Other leagues?
- kcottrell2012
- Jan 29, 2021
- 3 min read
Bit of a rhetorical question, but do people really not watch other leagues? Specifically referring to football (soccer). Something that often grinds my gears is trying to have discourse with people online about the sport, mostly because only a few teams and leagues are deemed relevant. I've mentioned this before, but being a native English speaker, the narrative always seems to be that the Premier League is somehow objectively better than others. Now, I have a few issues with this, and I've discussed some before.
First, I'll just go at face value with what pushed me to start this topic. I was on reddit and this user said something to the effect of "can't believe there aren't any games on today. I'd take (insert shitty team) vs (insert other shitty team), ffs." Now, I don't have the utmost information about watching football over there, but here I have access to something near 10 leagues, given which part of the season it is. It's an objectively false statement if you have access to other leagues that there "aren't any games on". And then to say that you'd take an objectively bad game between two of the worst teams in the league, just because they're English teams, is a foreign idea to me. For context, the other 4 "top 5 leagues" are all in action today/night, depending on where you live. Objectively, the "biggest" team is Lyon, and they host Bordeaux. That game's actually on BEIN, so there's a decent chance I'll watch that. There's also Stuttgart v Mainz, Torino v Fiorentina, and Valladolid v Huesca. To be fair to the reddit user, none of these feature "big clubs", so the average fan won't be interested. But that's where my issue lies. How is it that a game you know will be shit 9 times outta 10, is somehow worth watching? Yet, at the same time, teams you literally never watch are deemed inferior just because they aren't in a certain location. I can guarantee at least one of those three games (probably 2, maybe all 3), despite the perceived mediocrity of the teams, would be better than the hypothetical PL game. On a statistical basis, you'd have the Spanish game about the same level as the English one, assuming it's let's say Newcastle-Burnley, while the German and Italian ones are both superior. Of course, one individual game COULD be an outlier, and that game could end 3-3, but in xG terms and IRL both of those sides score less than one goal per game, and that's shocking. Despite being pretty crap in the table, both Mainz and Torino play matches that feature goals, and that's a fact. Don't even get me started on the Ligue 1 game. That one features a team in the title race, second in xG and top in "expected points", as well as a team in the top half.
To wrap it up, since the Stuttgart game is about to start, I think the English bias is funny. Given the lack of nationalism, London vs the rest, you'd think people there would watch their team only and say eff the rest. I guess that does happen, tbf, given the ignorance you see online. That was another point I was gonna make. Every single time a manager is sacked, you have fans of other teams talking out their ass about how stupid the club is and the sacking was "undeserved". How the fuck would you know? Look at the table and make assumptions? Whether they want to admit it or not, Premier League fans are just that, fans of the league. Especially the "plastics", aka those that chose to follow a team because they were good at the time. That's the worst. Imagine being from some random place with teams in walking/driving distance, yet pretending to be a superfan of a corporation like Liverpool or United. I've seen many legit cases of people using the phrase "farmer's league" when the person's from freaking Africa, Asia or the States. Bruh. Follow your own damn league. You're not English. You don't go to games. You don't know the culture. The clubs literally only see you as a customer. The other ironic thing is "their" clubs import players from these "inferior" leagues and fans worship those players, while still acting like those leagues aren't good. Rant over.
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