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World League Rankings

Alberto7

By Alberto7
in World Soccer

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the biologist Newbie

the biologist

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Ha Ha... Have to agree... This is a good idea at the base but with a poor application. Actually, what's the formula ?

Primera División de México: 16th

Major League Soccer: 46th

Though in fact Mexico > MLS, I don't think there's that much of a difference between the leagues.

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Alberto7 Newbie

Alberto7

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I'm glad this is getting some discussion going. I too think MLS is much better than 46th place. I can't believe Scotland is ranked lower than Ecuador!!

For comparisons sake, I have been to matches in Israel and have seen many, many MLS games. The Israeli league is better than MLS, but no way is it 24 positions above it.

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amacpher Newbie

amacpher

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Looks like they use a formula based on results of the past year or so. I'm guessing that because of Russia's low ranking. If they used the past 5 years (like UEFA coefficient does), Russia would have to be much higher than 20th given all their success in the UEFA Cup.

And recent MLS international results are completely awful (4 out of 5 MLS teams failed to navigate past the group-stage of the C'CAF CL)! I don't see why MLS should be rated significantly higher than 46th. One could argue that these matches aren't taken too seriously or that they are played at a bad time of year for MLS teams, but at the end of the day these rankings need to be based on results.

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Canuck Oranje Newbie

Canuck Oranje

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I think amacpher is right. This ranking is based on results in continental competitions. The challenge is of course that players change from year to year and some leagues have 2-3 strong teams and then a bunch of weaker teams. The system used tends to rank based on the top teams because it is those who are involved in continental tournaments. I would propose that it is for that reason that leagues in a number of smaller countries do well.

Second, I also think many fans may discount some leagues simply because they don`t know them. I`ll use the example of the Azerbaijan and MLS.

PFC Neftchi Baku is one of the stronger teams in Azerbaijan and the roster is provided at the link below:

http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/pfc-neftchi-baku/startseite/verein_8031.html

Compare the player valuations given at transfermarkt with those of Toronto FC

http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/toronto-fc/startseite/verein_11141.html

I`m not arguing that the MLS is weaker than the Azerbaijan league but simply saying that some teams in the Azerbaijan league are much stronger than they are given credit for. Incidentally, the Brazilian Defender, Denis, was a squad player with Gremio Prudente in Serie A of the Brazilian league until the World Cup break and from what I saw of him playing in Brazil, he could easily play in the MLS. Having said all that, I suspect the MLS is much stronger from top to bottom.

Generally, I think trying to rank leagues is hopeless because of the differences among leagues in terms of parity and lack of head to head competition. IMO, the best that can be done is to rank groups of leagues. This is how I would group them. The further down the groupings, the less clear it becomes.

Group One: Spain, England, Italy, Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina.

Group Two: Egypt, Mexico, Portugal, Netherlands, Scotland, Greece, Korea, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey.

Group Three: Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, MLS, Belgium, Tunisia, Equador, Colombia, Uruguay, Paraquay, Chile, Romania, Israel, Denmark,

Group Four: Sweden, Norway, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Algeria,

Some leagues that I would rank higher than most are Egypt, Korea, Japan and Tunisia because those leagues seem to attract a lot of South Americans without European passports. The same applies to the Azerbaijani and the Saudi leagues.

I`m also not sure if you can rank MLS as being part of Group Two as yet. But that could change if the league improves.

In the first group, I think the two SA leagues probably would be below the big five in Europe but far less separates the seven than most think. As Brazil rapidly advances economically, it is likely to have an impact on its ranking within the seven and Argentina will be impacted as well. Already, there are a number of South American imports playing in Brazil and I would expect that to increase.

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Eric Newbie

Eric

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The 2010 rankings are out!

http://www.iffhs.de/?b6e20fa3002f70d00ee2d17f7370eff3702bb1c2bb0e

The MLS at 88th is now officially 54 spots worse than the Malaysian league!!!

Don't worry though because we edged out the Malawian league by 1 spot!

I need to find out what these guys are on and get me some of it.

Seems pretty accurate to me, it's just funny to see some of the comments here by people who probably have never seen any other leagues in their lives other than the ones the media pushes down their throats through tv broadcasting and still make judgments on leagues that they have no clue about.

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BringBackTheBlizzard Newbie

BringBackTheBlizzard

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Well having watched several other leagues I think that 2010 set of rankings is completely berserk. For example, I very occasionally watch games from Northern Ireland (last opportunity was this year's Irish Cup final between Linfield and Portadown) and that league isn't even close to being as good as MLS. The teams are semi-pro and are English conference (i.e. fifth tier) sort of level at best. Most people in Northern Ireland ignore their own league nowadays and only tend to follow the fortunes of an English Premiership team and/or one of the Old Firm in Scotland. To place MLS 48 places behind Northern Ireland is absolutely farcical.

I've been in South Africa for close to a month's duration in the last two years and have watched several PSL games. A lot better than the league in NI but not quite as good as MLS would be my verdict but the ranking is the other way about. Being based in Japan currently I sometimes watch the J League. I would place MLS very close in quality terms to that league and also to the SPL in Scotland where I grew up (where even the Old Firm are sinking fast these days in quality terms due to financial problems, hence the 3-0 scoreline for Braga against Celtic). MLS is placed about 65 to 70 places lower than it should be, in my opinion.

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the biologist Newbie

the biologist

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Seems pretty accurate to me, it's just funny to see some of the comments here by people who probably have never seen any other leagues in their lives other than the ones the media pushes down their throats through tv broadcasting and still make judgments on leagues that they have no clue about.
OK you got me dude. Congrats to you. Yeah, I'm now forced to admit I actually don't know a f*cking thing about the Malaysian league. Would you please do us all a big favor and make our education by explaining to us why the Malaysian league, the Sudanese league and the Moldovan league are better than MLS ? Cause since you say that it "seems pretty accurate to you", you must know a whole lot of the 115 leagues listed there cause of course, you wouldn't make the same mistake and judge that this is accurate while having no clue about at least half of the leagues in the world, right ? Actually that's a big chance for us that you know the 115 leagues listed so you can enlighten us a bit by making enlightened judgements about the rankings. In fact, this thread should be reserved only to those who know at least 60 leagues (for a minimum of 50 % of the listed leagues of course).

The idea is to discuss and give our opinion. The idea of ranking all the leagues in one list is crappy in itself. When we're ranking the NTs, we're ranking one team/country. But when ranking leagues, it's about 20 teams/country and there are less/no crossovers between continents. These annual rankings were doomed from the get-go. So even someone with a fair knowledge of every possible league in the world couldn't claim to better rank the leagues than I do. We'll ask 1000 different people from all ages and from all around the world and we'll get 1000 different opinions. You can't argue with that. But you still make judgments on people because they say this is crap (OMG ! They have no clue about the Sudanese league ! How can they express their opinion about the rankings ans say MLS deserves better !). :o

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