs La Liga comparison. I would say that upper half La Liga clubs are, on average, at least as good as the upper half EPL clubs, but that the bottom half of EPL clubs is probably stronger than their counterparts in La Liga. Here’s some of my reasoning for that.

EPL vs La Liga: European performance

To summarize the last 5 years of results in UEFA competitions (Champions League and Europa League), here is a comparison of UEFA Club coefficients, from 2012 to 2017.

As you can see, the Spanish top 4 has consistently performed better than the English top 6 in European competition, winning numerous UCL and UEL titles. The rest of the upper half Spanish teams have not performed better than the English top 6, but they do perform better than the other English upper half teams.

EPL vs La Liga: Who has more money?

Apart from the Spanish big three, English clubs are substantially richer than Spanish clubs due to the more even distribution of TV rights income.

The best example is to look at the first 30 places of the 2017 Deloitte Football Money League, which ranks clubs by their 2015–16 income.

As you can see, there are 12 English clubs in the first 30 places of the ranking.

English clubs receive, on average, 3 times more revenue from broadcasting rights than their Spanish counterparts. While this disparity will improve in the coming years—La Liga finally decided to catch up with the times and distribute broadcasting revenue equitably—, English clubs will remain significantly richer, because the EPL broadcasting deals are more than twice as lucrative as La Liga’s.

This means that English clubs can spend more money than Spanish clubs to attract the best talent from all around the world and are therefore better, right?

Right?

EPL vs La Liga: Who spends the money more efficiently?

Here comes my counterargument to “English clubs must be better because they’re richer”

Let’s look at a Daily Mail (yeah, not the most reliable source ever) estimate on wage bills for football clubs in the 2016/17 season.

Let that sink in: Sunderland, who got relegated at the end of the 2016/17 season, has a similar wage bill to that of Atlético de Madrid, one of the 5 best teams in Europe.

If you don’t trust the Daily Mail, you can look at a UEFA report that I’ll link to at the end of this answer, which uses older 2015 wage bills. The results are not too different. Aston Villa, who got relegated in the 2015/16, had a higher wage bill than Atlético.

You see, while having more money certainly makes it easier to attract talent, it also creates inflation in player wages and transfer fees. Clubs, both local and foreign, will ask for higher transfer fees from EPL clubs because they know the clubs can pay those fees. Players will ask for higher wages because they know the clubs can pay them. This means that EPL clubs often have to pay more than other European clubs in order to get players of similar quality.

In terms of management, La Liga may be run like a banana republic compared to the EPL, but this incompetence has actually forced Spanish clubs to focus their comparatively little money in more productive ways. They move wisely in the transfer market, looking for undervalued players with lower transfer fees and wages. They have better youth development, focused more on technical rather than physical abilities, which has also translated to enormous success for Spanish youth teams in European and world tournaments. And they might even have more innovative coaches, whose talents are then exported to the EPL (such as Pochettino or Guardiola).

Conclusions

Looking at previous results in Europe and the wealth of EPL clubs, I would say that the upper half of La Liga teams is at least at the same level as the upper half of EPL teams. Real Madrid and Barcelona are definitely better than the top 6 English sides, Atlético and Sevilla are at around the same level as the top 6, and the other Spanish upper half teams (Valencia, Villarreal, Celta, Real Sociedad, Athletic Bilbao) are at least as good as the other upper half English teams (Everton, Southampton, Leicester City, West Ham, Stoke).

I don’t really have enough data to compare lower half teams in both leagues, but I would infer that the EPL lower half sides are stronger than their Spanish counterparts due to their higher revenue and ability to attract better players.

Future

Expect the EPL to start making a comeback soon in European competition. Not only are the top 6 English sides accumulating great talent from around the world, they have also hired some of the best managers in the business. It’s only a matter of time.

I would expect things to start going better for English teams as soon as this season, but the biggest shift in the balance of power will occur in the next 3–5 years when Messi and Ronaldo decline or retire. That will even out the playing field in European competition.

Useful References

European club football's financial turnaround (UEFA 2015 club report)

Kavirayani Natraj

17w ago

Thanks for the A2A Sadam.

Short answer is no. La Liga is not superior to Premier league. I have seen other answers going to lengthy descriptions with newspaper articles etc. I will just give you my opinion. So take it with a pinch of salt in case you disagree.

Lack of European Domination-explained:

The reason why 3 Spanish teams (Real, Barcelona in UCL and Sevilla in UEL) is largely because of two reasons:

a.The quality of players they can get
b.Their schedule for the season

When I point out quality of the players, I need you to understand this basic fact: Spanish football produces more technically sound players than English football does. This has nothing to with where the player is from.

Spanish football has always revolved more around technique where as English football has been quite centered around the physicality of the game. It’s in the culture. As a result, when we get into the later stages of the game, with their schedules relaxed and moved around to give them enough rest, they are able to play near their 100% while English teams come battered with physical battles weekend after weekend and lack the same level of technique throughout the playing XI. As a result most of the time English teams lose.

Premier League fixtures is dependent a lot on the TV companies who pay record breaking money every time they renew their deal to broadcast these games. and the most games they show the richer the club gets. As a result every year we see top teams playing in 4 competitions at once and if they manage to get into the later stages of a European competition, pretty much zero fucks are given and their schedule remains cramped as hell. That affects their recovery time and it shows in the performance.

2. Reasons for La Liga being an inferior group:

Despite all their European success, there is a reason why most poor clubs stay poor and the top 4 rich clubs keep getting richer in Spain:

No one wants to see La Liga all the time.

And this has a lot to do with the money distribution in the league from TV rights. This comes down do a brilliant but vicious cycle:

EPL team has talent spread throughout the league > As a result it is popular, in demand across the world > As a result TV companies wanna show EPL matches all the time and make money > TV companies pay the FA a shitload of money to get these broadcasting rights > FA then is a bit less biased towards the smaller teams and they get bigger portions of money than any other league > They buy better talent every season .

Because of this very important, La Liga remains stagnant where the top 3 teams keep sucking the talent out of smaller teams on a constant basis and it remains stagnant. While leagues like La Liga, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 are constant or atleast predictable in who will win the league, who will end up in top 4, EPL continues to bamboozle people. No one can say for sure who is gonna win the league. Someone as reputed as Pep barely managed to stay in the UCL spots and with no trophies. Someone like Conte walked into a disaster called Chelsea and became champions. Not to mention the fairy tale that was Leicester two years ago.

And for all these reasons my friend, La Liga will continue to be a 4 team show while PL continues to amaze and enlighten.

Ankit Negi

studies Petroleum Engineering at University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (2020)

12w ago

EPL

best league in the world

Although I am Real Madrid fan but i favour EPL a lot. Bundesliga,Seria A and Ligue 1 is a one horse race. We can easily predict which team will win.

Talking about 2 best superior league i prefer EPL more. Many people wrote here that Laliga is dominating Champions league. Yes it is true, no doubt.

If champions league football play in 1st half i.e final is played before christmas, i can assure you Epl gonna win maximum times. The reason is scenario changes during christmas period. Every EPL teams have to 3 to 4 matches in christmas and new year period while other leagues are having a month and 15 days break.

Maximum players get injured during this period in EPL. When they come back from injuries in the month of feb and march, champions league is at his peak.

While other league players are fully rejuvanated during the break.

I feel this is the prime reason EPL lack quality in champions league.

2nd reason maybe EPL has more competitive teams, teams cant afford to give their star player a required break while in laliga, barca and real can give their players a break before crunch Champions league games.

Cheers

Sadam

studied at King's College London

17w ago

There’s no doubt that Premier League is really superior to La Liga.

If you thought La Liga is superior because of their performance in Europe, you’re absolutely wrong.

Real Madrid have dominated Champions League winning 3 years out of 4 years in row and were first club to retain Champions league since Milian in 1990s, Manchester United have done that in a similar way but failing to convert it into victories as United have reached in final 3 times out of 4 years but Real Madrid have won all of them. for a reason, EPL teams have been not performing so very well in Europe because of Chelsea, Liverpool and United’s absence in Champions league, they were performing so very well when they all play in Champions League. So it gives Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich advantages of not facing strong team in first 16, as Real Madrid constantly faced average teams or teams in the Round 16, sometime in Quarter-final over couple of seasons in Champions League.

If we take all performance between EPL and Champions League for decades come under consideration and how it affected EPL’s performance in Champions league so it is understandable that competitive have ruined EPL’s success in Europe with likes of Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham have joined Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United as the big club in decades which affected their performance in Champions League as of all 6 big club fighting each other in EPL for titles and 4 UCL spots and FA Cup than you would say for Ligue one, Serie A, La Liga or Bundesliga. EPL teams are very underperforming in Champions league recently. EPL are one of the first league to have 5 English teams in champions league stages groups this season

Sevilla have dominated the Europa League for 4 years, because they really desperately need Europa league for financial and a ticket way to champions league unlike EPL they wouldn't care less because EPL is more worth so they don't want to be in Europa league rather than champions league, they’re really ashamed of it and were criticized a lot by media, even though not big English teams would be happy to be in Europa league

Meanwhile, Manchester United realized Europa league’s potential and see it as a ticket to qualify for the champions league rather than trying to finish in top 4 spots because there are 6 big clubs fighting for 4 UCL spots stages to qualify for the champions league. Not only that, it also affects their coefficients if they failed to qualify for the champions league. Arsenal learnt importance of Europa League when they failed to qualify for champions league for the first time in 20 years

La Liga teams have high coefficients than EPL because La Liga is less competitive than EPL, even though, Chelsea once finished 10th, they failed to qualify for the champions league stages and failed to retain title, then gone to win EPL again and Leicester City escaped relegation then on gone to win the EPL for the first time in history then finished in 12th after a season, Arsenal went from runner-up to 5th.. This is a example of how competitive EPL is

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Every league had their glory era in Europe, like English teams dominated Europe in the late 70s, the early 80s and 2000s, even though, English league have a record of dominating Europe successively longer than any league particularly the late 70–80s before EPL has banned for UCL for 5 years (6 years for Liverpool), even though they would continue their dominance if it wasn’t for ban so La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1 and Bundesliga is not close to this level. Basically, Europe’s dominant performance is not going to decide whether the best league is. Do you would say the same thing about Ligue 1 if PSG has to dominate the Champions League and winning 4 times in a row, would you consider Ligue one to be superior to EPL or La Liga? EPL is still superior to Ligue 1 and La Liga in terms of qualities and have too many good teams likes of Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal, Southampton, Everton and Leicester City

So for an example, If you took out Real Madrid and Barcelona, perhaps Alethic Madrid of La Liga, you’ll see the similar quality of La Liga in comparison to Portuguese league. If you took out top 10 clubs from EPL, it will be still stronger than Portuguese league

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However, La Liga’s declining in Europe will be happening in few season or maybe sooner. Basically, EPL is taking dominance back from La Liga even though La Liga won’t be completed with English teams in the future due to huge power of financial.

In decades or so, the gap between EPL and La Liga is likely to grow, La Liga would become the next version of Portuguese league and EPL becomes so powerful league and highly demanding of world-class/elite players

La Liga has many world-class players who are in their 30s like Ronaldo, Ramos, Messi, Suarez, Carvajal, Piqué, Luís, and many other players. EPL has many potential young world class like Lukaku, Morata, Kane, Alii, Bailey, Pogba, Jesus, Rashford, Hazard, De Gea, De Bruyne, Mané, Coutinho, Kanté, Eriksen, Walker, Silva, Sane, Lacazette, Bellerín, Alonso, Courtois and so on. it would return a dominance to English teams where they belong to before with all best young player playing for EPL teams

So given dominance of Bayern Munich in Bundesliga, they have all best talent in Bundesliga, they buy the best talent from other clubs in the league which will give them advantages to dominate and make it less competitive but it is completely unfair for English teams because Bayern Munich is ahead of English teams in Champions League. if it went another way for EPL, for an example, imagine if Manchester United could do Bayern thing, they buy all best talents from league and dominate EPL, their XI and beach would be frightening, their first XI likes of De Gea (GK) Bellerin (RB), Alonso (RB), Alderweireld (CB), Azpilicueta (CB) Pogba (CM), N'Golo Kanté (CM) De Bruyne (ACM), Hazard (LW), Mane (RW), Kane (ST) in 4–2–3–1) system and with beach likes of Lukaku (ST), Sanchez (LW), Salah (RW), Eriksen (ACM), Herrera (CM), Dele Alli (CM) Vertonghen (CB), Walker (RB ) so they would be much stronger, on another level and ahead of every big club like Bayern Munich, Real Madrid or Barcelona.

Monaco has won Ligue one title and reached the semi-final in Champions League last season, they have lost half best players to EPL teams. This is an example of how EPL’s demanding, they all want the best talent. talent spreading over all 6 top club because they all both have similar financials to afford for wage and transfer fee.

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Financial comparison between EPL, La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga per season for broadcasting rights

EPL - $4,550

Bundesliga - $1,568

Serie A - $1,264

La Liga - $1,260

EPL’s right worth more than next top 3 leagues combined, they basically can have muscle financial to outbid and outspend another league for wage and transfer fee to attract best players . 14 EPL clubs in the top 30 richest club. is likely to see 17 EPL clubs joining the top 30 richest club next year with 6 Big EPL teams in top 10, the gap between a top club from other 4 leagues and EPL club is growing up so faster. Manchester United have overtaken Real Madrid and Barcelona in 2016 to become the richest football club on earth. As of 2017, Manchester United have earned more $100 million than Real Madrid and Barcelona without Champions league money. They expected to earn more $100 million from Champions League in 2017/2018 season.

Real Madrid and Barcelona’s financials come under threat, after La Liga ruled out that all team in La Liga will not sell their individuals broadcasting rights anymore which will affect Real Madrid and Barcelona, because only individuals broadcasting rights can keep them to stay completive with wealthy club like Manchester United, Manchester City, PSG, Chelsea, etc but Real Madrid and Barcelona get the same amount of money they earn in 2016 from TV rights for nearly 150m euro. Chelsea collected 100m euro they earned in 2016, now they have earned nearly 180m euro in 2017 from TV rights which can threaten other top clubs from other leagues because they all need to keep up in with the other top club like Chelsea, Manchester United, the City for financial and wages which will give them advantage for transfer market otherwise they may end up becoming version of Benfica and Ajax, etc that were big club couple of decades ago, right now, look at look at what happening to them, when they couldn't catch up with big club for financial

My point is that La Liga can’t compete with EPL in long term. La Liga’s dominance is not going to last forever in Europe no matter how they could be superior to EPL but they will never compete with EPL in many cases

Deva Prakash

EPL addict

16w ago

La Liga clubs dominating is Europe is a whole different thing and due to that fact we can't infer that the league is superior to that of Premier League.

Premier league is more interesting and popular than La liga because:-

English premier league is not a two horse race like La Liga. 5–6 clubs fight for the title and have equal chances of clinching it.

The 20 clubs in EPL is much more competitive than the 20 clubs in La Liga.

The mid table and bottom clubs are capable of defeating title contenders, which we don't witness in La Liga.

Real Madrid and Barcelona are top level clubs but that doesn't make their league superior.

Paras Bansal

studied at 12th Science

14w ago

The difference between La liga and EPL is the number of teams who can challenge for the title. In La liga its just 3, in EPL? Its 6. Also the “smaller”, teams, due to the ridiculous TV deal can buy, and do buy good players. This makes it more interesting. Smaller teams can beat the top ones on a regular basis. The Leicester City dream could never, ever come true in La liga in a million years. But no matter how much the competition, these teams aren't any good when compared to the top 4 La liga teams, Real Madrid, Barcelona , Atletico Madrid and Sevilla. These dominate Europe as they have a proper system to play, more academy players, and also are relatively more skillful than the players in EPL.

We can summarise by saying that EPL is the better league and La liga has the better teams.

Andrew Sydney

Football and History fan

17w ago

The EPL has superior marketing compared to all other leagues in the world. As a league the La Liga is superior in quality to the EPL. Pretty much every time an English club plays with a Spanish club in Europe in a knockout game it’s the Spanish club that gets to progress to the next round, or win the cup.

This isn’t cast into stone though. I expect English clubs to get better, while at the same time Spanish clubs will lose steam.

Vincent Drew

12w ago

Alot of the answers in favor of the La Liga keep repeating the same point: La Liga teams dominate the European competition. No. Just, no. They don't “dominate” the european competition, they just hold the most titles. And this is where that argument becomes invalid: La Liga teams have the most disproportionately split titles. 2 teams splitting 17 UCL titles. Even Germany has a better proportion of teams to titles (3 teams with 7 titles). While England has the best, with 12 titles split among 5 teams. This just goes to prove how competitive the EPL really is. No one wants to see a two horse race. It's either Barcelona or Real Madrid, every single year. This gives them alot more time and energy to worry about European competition, while teams in the EPL put more effort into their domestic league, and focus less on the UCL. Why? Because you don't see Real Betis, or Bilbao ever threatening the big clubs, while even the smallest teams in the EPL have a good chance of winning against the top teams. Competitive runs, twists and turns (most notably Leicester),equal chances, and thrilling games are the things that define a good league. European success and domestic success is what defines a good team, not a league.

Also, the Premier League just smashes every other league in terms of revenue and views.