Now, I dont't think the Zealand method makes a lot of sense. If I have 3 good teams and 17 trash ones, the trash ones will get more points against each other, therefore the last ones get more points. If I have 15 good ones, and 5 trash ones, they will not get nearly as many points. Of course those are exaggerated, but a league with a worse midfield of teams will get better standings in that method.
Yeah getting more points in that metric would be a bad thing for being a farmers league. Sorry France, we all knew it before we even clicked the video.
I follow the Ligue 1 and i agree with you. Psg just dominate 90% of the time the league (i think they are really bad recently but thats my opinion), then there is Marseille, Monaco, Lyon fighting for that second precious place. We can put Rennes, Lille, Lens and Nice who tried to be Top 10. The rest is really fighting for survival honestly (except maybe Nantes and Montpellier. They are comfortably in the middle most of the time) That is why relegation battle is hard in ligue 1. The battle for 2nd place is hard too. So when Psg fumbled and Lille won ( or when Monaco dominated) it's really exciting. Its just too bad we are literally dogshit in Europe.
why is spending money a factor for beeing a famers league? then the bundesliga will always have a disadvantage because of the 50+1 rule and potential investors
@@cnachopchopnewsagency A rule on investors makes a competion more fun, instead of Money, Money... Moneyyyyyy, its more about the game... Football! everyone has a chance to sign players inside that competition aswell.
@@elufey9516 if you saying performing well as only or mostly Bayern Munich performing well, then ok. But how about other bundeliga clubs besides than Bayern and Dortmund? DOMINATED AND ANNIHILATED. And by way, to determine performing well in international level, let us see UCL stats. For the past 20 years, Bayern reach final 4 times, Dortmund reach final 1 time. Even during the tenure of Dortmund reached final, Dortmund still became runner up because was defeated by Bayern in that final. So yeah, its not Bundesliga performing well internationally, but Bayern Munich is the only one performing well internationally (to some extent Dortmund too).
@@david25201 except Ajax, maybe on a good day PSV and Feyenoord, they got what? Don't think Twente, Alkmaar or Sparta would make top ten in Bundesliga or Serie A.
@@justinsm its the fact the homegrown rules seem to have been abolished. British clubs have around 3 homegrown players or so if you're lucky. As a fan you want to see some hometown/boyhood fans as players
My perspective as a French fan of the OG farmers league : Objectively Ligue 1 is the weaker league of all 5 (although arguably the one with the most homogenious level), but IMO it has been getting better and more interesting over the last few years. This season in particular is pretty incredible to follow, Marseille are playing the most intense playstyle I've ever seen, Lens are once again overachieving (or they are just an incredibly well run club with a real team spirit), Lille have brought Paolo Fonseca and are just great to watch, INEOS-backed Nice have turned it around after a poor start, Will Still is doing wonders in Reims, Toulouse is basically the french Brentford, and Lyon are terrible but Ryan Cherki is amazing. I feel like Ligue 1 clubs are getting better organized, having a more modern approach and being smarter on the transfer market, and that makes me hopeful for the future of the league. Also, Ligue 1 has chosen to market itself as "the league of talents" and I would say that's pretty true, because there is definitely a lot of u20 or even u18 players getting big minutes. So if you want to discover the likes of Désiré Doué, Ben Seghir, Odobert, Zaire-Emery, Cherki, Lukeba, etc. you should check it out.
Après c’est excitant pour nous puisque c’est un championnat que l’on suit, mais en terme de niveau intrinsèque aïe aïe aïe… On est clairement plus proche de la 6eme voir 7eme place européenne que de la 4eme. Des Cherki en Espagne il y en a 3 par équipes… chaque année en compétition européenne on se rend compte de l’écart stratosphérique entre la Ligue 1 et les grands championnats.
@@nwa7769 non il y en a pas 3 par équipes il y en a 3 à Barcelon et à Madrid et non on se rapproche vraiment du top 4 en terme de niveau pur, juste que les clubs français se foutent des coupes d'europe. L'espagne elle est sur la pente descendante mais pas sur la scène européenne ce qui donne l'impression qje LaLiga est toujours aussi forte alors que vraiment pas.
@@ochalo4002 « la France s’en fout des coupes d’Europes » 😂😂😂 aaah oui c’est vrai on est trop forts, si on s’en fout pas on gagne tout c’est ça ? 😂 Le niveau de la Ligue 1 est juste catastrophique… et il ne cesse de régresser en plus c’est ça qui est terrible. La Liga est littéralement le meilleur championnat au monde… et on le constate évidemment en Europe dans les confrontations directes avec les clubs des 3 autres grands championnats, l’Espagne a le meilleur bilan, et en plus elle domine l’Europe depuis 20 ans. T’as réussi à dire absolument tout le contraire de ce qu’est la réalité factuelle des choses, c’est fort.
@@nwa7769 Primo : je dis pas qu'on les gagnerait mais qu'en moyenne, les clubs français iraient plus loin. 2 ) Le niveau de la ligue 1 est loin d'être catastrophique et de régresser ouvre tes yeux stp 3 ) LaLiga était le meileur championnat au monde il y a quelques années et en terme de niveau en coupe d'Europe OUI mais quand tu regardes leur ligue elle est bien sur la pente descendante " Elle domine l'Europe et les clubs des autres grands championnats depuis 20 ans " Alors navré de te déranger mais à la limite dans les 10 dernières années oui mais pas depuis les 20 NON
@@ochalo4002 toi t’as 14 ans max… Dire des âneries pareilles c’est lunaire… croire que les clubs français s’en foutent des coupes d’Europe mais là… 😂 La Liga est le meilleur championnat depuis 20 ans… je t’invites à me dire quel autre pays a gagné plus qu’eux sur cette période. Bon courage. Et encore une fois je ne parle pas seulement de trophées mais de confrontations directes entre clubs de tous niveau avec les autres grands championnats… encore une fois l’Espagne a un bilan positif contre tout le monde. Les faits, seulement les faits. Le reste c’est dans ta tête.
In defense of the Bundesliga : Currently as of Feb 25th 2023 , the Bundesliga has a gap between the first and 6th place of just 5 points , in addition to the top 3 teams being on the same amount of points , which means the title isn't really gonna be decided any time soon and it may fall down to the last game of the season. Dortmund which are the second most favorable team in Germany have a really high chance of achieving a good finish in the champions league , and have an even better chance at winning their domestic league and cup which puts a lot of pressure on Bayern as the champions. The reason why the premier league and la liga are big spenders isn't because they are signing quality players , it is because of them overpricing their signings. Thank u.
Bayern Munich ruin Bundesliga. The most exciting thing about a league is, who is going to win the title. Too many glory hunters supporting the same teams is toxic for a successful league.
Ok but looking at this year, in comparison, the Prem could add a new winner from the last decade in Arsenal or even Man Utd. The European qualification spots are also currently being fought over by Newcastle, Brighton and Fulham. In the last 5 years the league in Bundesliga was won by - 8, 13, 13, 2 (the best Bundesliga season I followed in recent years) and 21 points. It’s about as diverse as a bag of red skittles. I think it’s a better league than Serie A and Ligue 1 still though :p
@@dpad_ then why did Dortmund defeat Chelsea, Leibzig tie man city, and Frankfurt who were 11th place last season won Europa league? 3 bundesliga teams are still in the Europa league and 4 bundesliga teams made it to the ro16, I never get why people try to trash on other leagues, and most are generally hypocrites
1) What about a fan attendance? Or fan attendance for the teams in the lower half of table. 2) Also number of international players in the league should be considered (let's say for top 50 countries in FIFA ranking) 3) "Stability of newly promoted teams from lower division" -> Ability of them to compete in this league ... So I guess PL would be really good in this one. 4) Points difference between winner and 2nd team or last team, or something like that 5) And something with goals -> Top 5 teams goals against last 5 f.e.
historically PL teams have done really well to stay up, teams like swansea, stoke, brentford, fulham, and burnley have stayed up and pushed for european places. i dont think your logic for the PL teams is correct.
I don't agree with most of them. 1) Attendance is not that relevant when it comes to how good or competitive the league is. 2) I don't think this is a good metric. It would just bias against league with more domestic talent. 3) Isn't that the opposite? If it is hard for a promoted team to stay up, the league is better. The England also has the highest ranked second division by a quite big margin which means the promoted teams to the PL are better than in any other league. The fact that it is hard for them to stay up speaks about the quality and the competitiveness of the league. 4) This is a pretty good metric. However, I think the most interesting is how the points are distributed at the middle of the table. 5) I don't know how relevant that is. That has probably more to do how attacking the teams in the league are and how good they are at defending. In the PL there are several teams that are not that good that still have a very good low block that does not let that many goals though. In la liga the teams at the bottom play a more open game.
@@Pekz00r I would argue that attendance is a very relevant metric. In the top 5 leagues at least football is very popular there so if there aren't many fans watching matches it would indicate the league isn't very exciting and/or competitive imo
It has more winners and finalists than any other league though! Literally just Real Madrid from stopping them! And how long has it been outspending everyone? 10 years, maximum? Even then Real were buying Galacticos
"Spent Money" shouldn't be a factor. For one Bundesliga has the 50+1 Rule that doesn't allow shitty Oil Money Billionaires and even shittier Middle Eastern Countries to buy Clubs and spend hundreds of billions. Second especially in the Premier League basically every Player is insanely overpriced, just cause they have the unlimited Money to spend. You have an average CM who ideally also is British? That's 60 million for you the next Summer. Stuff like that doesn't happen in the Bundesliga. The Clubs (most of the time) buy smarter, not larger. The same probably also goes for Ligue 1, who then even on top of that come in and regularly produce incredible talents.
I love Bundesliga for the stadium atmosphere fans create. You don't feel like you are in theater watching a play. I also love it cos most matches are stacked with goals and entertaining way teams are playing, no matter if if its the first or last team on the table. I don't care how much teams are spending or that they don't have 100M players in their teams (we all know PL values are heavily inflated). Ignore for a second Bayern dominance for the last 10 years, and it's the best league. For me at least.
I think the Zealand method is not the greatest way to to measure what you're measuring. I see what the idea is, but i think its very relevant to look at the midtable sides when talking about a farmers league. I think Ligue 1 has clearly the worst midtable teams and that's why the relegated teams have more points on average. They are playing worst teams than the teams in the other leagues. So the lower table in Ligue 1 might be tighter, but the overall quality is worse than Bundesliga. Behind Bayern Bundesliga has a very level playing field and that's why we see teams like Schalke and HSV struggling to stay in the league. I would say bottom part of Seria A also has slightly more quality than Ligue 1, and the top part of the table has more big teams. If the overall quality of the league is worse, it's pointless to look at the points of the bottom teams, because they are playing against worse teams. I think Ligue 1 is a better league than many think, but clearly the worst overall quality of the five.
Great video as always! Tho imo it doesn't make much sense to take total spending into account. I believe it would make more sense to take the average median spending over the time period. With total spending the excessive spending of the top 2 or three clubs kinda distorts the image if you want to compare the league as a whole. I think It would be more accurate to see what teams like Mainz, Everton, sassuolo, Getafe and lorient spend compared to each other to get a more accurate picture of the level of the league's. Also if anything it's a plus point for Bundesliga not a negative if you compare spending to international outcome.
I actually don't get the spending argument and to some extend it makes me angry. I mean sure AS Monaco and PSG are spending insane.. If I remember correctly they spend combined 1 billion last 3 years. Does that make the league equal? Idk. And now think about how much Frankfurt or Union Berlin spends (or even Leipzig) and compare the international results. Spending much money doesn't mean you spend money smart. (A nother figure I would've loved to see, the Bundesligas combined transfer worth is higher than that of league 1, even tho PSG has mbappe Neymar Messi) Love your vids, but this made me angry (yes maybe also because I am German). I mean maybe I just don't like the term farmers league, because I interpret it as "you play against farmers" maybe it's more meant like "Bayern can farm wins". It's a way different approach to the same sentence, but can shift the discussion extremely. Because I think the median strength in the Bundesliga is higher than Ligue 1 and Serie A and maybe even La Liga.
Something to take into account about teams with least amount of points, Italian clubs draw a lot. A quick search that I made right now in the top 10 of the world, 3 Italian divisions are in there. They draw a lot so the point total gets affected as well.
In terms of quality matches, both League 1 and Bundesliga are excellent. Seria A used to be incredible when I was a kid but now it's hit or miss, similar to La Liga. The Premier League has everything, from big-name teams fighting for the Champions League spots to big spending and lots of marketing.
serie a recently has been amazing and the quality of football from all teams, even the bottom, is the most entertaining and is great to watch. I think rn its by far the second best, with the prem being number 1 ofc
@@LaVaZ000 guarantee you never watch it Lmao because that’s just objectively wrong. I think on technical ability its the best league itw, with how players pass etc and how generally entertaining it is. But the prem is still much higher quality and is undoubtedly better overall
@@theyareallscreaming idk, I mean like Juventus the Italy largest team but their playstyle currently is still like late 70's-mid 90's AC Milan era with slow pace and movement. Now I'm 35 doesn't much change from the last 30 years i start watch football with my dad when he was my age. Crazy to think about
Probably has to be ligue 1. The different winners kind of came from PSG fumbling, instead of outside runs. Serie A has a consistent top 5/6 teams who can fight (Juve, Milan, Inter, Napoli, Roma and Maybe Lazio) and the Bundesliga has great battles and strong midtable teams that can put together European runs (think Leipzig in the UCL or Union Berlin this year in the UEL)
@@alexandercosgrave Still doesnt mean shite if Bayern wins it in the end (and Bayern at times have had poor starting runs). Ligue 1, at least those teams that won it maintained their form and consistency to win it
@@alexandercosgrave I agree - I think Bayern have been dominant through quality, and they've kept Dortmund at bay, whilst I think if Dortmund were in Ligue 1, they'd have won it a few times. Bayern are consistent (German efficiency) whereas PSG are a little shaky. I'd also bet on the other German teams, over the last ten years, (Leipzig, Hoffenheim, Schalke, Wolfsburg, etc.) over the French teams.
From the POV of a local (french) what Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 really lack is the money to keep their young talents. These leagues have had an amazing youth formation ratio over the recent years, but they cant keep these talents more than 2 years. And most of the time it's PL, Liga or Bundesliga teams that plunder it. If Monaco Lyon or Rennes kept their best talents they would have the level to at least advance to the last 16 of the UCL. Most of the time its not even PSG buying Ligue 1's best players, the only notable exceptions being Mbappé and Matuidi. Camavinga, Mendy, Bernardo Silva, Wesley Fofana... and I could go on, all bought by foreign teams. If french teams had a bit more money (And I guess higher salaries) they would be more competitive.
Exact. Y en a marre de se faire piquer nos joueurs puis on se fout de nous. Le jour où on arrêtera nos transferts en masse ils verront plus la couleur du trophée de la CL
If you have done last 10 years for title wins you should have done last 10 years for relegation Also the best second metric would have been Europa League
Honestly the only part of this video I would take out as metric is transfer spending because the amount of money you spend on players does not mean the league is neither good nor bad, just that the league spends a lot of money on transfers and some reasons as to why a club might not spend on transfers is actually more of a focus on developing the younger players at the clubs. Like maybe Germany focuses on developing youth rather than bringing in new star players into their teams.
A better way to have looked at it is seeing how much the lower teams spend on transfers. We've seen this year that clubs that aren't in the general "top 6" spending a lot of money on players in the PL (and not generally overspending) which makes it less of a farmers league since theres wealth up and down the table.
The zealand method seems to be counter productive, if there are many good teams in a league the bad teams will get less points total, while in a league with a few good teams and alot of bad once. Even the worst teams get a decent point haul... I think you just proved that L1 is a farmers league with how big the gap was to the rest there
I will be a little controvertial here: 1) Premier League 2) Bundesliga 3) La Liga 4) Serie A 5) Ligue 1 I also took what leagues are most fun to watch for me... and Bundesliga has alot of good teams.... La Liga is extreme top heavy and outside the top clubs I really don't care about watching... If I only was going for watchable leagues I would put Seria A over La Liga...it is how bad the spanish league is for me to watch outside the top clubs.
i am a big fan of a club in the bundesliga and tbh i rather have a league that is not as "good" as the other big leagues but has a lively fan & ultra culture
I'm so jealous of German football to be honest. I wish we had the supporters culture and influence over here (France). I think you're right that yours is a better deal, in the end
I think if you take into account things like. Point gap for the winners, Europa league performances, domestic competition to earn European qualification and other factors like Bundesliga rules for club ownership. I’d probably say the best leagues would be ranked 1. Premier League 2. La Liga 3. Bundesliga 4. Serie A 5. Ligue 1 Don’t make the mistake of thinking I mean English teams are the best. In terms of the elite teams I would switch England and Spain. The overall quality and excitement is just much higher in the Prem. I also think Englands worse teams would pose more problems to Spains top teams than vice versa.
@@MiguelTavaresMAT when did I say that? I said worse teams causing more problems. You think Villarreal is one of La Ligas worst? Fair enough, you said it not me. We would never get to see it but I believe with no doubt that Elche v Man City would be much less of a game than Southampton v Madrid. Btw didn’t Villarreal lose the last 2 games they had against an English team - Man Utd, who until recently have been considered a bit of a laughing stock in the Prem the last decade…
don't underestimate italian "worse" little clubs, Sassuolo,Empoli or rn Monza, Salernitana and Lecce. all of them never give up so easily for the bigger clubs. Torino is the only one team can be unpredictable at this moment, can win with the best team(even against Man City)and lose with a non-professional club in the same day. Btw Man United only this season its doing a good job, rn are third. last year wasnt good enough to get a spot in the CL, so whats the point they beaten Villareal? every season is different, looks Liverpool or Juventus in this season
@@kristoferhailes4627 A laughing stock with like 8x times the budget of Villarreal, a team that represents a town of 50 000 people and had never even played top division football before 1998. Villarreal is a small club, Man United are European giants. Them losing to United proves nothing, is what's expected even if United was at a low point. Everything that Villarreal has achieved both locally and internationally in the last years is impressive. And let's not forget they were relegated just 10 years ago. Also, didn't they beat United to win the Europa League? lmao
@@LaughterCigar if having money meant everything PSG would have a champions league title kid. Man Utd are a laughing stock BECAUSE they have wasted so much money. Before this season I wouldn’t have expected them to beat even bloody Getafe during the last 10 years
This one of the first time I heavily disagree with Z There would be so many more accurate factor that proof something else: coefficients ranking, head to head results of leagues, point difference between first and last
The Zealand method doesn't make sense because it measures the quality of the second division (those team got literally relegated) I think the same method with the non european participants and non relegated will be more accurate to measure a league level
Shannon Wiener diversity index as a procentage of the theoretical maximum. For the past five years the average score is as follows: Premier League: 97.99% (2 different winners) La Liga: 98.46% (3 different winners) Serie A: 97.82% (3 different winners) Bundesliga: 98.36% (1 winner) Ligue 1: 98.48% (2 different winners) (I made a more elaborate comment earlier)
i dont see how the zealand method shows if a league is a farmers league, because if all teams but 1 or 2 are really bad, wouldnt it make it easier for the worst teams to get points. Looking at europaleague would have made more sense imo.
Nothing tops the Austrian bundesliga when it comes to farmers league... RB Salzburgs squad has a higher market value than the rest of the league combined.... And the worst part is that they only exist as an academy for RB Leipzig
Relegated teams with higher point totals is actually not a good thing. It means that the league is avareged on a very low point. A better method would be to determine witch league has the least difference in points between the campion and the first non-UCL qualified team. It's still not perfect, but is better.
So what you've actually found with the Zealand method is that Ligue 1 has more equally awful teams. I think LaLiga also has some awful teams on their back end, compared to the others.
bundesliga not spending money is definitely not a farmers league indicator. frankfurt has won the EL last year with a budget thats probably less than that of teams that get relegated in the epl this season. people call the league farmers league, but for me, clubs that get sold for billions of dollars are way worse than farmers
The better metric would be to measure the amount of talent produced versus the amount of those talents that are retained in the league. Spain, Germany and England produce and retain their talent through the strength of their league. Italy doesn't produce as many which skews their numbers in terms of retention but France is nasty in terms of talents that leave the country to other leagues.
i think the lower teams in ligue 1 have more points because the quality of the better teams above them are worse on average, ergo allowing the bottom teams to be able to pick up more points
The parody of winners in League 1 shows how much PSG underperforms. Not many French teams make it far in UEFA showing they don’t have many contenders outside PSG and they still fumbled the league. where as more German teams preform well in Europe, thus have more talented teams but the top team, Bayern, doesn’t choke. Bayern > PSG Tier 2 German teams > Tier 2 French teams
To be fair ligue does get less teams in ucl than the other top 5 leagues = less chances to qualify add on top that they often underperforme or crack under pressure because just like the English national team they can't live up to expectations and you get the result : 1 ucl 0 Europa League and 0 Conference league (Although too recent of a competition to mean anything)
You should have mentioned the fact that the Bundesliga is systemically different from all other leagues. Clubs are 50% owned by fans, therefore atracting less investors to make the sport less corporate and more natural and fair, anyone can beat any other team on any day and teams are the most balanced of all leagues. Some people think this is bad, because Bayern has been able to exploit it, but the Bundesliga has always functioned like this and if you look before 2010 the winners were always diverse. However Bayerns Golden years are dying soon and things will restore back to normal eventually.
Maybe how many different teams getting qualified to european tournaments (ucl, uel, conference league) + how much average squad costs (it's even better to calculate without big teams)
The Bundesliga isn't bad. Bayern is just to good. They are consistently one of the best teams in the world since nearly a decade. Even better then psg. It's hard to beat a team like that.
@@Mazlvmno they wouldn’t lol. I think they would be capable but it wouldn’t be easy. There are a lot more ucl tier clubs in leagues like La liga and epl
Questioning your "Zealand" method. I feel like if you're going to look at points for competition standing, it needs to be more in the context of points vs. The larger teams in the league in those respective years (say 1st through 3rd). If they're all bad, you get the same results as if all the teams are good-- meaning point distribution throughout the league, including the relegation zone. We can reduce this risk by comparing them to teams in their leagues that we know are more internationally competitive, like say, teams that make the knockouts in either the champions league or the Europa league
Hey Z quick question, I love the video concept but why is spending seen as a good point. Isnt it showing the true face of the league if a team can suceed in their competition without spending 500 Million dollars/euros?
If the league spends more money it has a higher reputation and ultimately higher quality players, regardless of the ethics, its an important stat that cant just be ignored
Truth is, there are several farmers leagues, but, most importantly, there are farmer clubs, even in the best leagues, and there are huge clubs, even in farmer leagues.
5:23 bruh we don't even HAVE 3 Champions League group spots, only 2 and a possible extra one through qualification ;_; Gotta love how going back 10 years in league winners also JUST misses the age of chaos when we had 5 different winners in as many years including one that hadn't won it since the 50s and one that had never won it. Numbers themselves are plotting to make Ligue 1 look worse than it actually is. [VERY sad frog sounds] Also "Ligue 1 produces some fabulous 18th and 19th placed teams" Cue SCO standing at 10 points 24 games into this season
Farmers League: France 1 UCL in their history less teams in the ucl (7 teams managed to get through in the round of 16 in the last 5 years) 0 europa leagues best spots in the past 5 years: >lyon semi final 2020 >psg final 2020, semi final 2021 also they currently have the less good teams with 2 (marseile and psg)
This was worst period for serie A between 2012 to 2020 but after a new method of tax reduction was introduced in 2020 serie A clubs started performing well 2021 inter went to europa league finals and in 2022/23 season all European finals had an italtian team so they are rising up again
Isn't one aspect of the definition of a farmers league to have many feeder clubs that constantly sell their good players for high prices instead of playing successful football? Then one would also have to look at how much each respective league earns from selling players abroad.
Feel like the money category would have been a more accurate representation of the league if it was also showed off which team spent the most in the league to show the gulf in money between top clubs and bottom clubs
Fun fact (that isn't fun for me as a PSG supporter)- French clubs have won just 2 of the 17 European cup finals in their history. Our league is like the Buffalo Bills or Minnesota Vikings- historically they've made finals somewhat frequently but basically never win them. 1/7 in UCL finals, 1/10 UEL finals (I'm combining the UEFA Cup & Cup Winner's Cup here). Ligue 1 right now is the worst of the top 5 in overall quality, our top 5 is the weakest of all the leagues. That said, the league does have strong depth, the midtable clubs are probably stronger here than in Germany or Italy (maybe even Spain right now as that league is financially troubled). If you don't believe me, think about how Lyon beat Man City & made the UCL semis in 2020 while placing 8th that year. Nantes drew their first leg with Juve (who would be 2nd in Italy w/o the points deduction) two weeks ago, they are currently 13th in France. Lille won their UCL group the year after they won Ligue 1 despite selling 7 of their 11 best players in the summer, yet they were 11th in Ligue 1 when they won that UCL group. The quality at the top is not great, but the midtable is fairly strong
The domination of a single team should be factored in the highest, it is the worst thing for a football league to have no competition, no chance for the small teams to compete. As much as people love to shit on the MLS I love it for that reason, anyone can win, and any winner can be bottom of the table the next season. EDIT: also we need a term like 'Farmers League' that applies specifically to the top heavy leagues, the one or two horse races.
The best way to determine a farmers league is to exclude the top 2 teams in the league and run similar tests to see how the rest of the league holds up without its heavy hitters
Isnt the champions league knockout one a bit unfair on ligue 1 since they only get 2 teams guaranteed in the group stage while other leagues get 3 or 4
To be honest Bundesliga is the most unattractive and boring football leagues between all high fly leagues. Its not Bayern Munich that destroy Bundesliga but the system 50+1 that is destroying Bundesliga. That system just solidify the major club like Bayern and Dortmund for century while all "small clubs" stay small. Thats why Bundesliga will never be having the case of Blackburn Rovers 1995, Leicester City 2015 or Chelsea 2004.
This comment came out longer than I ever expected it would. I think the Zealand method should’ve been a calculation of the gap between the top team and the best relegated team over the last ten years, which would’ve probably also thrown The Prem and La Liga some minus points. My totally not scientific method of determining a farmer’s league using only bias, dictates that Ligue 1 is the only farmers league out of the top 5. Where as Serie A isn’t necessarily a farmers league and more accurately is just no longer good enough to be considered a top league anymore. Continuing on from my last sentence, I think more and more Leagues will drop out of the currently called “top 5” until only the Prem stands alone as the final evil overlord of all football, unless MLS restructures and just absolutely blows every other league out of the water doing sports the American way. Personally I imagine the next League to drop out will be La Liga. Despite their constant Champions League success, La Liga’s financial distribution method seems to heavily favour Real Madrid and Barcelona, two teams that constantly teeter on the brink of financial collapse and that surely can’t maintain their current approach of spending money. I imagine that one or both of La Liga’s top two will implode over the next 5-10 years, and that the league as a whole will slowly wither and die.
I think you should have continued the European competition into the Europa League (not conference due to lack of data) and maybe looked at average points/$ spent to find the efficiency of spending. Could have made things closer for England/Spain
Also, France is the only one out of the 5 that doesn't get 4 automatic UCL spots so it's kinda unfair to punish them for that by saying that they don't get 3 teams into the knockouts. The max they can get is 3 and that is assuming the 3rd team makes it through the playoffs and then through the group stage. There's just a lower chance of this happening.
I think the only requirement not really making sense is the spending. If you're able to produce good results domestically or internationally within a lower budget restraint that should be applauded. (But I also think FFP should be enforced much more - Like United or Chelsea shouldn't be able to spend so much IF they're not really winning any trophies). Other than that I think the biggest factor should be competitiveness throughout the league table. By this logic I think it's easy to see that Ligue 1 is a closest to a farmer's league: No real competition in the title race and although bundesliga is the same they atleast produce more international results with a bigger range of teams bayern, frankfurt, dortmund mochengladbach and leipzig. It's only PSG that really does anything internationally
I have my own metric of competitiveness: tally the points between 1st and 11th place. Whichever league has the largest point disparity is the least competitive.
I mean serie a has its strong point when it comes to quality within like the top 10, we have a lot of good teams here id say but the lower half teams struggle to do well because of the financial issues that tons of teams face in italy.
I think the reason Serie A bottom team flub so much is because there are at least 7 solid teams in the league each season. At the beginning of the season any 1 of 4 teams could be considered title contenders. The other 3 are all fighting for top 4 spots. Those 7 teams are going to beat the lower teams more often because of it. So because Serie A is more competitive at the top, the bottom teams will suffer in terms of points. So despite the bottom teams doing poorly, it reflects that the league is tougher at the top of the table. And I think that makes the league much more entertaining to watch. Two years ago the last day of the season determined which of 4 teams would be entering the CL. Because Milan won and Atalanta lost they took 2nd instead of 5th. It was awesome.
Yeah the Zealand method is not very good at determining quality. We could use Elo ratings though to determine how good are the worst teams of the league. Maybe average league elo could work.
I feel like the last stat REALLY didn't matter; when people talk about farmer's leagues they're not talking about the pro/reg candidates from the 2nd and 1st divisions. They're talking about the weakness of the league as a whole, in particular outside of one or two big dominant factors. I'd also argue that spending doesn't matter that much, especially when there are a number of teams who just completely skew that statistic out of proportion. With that in mind, France's Ligue Un laps the competition in a single stat that you somewhat mentioned but didn't go into enough depth on: European Performance. More specifically, European Performance past the top teams. Let's be incredibly unfair to England and take out the entire top 6, which is every team with over 100 coefficient points at this exact moment before the 2nd champions league leg. Note that this top 6 does not include any Serie A team, which is bad, but in that next 10 they have 3 members. They also have 4 other teams in the top 50 in Europe, which currently goes down to 34.5 coefficient points with Young Boys. Also with 3 members in the next 10 is Spain, who after losing Real Madrid still have Villareal, Barca, and Athletico Madrid, not in that order. They also have 3 more teams in the top 50, and will get a 4th team if Real Sociedad wins their upcoming Europa League tie with Man U. The Premier League is still OK in this metric, even if they lose all 3 of their members with over 100 points. They have a team on the verge of surpassing that total in Man U, while that is their only member of the next 10 Tottenham is close, and they have a couple other teams in the top 50 for a total of 4 minus the 3 teams over 100. This is also where the Bundesliga's claims of being a farmer's league go to die. They have 2 teams in the next 10, and another 2 teams high up in the top 50. Ligue Un has 3 teams in the top 50 including PSG. PSG at 6, Lyon at 26, and Stade Rennes at 37. Every other French team is looking up at West Ham who has only been in Europe the last 2 seasons in the Conference League. France has 60 coefficient points right now, with a stupidly large sum of those points coming from PSG specifically. There is no real comparison, it's France.
id argue the zealand method (TM) points towards france being the more farmery the other two leagues has some teams that clearly were not able to compete with the rest of the league but this to me points towards the average standard of the league being higher if any old fromage FC can get into the top flight and be competitive with postman patrique up front then it can not be a strong league
BTW spend lots of money does not mean you have a better league or better players it just means the clubs have more money and those clubs value the players alot
Problem with the zealand method. If the overall quality of a league is low, the bottom teams have more of a chance at scoring points. You would have to look at points taken from top teams.
The zealand method would work better with 3 mid teams (7,10,13) for a median average representation of the league. This would indicate how close the fight is for a top half finish.
Now, I dont't think the Zealand method makes a lot of sense. If I have 3 good teams and 17 trash ones, the trash ones will get more points against each other, therefore the last ones get more points. If I have 15 good ones, and 5 trash ones, they will not get nearly as many points. Of course those are exaggerated, but a league with a worse midfield of teams will get better standings in that method.
Yeah getting more points in that metric would be a bad thing for being a farmers league. Sorry France, we all knew it before we even clicked the video.
I follow the Ligue 1 and i agree with you. Psg just dominate 90% of the time the league (i think they are really bad recently but thats my opinion), then there is Marseille, Monaco, Lyon fighting for that second precious place. We can put Rennes, Lille, Lens and Nice who tried to be Top 10. The rest is really fighting for survival honestly (except maybe Nantes and Montpellier. They are comfortably in the middle most of the time)
That is why relegation battle is hard in ligue 1. The battle for 2nd place is hard too. So when Psg fumbled and Lille won ( or when Monaco dominated) it's really exciting.
Its just too bad we are literally dogshit in Europe.
Also doesn’t Bundesliga have 2 less teams in the league meaning they play 4 less games…
@Kristofer Hailes that was explained in the video, they used the winning percentage to add on extra expected points for leagues with fewer games
@@MrPaull1989 ah no worries, possibly missed that part, was cooking whilst listening in 👌🏻
why is spending money a factor for beeing a famers league? then the bundesliga will always have a disadvantage because of the 50+1 rule and potential investors
And two less teams.
Thats why bundesliga system is the most stupid
@@cnachopchopnewsagency but then why are they performing well on the International level?
@@cnachopchopnewsagency A rule on investors makes a competion more fun, instead of Money, Money... Moneyyyyyy, its more about the game... Football! everyone has a chance to sign players inside that competition aswell.
@@elufey9516 if you saying performing well as only or mostly Bayern Munich performing well, then ok. But how about other bundeliga clubs besides than Bayern and Dortmund? DOMINATED AND ANNIHILATED.
And by way, to determine performing well in international level, let us see UCL stats. For the past 20 years, Bayern reach final 4 times, Dortmund reach final 1 time. Even during the tenure of Dortmund reached final, Dortmund still became runner up because was defeated by Bayern in that final. So yeah, its not Bundesliga performing well internationally, but Bayern Munich is the only one performing well internationally (to some extent Dortmund too).
Now I can't help but wonder how the Primeira Liga or Eredivisie stack up in these criteria.
Thats it, searching for the farmers league, not taking the farmers leagues in. Thats my kind of humour.
@@mattikr0718 eredivisie is better than 3/5 leagues in this video and i'm not even from the Netherlands saying that
@@david25201 look up Ajax FC - VVV Venlo in 2020 for a sec man
@@david25201 except Ajax, maybe on a good day PSV and Feyenoord, they got what? Don't think Twente, Alkmaar or Sparta would make top ten in Bundesliga or Serie A.
@@david25201 Ajax and PSV have literally won it 95% of the last 50 years 😂😂
The Bundesliga doesnt spend that much because the teams need to fan owned (with some excaptions)
@@vanlandings7466 They dont have some owners who invest millions
@@vanlandings7466because some arab oil kings dont own clubs
@@lohking9440 good. The state of english football is a mess because of that
@@marcbrisbane6800 yup, i hate clubs who got trophies with unlimited money. Doesn't have DNA anymore
@@justinsm its the fact the homegrown rules seem to have been abolished. British clubs have around 3 homegrown players or so if you're lucky. As a fan you want to see some hometown/boyhood fans as players
If current Bundesliga is a farmers league, then I want to only watch farmers leagues. Really exciting stuff.
Precisely, generally English league per spend is the most fucking boring. So many 1-0 / 0-0 games
@@marcbrisbane6800that’s evidently not true at all. Epl is near the top for goals per game
You and your mods/editors are doing a stellar job lately Z. Loving all the content coming out.
My perspective as a French fan of the OG farmers league :
Objectively Ligue 1 is the weaker league of all 5 (although arguably the one with the most homogenious level), but IMO it has been getting better and more interesting over the last few years.
This season in particular is pretty incredible to follow, Marseille are playing the most intense playstyle I've ever seen, Lens are once again overachieving (or they are just an incredibly well run club with a real team spirit), Lille have brought Paolo Fonseca and are just great to watch, INEOS-backed Nice have turned it around after a poor start, Will Still is doing wonders in Reims, Toulouse is basically the french Brentford, and Lyon are terrible but Ryan Cherki is amazing.
I feel like Ligue 1 clubs are getting better organized, having a more modern approach and being smarter on the transfer market, and that makes me hopeful for the future of the league.
Also, Ligue 1 has chosen to market itself as "the league of talents" and I would say that's pretty true, because there is definitely a lot of u20 or even u18 players getting big minutes. So if you want to discover the likes of Désiré Doué, Ben Seghir, Odobert, Zaire-Emery, Cherki, Lukeba, etc. you should check it out.
Après c’est excitant pour nous puisque c’est un championnat que l’on suit, mais en terme de niveau intrinsèque aïe aïe aïe…
On est clairement plus proche de la 6eme voir 7eme place européenne que de la 4eme.
Des Cherki en Espagne il y en a 3 par équipes… chaque année en compétition européenne on se rend compte de l’écart stratosphérique entre la Ligue 1 et les grands championnats.
@@nwa7769 non il y en a pas 3 par équipes il y en a 3 à Barcelon et à Madrid et non on se rapproche vraiment du top 4 en terme de niveau pur, juste que les clubs français se foutent des coupes d'europe. L'espagne elle est sur la pente descendante mais pas sur la scène européenne ce qui donne l'impression qje LaLiga est toujours aussi forte alors que vraiment pas.
@@ochalo4002 « la France s’en fout des coupes d’Europes » 😂😂😂 aaah oui c’est vrai on est trop forts, si on s’en fout pas on gagne tout c’est ça ? 😂
Le niveau de la Ligue 1 est juste catastrophique… et il ne cesse de régresser en plus c’est ça qui est terrible.
La Liga est littéralement le meilleur championnat au monde… et on le constate évidemment en Europe dans les confrontations directes avec les clubs des 3 autres grands championnats, l’Espagne a le meilleur bilan, et en plus elle domine l’Europe depuis 20 ans.
T’as réussi à dire absolument tout le contraire de ce qu’est la réalité factuelle des choses, c’est fort.
@@nwa7769 Primo : je dis pas qu'on les gagnerait mais qu'en moyenne, les clubs français iraient plus loin.
2 ) Le niveau de la ligue 1 est loin d'être catastrophique et de régresser ouvre tes yeux stp
3 ) LaLiga était le meileur championnat au monde il y a quelques années et en terme de niveau en coupe d'Europe OUI mais quand tu regardes leur ligue elle est bien sur la pente descendante
" Elle domine l'Europe et les clubs des autres grands championnats depuis 20 ans " Alors navré de te déranger mais à la limite dans les 10 dernières années oui mais pas depuis les 20 NON
@@ochalo4002 toi t’as 14 ans max…
Dire des âneries pareilles c’est lunaire… croire que les clubs français s’en foutent des coupes d’Europe mais là… 😂
La Liga est le meilleur championnat depuis 20 ans… je t’invites à me dire quel autre pays a gagné plus qu’eux sur cette période. Bon courage.
Et encore une fois je ne parle pas seulement de trophées mais de confrontations directes entre clubs de tous niveau avec les autres grands championnats… encore une fois l’Espagne a un bilan positif contre tout le monde. Les faits, seulement les faits. Le reste c’est dans ta tête.
In defense of the Bundesliga :
Currently as of Feb 25th 2023 , the Bundesliga has a gap between the first and 6th place of just 5 points , in addition to the top 3 teams being on the same amount of points , which means the title isn't really gonna be decided any time soon and it may fall down to the last game of the season.
Dortmund which are the second most favorable team in Germany have a really high chance of achieving a good finish in the champions league , and have an even better chance at winning their domestic league and cup which puts a lot of pressure on Bayern as the champions.
The reason why the premier league and la liga are big spenders isn't because they are signing quality players , it is because of them overpricing their signings.
Thank u.
Bayern Munich ruin Bundesliga. The most exciting thing about a league is, who is going to win the title. Too many glory hunters supporting the same teams is toxic for a successful league.
Ok but looking at this year, in comparison, the Prem could add a new winner from the last decade in Arsenal or even Man Utd. The European qualification spots are also currently being fought over by Newcastle, Brighton and Fulham.
In the last 5 years the league in Bundesliga was won by - 8, 13, 13, 2 (the best Bundesliga season I followed in recent years) and 21 points. It’s about as diverse as a bag of red skittles.
I think it’s a better league than Serie A and Ligue 1 still though :p
Pull Bayern out of Farmerliga and you have a league weaker than portugese
@@poopoppy so you’re mad people support Bayern? And instantly assume they’re all glory hunters?
@@dpad_ then why did Dortmund defeat Chelsea, Leibzig tie man city, and Frankfurt who were 11th place last season won Europa league? 3 bundesliga teams are still in the Europa league and 4 bundesliga teams made it to the ro16, I never get why people try to trash on other leagues, and most are generally hypocrites
1) What about a fan attendance? Or fan attendance for the teams in the lower half of table.
2) Also number of international players in the league should be considered (let's say for top 50 countries in FIFA ranking)
3) "Stability of newly promoted teams from lower division" -> Ability of them to compete in this league ... So I guess PL would be really good in this one.
4) Points difference between winner and 2nd team or last team, or something like that
5) And something with goals -> Top 5 teams goals against last 5 f.e.
PL teams do get after they get prometed
historically PL teams have done really well to stay up, teams like swansea, stoke, brentford, fulham, and burnley have stayed up and pushed for european places. i dont think your logic for the PL teams is correct.
Idk what ur on about prem teams can’t compete they definitely can
I don't agree with most of them.
1) Attendance is not that relevant when it comes to how good or competitive the league is.
2) I don't think this is a good metric. It would just bias against league with more domestic talent.
3) Isn't that the opposite? If it is hard for a promoted team to stay up, the league is better. The England also has the highest ranked second division by a quite big margin which means the promoted teams to the PL are better than in any other league. The fact that it is hard for them to stay up speaks about the quality and the competitiveness of the league.
4) This is a pretty good metric. However, I think the most interesting is how the points are distributed at the middle of the table.
5) I don't know how relevant that is. That has probably more to do how attacking the teams in the league are and how good they are at defending. In the PL there are several teams that are not that good that still have a very good low block that does not let that many goals though. In la liga the teams at the bottom play a more open game.
@@Pekz00r I would argue that attendance is a very relevant metric. In the top 5 leagues at least football is very popular there so if there aren't many fans watching matches it would indicate the league isn't very exciting and/or competitive imo
I would argue the real farmers league is the one that outspends all of Europe and still doesn’t mange to dominate the champions league.
i can tell ur a YANK
It has more winners and finalists than any other league though! Literally just Real Madrid from stopping them! And how long has it been outspending everyone? 10 years, maximum? Even then Real were buying Galacticos
"Spent Money" shouldn't be a factor. For one Bundesliga has the 50+1 Rule that doesn't allow shitty Oil Money Billionaires and even shittier Middle Eastern Countries to buy Clubs and spend hundreds of billions. Second especially in the Premier League basically every Player is insanely overpriced, just cause they have the unlimited Money to spend. You have an average CM who ideally also is British? That's 60 million for you the next Summer. Stuff like that doesn't happen in the Bundesliga. The Clubs (most of the time) buy smarter, not larger.
The same probably also goes for Ligue 1, who then even on top of that come in and regularly produce incredible talents.
I love Bundesliga for the stadium atmosphere fans create. You don't feel like you are in theater watching a play. I also love it cos most matches are stacked with goals and entertaining way teams are playing, no matter if if its the first or last team on the table.
I don't care how much teams are spending or that they don't have 100M players in their teams (we all know PL values are heavily inflated).
Ignore for a second Bayern dominance for the last 10 years, and it's the best league. For me at least.
I think the Zealand method is not the greatest way to to measure what you're measuring. I see what the idea is, but i think its very relevant to look at the midtable sides when talking about a farmers league. I think Ligue 1 has clearly the worst midtable teams and that's why the relegated teams have more points on average. They are playing worst teams than the teams in the other leagues. So the lower table in Ligue 1 might be tighter, but the overall quality is worse than Bundesliga. Behind Bayern Bundesliga has a very level playing field and that's why we see teams like Schalke and HSV struggling to stay in the league. I would say bottom part of Seria A also has slightly more quality than Ligue 1, and the top part of the table has more big teams. If the overall quality of the league is worse, it's pointless to look at the points of the bottom teams, because they are playing against worse teams. I think Ligue 1 is a better league than many think, but clearly the worst overall quality of the five.
Yup, Surprised to see Serie A is the same quality as Ligue 1 and worse than la Liga
The worst mid-table ?? You mean we have the most homogenous league. Because before PSG got bought we have 6 differents champions in 6 years....
Great video as always! Tho imo it doesn't make much sense to take total spending into account. I believe it would make more sense to take the average median spending over the time period. With total spending the excessive spending of the top 2 or three clubs kinda distorts the image if you want to compare the league as a whole. I think It would be more accurate to see what teams like Mainz, Everton, sassuolo, Getafe and lorient spend compared to each other to get a more accurate picture of the level of the league's. Also if anything it's a plus point for Bundesliga not a negative if you compare spending to international outcome.
I actually don't get the spending argument and to some extend it makes me angry. I mean sure AS Monaco and PSG are spending insane.. If I remember correctly they spend combined 1 billion last 3 years. Does that make the league equal? Idk. And now think about how much Frankfurt or Union Berlin spends (or even Leipzig) and compare the international results. Spending much money doesn't mean you spend money smart. (A nother figure I would've loved to see, the Bundesligas combined transfer worth is higher than that of league 1, even tho PSG has mbappe Neymar Messi)
Love your vids, but this made me angry (yes maybe also because I am German).
I mean maybe I just don't like the term farmers league, because I interpret it as "you play against farmers" maybe it's more meant like "Bayern can farm wins". It's a way different approach to the same sentence, but can shift the discussion extremely. Because I think the median strength in the Bundesliga is higher than Ligue 1 and Serie A and maybe even La Liga.
In la liga are only real and Barca. Buli 2nd place
Something to take into account about teams with least amount of points, Italian clubs draw a lot. A quick search that I made right now in the top 10 of the world, 3 Italian divisions are in there. They draw a lot so the point total gets affected as well.
In terms of quality matches, both League 1 and Bundesliga are excellent. Seria A used to be incredible when I was a kid but now it's hit or miss, similar to La Liga. The Premier League has everything, from big-name teams fighting for the Champions League spots to big spending and lots of marketing.
serie a recently has been amazing and the quality of football from all teams, even the bottom, is the most entertaining and is great to watch. I think rn its by far the second best, with the prem being number 1 ofc
@@theyareallscreaming Serie a is complete garbage man, no quality at all, like watching the Serbian league or soemthing
@@LaVaZ000 guarantee you never watch it Lmao because that’s just objectively wrong. I think on technical ability its the best league itw, with how players pass etc and how generally entertaining it is. But the prem is still much higher quality and is undoubtedly better overall
@@LaVaZ000 i guess that's why we have won 4 world cups and 2 european championship . Keep hating while we do our thing
@@theyareallscreaming idk, I mean like Juventus the Italy largest team but their playstyle currently is still like late 70's-mid 90's AC Milan era with slow pace and movement. Now I'm 35 doesn't much change from the last 30 years i start watch football with my dad when he was my age. Crazy to think about
Probably has to be ligue 1. The different winners kind of came from PSG fumbling, instead of outside runs. Serie A has a consistent top 5/6 teams who can fight (Juve, Milan, Inter, Napoli, Roma and Maybe Lazio) and the Bundesliga has great battles and strong midtable teams that can put together European runs (think Leipzig in the UCL or Union Berlin this year in the UEL)
Bundesliga has had one winner for the last 10 years
@@don_chanLIVE I know, but Dortmund and Leipzig have mounted challenges against very strong Bayern teams
@@alexandercosgrave Still doesnt mean shite if Bayern wins it in the end (and Bayern at times have had poor starting runs). Ligue 1, at least those teams that won it maintained their form and consistency to win it
@@PrinceOlaf Yeah, I get that, but my point is they won more because of PSG fucking up.
@@alexandercosgrave
I agree - I think Bayern have been dominant through quality, and they've kept Dortmund at bay, whilst I think if Dortmund were in Ligue 1, they'd have won it a few times. Bayern are consistent (German efficiency) whereas PSG are a little shaky. I'd also bet on the other German teams, over the last ten years, (Leipzig, Hoffenheim, Schalke, Wolfsburg, etc.) over the French teams.
From the POV of a local (french) what Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 really lack is the money to keep their young talents. These leagues have had an amazing youth formation ratio over the recent years, but they cant keep these talents more than 2 years. And most of the time it's PL, Liga or Bundesliga teams that plunder it.
If Monaco Lyon or Rennes kept their best talents they would have the level to at least advance to the last 16 of the UCL.
Most of the time its not even PSG buying Ligue 1's best players, the only notable exceptions being Mbappé and Matuidi.
Camavinga, Mendy, Bernardo Silva, Wesley Fofana... and I could go on, all bought by foreign teams.
If french teams had a bit more money (And I guess higher salaries) they would be more competitive.
Same with buli
Well, PSG oil money stop their competitive
Exact. Y en a marre de se faire piquer nos joueurs puis on se fout de nous. Le jour où on arrêtera nos transferts en masse ils verront plus la couleur du trophée de la CL
If you have done last 10 years for title wins you should have done last 10 years for relegation
Also the best second metric would have been Europa League
UEL does have varieties of middle class team there
Honestly the only part of this video I would take out as metric is transfer spending because the amount of money you spend on players does not mean the league is neither good nor bad, just that the league spends a lot of money on transfers and some reasons as to why a club might not spend on transfers is actually more of a focus on developing the younger players at the clubs. Like maybe Germany focuses on developing youth rather than bringing in new star players into their teams.
Okay, so the Premier League overspends on every single player, why does it make them better?
Teams are more balanced. When the season starts you don't really know what the table will look like
Nah. They pay rich teams tax. Literally means fuck all to them.
A better way to have looked at it is seeing how much the lower teams spend on transfers. We've seen this year that clubs that aren't in the general "top 6" spending a lot of money on players in the PL (and not generally overspending) which makes it less of a farmers league since theres wealth up and down the table.
@@joaopedro_1919you will know that Man-City is on top Most of the Time what are you talking about
@@heyitsmeagain6897 they’ve barely won some of those leagues…literally by a point, in the last game of the season
You're killing it with the content right now, especially with the editing.
Agreed. I want to kidnap Reece and use his powers for evil
The zealand method seems to be counter productive, if there are many good teams in a league the bad teams will get less points total, while in a league with a few good teams and alot of bad once. Even the worst teams get a decent point haul... I think you just proved that L1 is a farmers league with how big the gap was to the rest there
I will be a little controvertial here:
1) Premier League
2) Bundesliga
3) La Liga
4) Serie A
5) Ligue 1
I also took what leagues are most fun to watch for me... and Bundesliga has alot of good teams.... La Liga is extreme top heavy and outside the top clubs I really don't care about watching... If I only was going for watchable leagues I would put Seria A over La Liga...it is how bad the spanish league is for me to watch outside the top clubs.
this is a perfect list
Nantes were not relegated that season, they went into the relegation playoff (hence why its orange) where they beat Toulouse on away goals
i am a big fan of a club in the bundesliga and tbh i rather have a league that is not as "good" as the other big leagues but has a lively fan & ultra culture
I'm so jealous of German football to be honest. I wish we had the supporters culture and influence over here (France). I think you're right that yours is a better deal, in the end
I think if you take into account things like. Point gap for the winners, Europa league performances, domestic competition to earn European qualification and other factors like Bundesliga rules for club ownership. I’d probably say the best leagues would be ranked 1. Premier League 2. La Liga 3. Bundesliga 4. Serie A 5. Ligue 1
Don’t make the mistake of thinking I mean English teams are the best. In terms of the elite teams I would switch England and Spain. The overall quality and excitement is just much higher in the Prem. I also think Englands worse teams would pose more problems to Spains top teams than vice versa.
Villarreal says hello. When has Tottenham, Arsenal or another mid quality English club beaten AM, BAR or RM?
@@MiguelTavaresMAT when did I say that? I said worse teams causing more problems. You think Villarreal is one of La Ligas worst? Fair enough, you said it not me.
We would never get to see it but I believe with no doubt that Elche v Man City would be much less of a game than Southampton v Madrid.
Btw didn’t Villarreal lose the last 2 games they had against an English team - Man Utd, who until recently have been considered a bit of a laughing stock in the Prem the last decade…
don't underestimate italian "worse" little clubs, Sassuolo,Empoli or rn Monza, Salernitana and Lecce. all of them never give up so easily for the bigger clubs. Torino is the only one team can be unpredictable at this moment, can win with the best team(even against Man City)and lose with a non-professional club in the same day.
Btw Man United only this season its doing a good job, rn are third. last year wasnt good enough to get a spot in the CL, so whats the point they beaten Villareal? every season is different, looks Liverpool or Juventus in this season
@@kristoferhailes4627 A laughing stock with like 8x times the budget of Villarreal, a team that represents a town of 50 000 people and had never even played top division football before 1998. Villarreal is a small club, Man United are European giants. Them losing to United proves nothing, is what's expected even if United was at a low point. Everything that Villarreal has achieved both locally and internationally in the last years is impressive. And let's not forget they were relegated just 10 years ago.
Also, didn't they beat United to win the Europa League? lmao
@@LaughterCigar if having money meant everything PSG would have a champions league title kid. Man Utd are a laughing stock BECAUSE they have wasted so much money. Before this season I wouldn’t have expected them to beat even bloody Getafe during the last 10 years
This one of the first time I heavily disagree with Z
There would be so many more accurate factor that proof something else: coefficients ranking, head to head results of leagues, point difference between first and last
The Zealand method doesn't make sense because it measures the quality of the second division (those team got literally relegated) I think the same method with the non european participants and non relegated will be more accurate to measure a league level
Shannon Wiener diversity index as a procentage of the theoretical maximum.
For the past five years the average score is as follows:
Premier League: 97.99% (2 different winners)
La Liga: 98.46% (3 different winners)
Serie A: 97.82% (3 different winners)
Bundesliga: 98.36% (1 winner)
Ligue 1: 98.48% (2 different winners)
(I made a more elaborate comment earlier)
i dont see how the zealand method shows if a league is a farmers league, because if all teams but 1 or 2 are really bad, wouldnt it make it easier for the worst teams to get points. Looking at europaleague would have made more sense imo.
Nothing tops the Austrian bundesliga when it comes to farmers league... RB Salzburgs squad has a higher market value than the rest of the league combined.... And the worst part is that they only exist as an academy for RB Leipzig
that actually is really sad. fuck red bull for destroying the austrian league and staining the bundesliga...
You should consider the great 50+1 rule wich the other leagues doesnt have
But nice content anyway
Relegated teams with higher point totals is actually not a good thing. It means that the league is avareged on a very low point.
A better method would be to determine witch league has the least difference in points between the campion and the first non-UCL qualified team.
It's still not perfect, but is better.
So what you've actually found with the Zealand method is that Ligue 1 has more equally awful teams. I think LaLiga also has some awful teams on their back end, compared to the others.
bundesliga not spending money is definitely not a farmers league indicator. frankfurt has won the EL last year with a budget thats probably less than that of teams that get relegated in the epl this season. people call the league farmers league, but for me, clubs that get sold for billions of dollars are way worse than farmers
The better metric would be to measure the amount of talent produced versus the amount of those talents that are retained in the league.
Spain, Germany and England produce and retain their talent through the strength of their league. Italy doesn't produce as many which skews their numbers in terms of retention but France is nasty in terms of talents that leave the country to other leagues.
i think the lower teams in ligue 1 have more points because the quality of the better teams above them are worse on average, ergo allowing the bottom teams to be able to pick up more points
The parody of winners in League 1 shows how much PSG underperforms. Not many French teams make it far in UEFA showing they don’t have many contenders outside PSG and they still fumbled the league. where as more German teams preform well in Europe, thus have more talented teams but the top team, Bayern, doesn’t choke.
Bayern > PSG
Tier 2 German teams > Tier 2 French teams
To be fair ligue does get less teams in ucl than the other top 5 leagues = less chances to qualify add on top that they often underperforme or crack under pressure because just like the English national team they can't live up to expectations and you get the result : 1 ucl 0 Europa League and 0 Conference league (Although too recent of a competition to mean anything)
You should have mentioned the fact that the Bundesliga is systemically different from all other leagues. Clubs are 50% owned by fans, therefore atracting less investors to make the sport less corporate and more natural and fair, anyone can beat any other team on any day and teams are the most balanced of all leagues. Some people think this is bad, because Bayern has been able to exploit it, but the Bundesliga has always functioned like this and if you look before 2010 the winners were always diverse. However Bayerns Golden years are dying soon and things will restore back to normal eventually.
This is worse than the time my teacher mathematically proved I was a loser with no friends to demonstrate the use of algebra.
As a french fan, please do not take the farmers league honorific title away from us. Thanks
You like the "title"💀
I think match attendance averages/ % of stadium filled would of been an interesting metric to see
Maybe how many different teams getting qualified to european tournaments (ucl, uel, conference league) + how much average squad costs (it's even better to calculate without big teams)
The Bundesliga isn't bad. Bayern is just to good. They are consistently one of the best teams in the world since nearly a decade. Even better then psg. It's hard to beat a team like that.
bayern would win the league in any other country aswell
@@Mazlvmno they wouldn’t lol. I think they would be capable but it wouldn’t be easy. There are a lot more ucl tier clubs in leagues like La liga and epl
Questioning your "Zealand" method. I feel like if you're going to look at points for competition standing, it needs to be more in the context of points vs. The larger teams in the league in those respective years (say 1st through 3rd). If they're all bad, you get the same results as if all the teams are good-- meaning point distribution throughout the league, including the relegation zone. We can reduce this risk by comparing them to teams in their leagues that we know are more internationally competitive, like say, teams that make the knockouts in either the champions league or the Europa league
Leave it to Zealand to do math in MS Word when Excel exists 🤣
Why would the Bundesliga be ranked worse than Serie A regarding UCL in the last 10 Years? They’ve won it more often got more often to the Round of 16
Hey Z quick question, I love the video concept but why is spending seen as a good point. Isnt it showing the true face of the league if a team can suceed in their competition without spending 500 Million dollars/euros?
Because it happens…can’t just ignore it
If the league spends more money it has a higher reputation and ultimately higher quality players, regardless of the ethics, its an important stat that cant just be ignored
Truth is, there are several farmers leagues, but, most importantly, there are farmer clubs, even in the best leagues, and there are huge clubs, even in farmer leagues.
5:23 bruh we don't even HAVE 3 Champions League group spots, only 2 and a possible extra one through qualification ;_;
Gotta love how going back 10 years in league winners also JUST misses the age of chaos when we had 5 different winners in as many years including one that hadn't won it since the 50s and one that had never won it. Numbers themselves are plotting to make Ligue 1 look worse than it actually is.
[VERY sad frog sounds]
Also
"Ligue 1 produces some fabulous 18th and 19th placed teams"
Cue SCO standing at 10 points 24 games into this season
The last point - the bottom 3 English clubs would finish mid table in all the other leagues at least
Nates's performance against Juve could be classified as a Serie B mid table team
Farmers league should be redefined as leagues that grow talent.
Farmers League: France
1 UCL in their history
less teams in the ucl (7 teams managed to get through in the round of 16 in the last 5 years)
0 europa leagues
best spots in the past 5 years:
>lyon semi final 2020
>psg final 2020, semi final 2021
also they currently have the less good teams with 2 (marseile and psg)
This was worst period for serie A between 2012 to 2020 but after a new method of tax reduction was introduced in 2020 serie A clubs started performing well 2021 inter went to europa league finals and in 2022/23 season all European finals had an italtian team so they are rising up again
Haaland is treating the premier league as the farmers league it is
Isn't one aspect of the definition of a farmers league to have many feeder clubs that constantly sell their good players for high prices instead of playing successful football? Then one would also have to look at how much each respective league earns from selling players abroad.
Gonna throw it out here: just because Real/Barca have won CLs and spent lots does not mean the rest of the league should get a free pass.
Is no one gonna talk about the ridiculous european sucess of Portuguese teams despite spending like 5 dollars a year on transfers?
3:50 AM and time to watch some mf Zealand
Feel like the money category would have been a more accurate representation of the league if it was also showed off which team spent the most in the league to show the gulf in money between top clubs and bottom clubs
Fun fact (that isn't fun for me as a PSG supporter)- French clubs have won just 2 of the 17 European cup finals in their history. Our league is like the Buffalo Bills or Minnesota Vikings- historically they've made finals somewhat frequently but basically never win them. 1/7 in UCL finals, 1/10 UEL finals (I'm combining the UEFA Cup & Cup Winner's Cup here).
Ligue 1 right now is the worst of the top 5 in overall quality, our top 5 is the weakest of all the leagues. That said, the league does have strong depth, the midtable clubs are probably stronger here than in Germany or Italy (maybe even Spain right now as that league is financially troubled). If you don't believe me, think about how Lyon beat Man City & made the UCL semis in 2020 while placing 8th that year. Nantes drew their first leg with Juve (who would be 2nd in Italy w/o the points deduction) two weeks ago, they are currently 13th in France. Lille won their UCL group the year after they won Ligue 1 despite selling 7 of their 11 best players in the summer, yet they were 11th in Ligue 1 when they won that UCL group. The quality at the top is not great, but the midtable is fairly strong
A "low" of half a billion...football and its finances are just dumb nowadays.
The domination of a single team should be factored in the highest, it is the worst thing for a football league to have no competition, no chance for the small teams to compete. As much as people love to shit on the MLS I love it for that reason, anyone can win, and any winner can be bottom of the table the next season. EDIT: also we need a term like 'Farmers League' that applies specifically to the top heavy leagues, the one or two horse races.
Just keep in mind the year France had that billion dollar expenditure was the same year Mbappe and Neymar went to same team lol
The best way to determine a farmers league is to exclude the top 2 teams in the league and run similar tests to see how the rest of the league holds up without its heavy hitters
Spending that much more but still sucking in the CL shows me that the Prem is the real farmers league!
Isnt the champions league knockout one a bit unfair on ligue 1 since they only get 2 teams guaranteed in the group stage while other leagues get 3 or 4
4:56 Italy has 3 teams
To be honest Bundesliga is the most unattractive and boring football leagues between all high fly leagues. Its not Bayern Munich that destroy Bundesliga but the system 50+1 that is destroying Bundesliga. That system just solidify the major club like Bayern and Dortmund for century while all "small clubs" stay small. Thats why Bundesliga will never be having the case of Blackburn Rovers 1995, Leicester City 2015 or Chelsea 2004.
50+1 never destroyed the Bundesliga. Oil Money destroys every league
This comment came out longer than I ever expected it would.
I think the Zealand method should’ve been a calculation of the gap between the top team and the best relegated team over the last ten years, which would’ve probably also thrown The Prem and La Liga some minus points.
My totally not scientific method of determining a farmer’s league using only bias, dictates that Ligue 1 is the only farmers league out of the top 5. Where as Serie A isn’t necessarily a farmers league and more accurately is just no longer good enough to be considered a top league anymore.
Continuing on from my last sentence, I think more and more Leagues will drop out of the currently called “top 5” until only the Prem stands alone as the final evil overlord of all football, unless MLS restructures and just absolutely blows every other league out of the water doing sports the American way. Personally I imagine the next League to drop out will be La Liga. Despite their constant Champions League success, La Liga’s financial distribution method seems to heavily favour Real Madrid and Barcelona, two teams that constantly teeter on the brink of financial collapse and that surely can’t maintain their current approach of spending money. I imagine that one or both of La Liga’s top two will implode over the next 5-10 years, and that the league as a whole will slowly wither and die.
4:56 Italy has 3, not 2.
I think you should have continued the European competition into the Europa League (not conference due to lack of data) and maybe looked at average points/$ spent to find the efficiency of spending. Could have made things closer for England/Spain
Also, France is the only one out of the 5 that doesn't get 4 automatic UCL spots so it's kinda unfair to punish them for that by saying that they don't get 3 teams into the knockouts. The max they can get is 3 and that is assuming the 3rd team makes it through the playoffs and then through the group stage. There's just a lower chance of this happening.
I think the only requirement not really making sense is the spending. If you're able to produce good results domestically or internationally within a lower budget restraint that should be applauded. (But I also think FFP should be enforced much more - Like United or Chelsea shouldn't be able to spend so much IF they're not really winning any trophies). Other than that I think the biggest factor should be competitiveness throughout the league table. By this logic I think it's easy to see that Ligue 1 is a closest to a farmer's league: No real competition in the title race and although bundesliga is the same they atleast produce more international results with a bigger range of teams bayern, frankfurt, dortmund mochengladbach and leipzig. It's only PSG that really does anything internationally
I have my own metric of competitiveness: tally the points between 1st and 11th place. Whichever league has the largest point disparity is the least competitive.
I mean serie a has its strong point when it comes to quality within like the top 10, we have a lot of good teams here id say but the lower half teams struggle to do well because of the financial issues that tons of teams face in italy.
If you put it into context, every league is a farmers league, where everyone has a price
I think the reason Serie A bottom team flub so much is because there are at least 7 solid teams in the league each season. At the beginning of the season any 1 of 4 teams could be considered title contenders. The other 3 are all fighting for top 4 spots. Those 7 teams are going to beat the lower teams more often because of it. So because Serie A is more competitive at the top, the bottom teams will suffer in terms of points. So despite the bottom teams doing poorly, it reflects that the league is tougher at the top of the table. And I think that makes the league much more entertaining to watch. Two years ago the last day of the season determined which of 4 teams would be entering the CL. Because Milan won and Atalanta lost they took 2nd instead of 5th. It was awesome.
Let's just forget Monaco's run to the semi or quarter finals a few years ago
Yeah the Zealand method is not very good at determining quality. We could use Elo ratings though to determine how good are the worst teams of the league. Maybe average league elo could work.
2023:
1. Premier league
2. La Liga
3. Bundesliga
4. Ligue 1
5. Liga NOS
6. Serie A
This video will need an edit once the EPL investigation has done stripping City of all their titles
I feel like the last stat REALLY didn't matter; when people talk about farmer's leagues they're not talking about the pro/reg candidates from the 2nd and 1st divisions. They're talking about the weakness of the league as a whole, in particular outside of one or two big dominant factors.
I'd also argue that spending doesn't matter that much, especially when there are a number of teams who just completely skew that statistic out of proportion.
With that in mind, France's Ligue Un laps the competition in a single stat that you somewhat mentioned but didn't go into enough depth on: European Performance. More specifically, European Performance past the top teams. Let's be incredibly unfair to England and take out the entire top 6, which is every team with over 100 coefficient points at this exact moment before the 2nd champions league leg. Note that this top 6 does not include any Serie A team, which is bad, but in that next 10 they have 3 members. They also have 4 other teams in the top 50 in Europe, which currently goes down to 34.5 coefficient points with Young Boys. Also with 3 members in the next 10 is Spain, who after losing Real Madrid still have Villareal, Barca, and Athletico Madrid, not in that order. They also have 3 more teams in the top 50, and will get a 4th team if Real Sociedad wins their upcoming Europa League tie with Man U.
The Premier League is still OK in this metric, even if they lose all 3 of their members with over 100 points. They have a team on the verge of surpassing that total in Man U, while that is their only member of the next 10 Tottenham is close, and they have a couple other teams in the top 50 for a total of 4 minus the 3 teams over 100. This is also where the Bundesliga's claims of being a farmer's league go to die. They have 2 teams in the next 10, and another 2 teams high up in the top 50.
Ligue Un has 3 teams in the top 50 including PSG. PSG at 6, Lyon at 26, and Stade Rennes at 37. Every other French team is looking up at West Ham who has only been in Europe the last 2 seasons in the Conference League. France has 60 coefficient points right now, with a stupidly large sum of those points coming from PSG specifically. There is no real comparison, it's France.
8:10 Nantes wasn't relegated. Nantes got into a relegation playoff against Toulouse which they won 2-2 on away goals.
amazing video zealand but telling mbappe to 'tend to the crop' is a bit rude
id argue the zealand method (TM) points towards france being the more farmery
the other two leagues has some teams that clearly were not able to compete with the rest of the league but this to me points towards the average standard of the league being higher
if any old fromage FC can get into the top flight and be competitive with postman patrique up front then it can not be a strong league
BTW spend lots of money does not mean you have a better league or better players it just means the clubs have more money and those clubs value the players alot
I hear everything your saying… But I think it’s probably the Belerusian league 😂
I’m a scientist.
This is Science.
Problem with the zealand method. If the overall quality of a league is low, the bottom teams have more of a chance at scoring points. You would have to look at points taken from top teams.
For me it's
1) Serie A
2) Bundesliga
3) Barclays
4) La Liga
5) Ligue 1
Serie A has 3 teams in CL knockouts, not 2
You just thinking of any possible idea to make another manscape video around
calling a top 5 European league a farmers league is so silly
If anyone is getting farmed it's the Premier league teams bank balance by overspending on mid talent.
The zealand method would work better with 3 mid teams (7,10,13) for a median average representation of the league. This would indicate how close the fight is for a top half finish.
France produces so many incredible talents that even the lower leagues teams are brilliant
This or non non winning team are so less competitive that can compete between them but not for the top spot