The Premier League ‘myth’

For years now, we as an audience of football have been made into believing that the best league in the World is the Premier League, with the reason being that “there are more teams that can win it” but how exactly does that make the Premier League the best league in the World? Some say because it is the most competitive, even though last season Leicester (a team who were nearly relegated the year before) won the league with two games to spare. What made this even more embarrassing was the fact that Chelsea (the defending champions) were holding the ball up in the corner, wasting time, just so that Tottenham could not challenge Leicester further. The point I am trying to get at is that La Liga is the best league in the World, in terms of quality and in terms of competitiveness. The main reason people ignore this claim is that they believe there’s only three good teams in the league, and a few years ago there were only supposedly two. It is not that the rest of the league is poor, it is more that the top three teams are so technically and tactically advanced in comparison with not only teams from that league, but also teams across the World. No English team would beat any of the three teams in a Champions League semi-final over two legs in my opinion, if you look at recent history the BPL has only seen one winner in the last nine, which is pretty lame considering it is the ‘best league in the World’. If you delve deeper into the La Liga, you will actually see that there’s life beyond Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. Sevilla is the best team outside of those three super squads, they have won the Europa League for the previous three years, that is completely outrageous, and I will be largely surprised if any team from any country in Europe can match that achievement. You will also see Sevilla knock out the champions of England, Leicester, in the round of sixteen of the Champions League. Two teams also to look out for are the returns of ex-major teams from Spain are Real Sociedad and Villarreal, both teams have returned to usual spots in the league after going through a rebuilding process. Average BPL fans will only know Real Sociedad as they were the team that David Moyes struggled to manage after his disastrous spell with Manchester United. Villarreal also gave the best attacking side in the Premier League (Liverpool) a run for their money in the Europa League semi-final last year. If they would’ve managed to overcome Liverpool in that second leg after taking the first leg, that would’ve made the Europa League semi-final an all-Spanish final, along with the Champions League, and what makes this even more dominating in the La Liga’s favour is that Barcelona were not even in the semi-finals of either tournament. Players from these ‘average’ sides that “wouldn’t last two minutes in the Premier League” continue to make their stamp on the Premier League: David Silva (Valencia), Ander Herrera (Sociedad/Bilbao), Eric Bailly (Valencia), Alvaro Negredo (Valencia), Hector Bellerin (Barcelona youth), Cesc Fabregas (Barcelona youth), David De Gea (Atletico Madrid). It needs to be made clear sooner rather than later that the best league in the World in terms of technical ability is infact the La Liga, and not the Premier League, as they keep proving with their dominance on the European stage, there is more to life in Spanish football than the three teams that are mainly broadcasted.

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