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come on man, that horse is dead already
Agreed.Originally Posted by a_billi
I would love to see Ajax or CSKA against TFC.
Would be 10-1 easily.
I doubt it. Plus, you're comparing top teams against bottom; Houston can beat TFC almost every time they wish to. On the other hand, if you take away Ajax and PSV, what's left? Heerenven? Please.
Last edited by marquis; 07-07-2009 at 07:27 PM.
Heerenven would probably win MLS walking away.
Seriously where has this arrogance came from? The Dutch league has plenty of good teams. I cannot make my mind up if you are arrogant, ignorant or just plain know nothing about football?
10-1 is an over statement. MLS teams have played against teams like Barcelona and Chelsea and Celtic in the passed 5 years, and i believe teams like New Englnad actually beat Celtic, and tho MLS teams did lose to teams like Barcelona...it wasnt 10-1 is was more like 6-2. And a team like Barcelona is miles ahead of a team like CSKA or Ajax in recent years.
That said CSKA and Ajax are better then any MLS team. If you put them in MLS these teams would win the league...but i bet you they would lose a few and tie few games here and there. They wouldnt win week in and week out scores like 10-1 thats forsure!!!!
Your putting MLS even lower then it is compared to these teams.
Dutch league does have some good teams. The dutch League like 2 years ago was rated the 6th best league in Europe. England, Italy, Spain,Germany, and France were better. Not sure if the ratting has changed.
Last edited by james; 07-07-2009 at 10:37 PM.
Bold statement, upsets happen all the time in Football.
Sure if Toronto FC get lucky maybe. But realistically if Toronto FC were playing against the CSKA's, Olympiacos, Ajax, they'd probably loose 5-6 matches if they had a ten match series. Its nothing to be ashamed of its just the truth. Id still support TFC because its in the best leauge in North America and thats all I need. Those clubs have been established for years and have the best acadamies in the world. Toronto FC only three years and an Academy for only two years. And sorry those dutch teams most likely would win the MLS cup it wont be a cakewalk but theyll do enough. Lets have this discussion in 7-10 years when our Academy players are men and playing football at the highest level. Personally I think the Toronto FC academy will be the Porto, Ajax, Red Star Belgrade of North America. Im actually excited and cant wait to see the academy players in action at club and national team level.
Waits for someone to come in and talk about the Vancouver Academy.
Good football academies are actually very difficult to come by and even if you throw a ton of money at them there is still no guarantee that they will ever produce great players. With regards to the Ajax system they have been incredibly successful in producing excellent young players for many, many years, for me they have probably the best system in the world and it has paid for itself probably 100 times over in player sales. If TFC were to have an academy even a quarter as successful it would be an amazing accomplishment. It is even harder for academies now that young payers are being identified from even younger ages and snapped up by the big clubs. If TFC can produce decent player to fill their own squad then I would see that as a success.Sure if Toronto FC get lucky maybe. But realistically if Toronto FC were playing against the CSKA's, Olympiacos, Ajax, they'd probably loose 5-6 matches if they had a ten match series. Its nothing to be ashamed of its just the truth. Id still support TFC because its in the best leauge in North America and thats all I need. Those clubs have been established for years and have the best acadamies in the world. Toronto FC only three years and an Academy for only two years. And sorry those dutch teams most likely would win the MLS cup it wont be a cakewalk but theyll do enough. Lets have this discussion in 7-10 years when our Academy players are men and playing football at the highest level. Personally I think the Toronto FC academy will be the Porto, Ajax, Red Star Belgrade of North America. Im actually excited and cant wait to see the academy players in action at club and national team level.
Waits for someone to come in and talk about the Vancouver Academy.
If my opinions about football would prompt you to pass personal judgements, then I am willing to withdraw from this discussion.
Just to clarify, my intention was not to belittle some European Leagues, but to actually debate the fact that MLS is severely underrated, even by its own followers. Supporters, stadiums, media attention can actually make a league and football in general look better (or worse) than it actually is. I do believe that MLS can be placed in the same ballpark with leagues from Greece, Turkey, Eastern Europe or Holland, even though these leagues can produce from time to time teams that are actually a lot better than the rest of the league.
I think i'd have to disagree with Turkey (at least). I think it will be a long time before MLS can produce a team to match the likes (in any aspect) of Galatasaray and Fenerbahce (who finished 4 and 5 last season in the Super Lig). Teams like Besiktas, Ankaragucu, Bursaspor, Trabzonspor, and a few others are pretty big clubs from the pitch to the organization as a whole too.
You can also even look at some of the big stars who have played in that league (past and present).
Apologies if I have upset you however if you demean established leagues like the Dutch then you should expect your opinion to be called into question. I honestly cannot see where you are coming from that there are only two good teams in Holland, this is simply not true. Your outlandish claim is what sparked me into questioning you personally ie arrogant (exteremly pro MLS beyond all reason) or ignorant (don't really know much about other leagues outside the MLS) as I can see no real footballing reason how you could have come to that conclusion?
players like JDG could get more money and playing time here in the mls right now
just look JDG could be makeing about $7m here were over sea he could only make under a 1m and play less time
Last edited by nascarguy; 07-08-2009 at 08:55 AM.
Apologies accepted.
This is not MLS vs. Dutch league. I agree that overall the Dutch is better, but not by that astronomical difference.
Ive been following football all my life. I grew up in Eastern Europe (Romania) and moved to Canada 6 years ago. My assertion about Turkish, Greek, etc. leagues is based on how well Romanians teams were doing against the likes of Galata, Panatinaikos or Dinamo Kiev and historically, they managed to beat them as many times they were beaten. I am convinced that MLS is not worse than Romanian league. I do agree that on a good year, Galatasaray or CSKA or Olympiakos would easily win MLS, but it is also true they would dominate their own leagues the same way.
And yes, I am pro football in North America, not MLS in particular, which I believe has lots of things to improve. This is the only football we have here and we need to give it our support. Constantly demeaning and underselling it would not make it better; some people actually take pride in only following Euro football and ignoring MLS.
As a conclusion, MLS football is not half as bad as some people think. Maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but so do you the truth is probably somewhere in the middleJ
funny in recent years i have been taking pride in paying more attention to North America football and some of the Southern American leagues to.
I still follow Euro leagues, but some of the big clubs in Euro are really starting to get to me with the mad spending of cash, its getting to a rediculous point now you might as well just buy a Champions League or League tittle!
When MLS team have faced European clubs, it's happened in the peak of the MLS season and the middle of the European off-season. When Barca come over here, it's to stretch their legs and put on a show...if it were a competitive game it would be atleast 10-1...if we could even manage a goal.
even teams in the FA Cup in like the 4th division dont lose 10-1 to teams like Man United and Chelsea....and we were talking about CSKA and Ajax beatting us 10-1, so no id say teams like CSKA would not destroy us like that. You guys give MLS even less credit then they deserve.
you could also say MLS teams dont always want to play there top players for a full match in friendly in the middle of a season because they dont want to get injured in a very inportant part of the season. I know i dont want to see any TFC players get hurt vs Real Madrid this summer, its just a friendly so who gives a fuck.
Last edited by james; 07-08-2009 at 04:37 PM.
The answer to this debate is complex. American sports in general is structured for parity to put teams on par with each other from year to year.
MLS cannot realistically & accurately be compared to other leagues because MLS plays on international dates where many players are missing and results can be misleading.
The uneven schedule, player exodus to better leagues, salary cap rules, The College draft and Expansion are all other factors not allowing us to truely judge the league due to the constant roster overturn.
Yes... Colombus won the Championship and Houston have done well the last few years, but outside of that we really cant rank teams and if we can it fluctuates from week to week. In MLS, a team can go from first to worst in a matter of weeks or due to a signing(s).
It is easy to judge the strength of European leagues because they do not deal with all of the factors MLS does. Although teams in Europe make moves to strengthen and get rid of weaker players each year the quality
usually remains on somewhat the same level.
The first step to actually comparing our league versus another is having a single table to see which teams have the best depth over the course of a season. As far as currently, MLS is just above the USL(only slightly) and below the Mexican Liga.
I really can't see any MLS teams competing in the Europa(maybe the qualifying stages but not the Cup group stages proper), so any league that consistently has team(s) in the Europa qualfiying stages I would confidently say in all likelihood have a stronger league than MLS just off the strength of those few teams.
Not true at all. Shit-kickings happen all the time. Hell, didn't Barca put 7 or 8 past Bayern Munich this year?
Not saying it's a given, but any good European team is capable of leathering any MLS team over 90 minutes of actual competitive football.
I think it was Bayern who scored that many goals on Porto (or maybe some other Portuguese team).
^^^Oops. You're right. It was 4-0 over Bayern, which should translate to 10-0 over an MLS side
I don't know much about the Europa, but are there many teams past the qualifying stages with a $2.5 million roster and less than 15,000 tickets sold for their home games?
When was the last time that a team like Man U or Chelsea faced a FL2 team and dressed it's top XI?
The Europa is the new name for the UEFA Cup. My point was that I dont think MLS can compete with teams in the UEFA Cup, the qualifying stages maybe... but definetely not the Cup proper. So therefore I highly doubt MLS teams are as good as many of the leagues with 6-8 teams in European competition.
All I meant was it's not the league the team is in, it's the budget the team has. MLS teams can compete against any other teams in the world with the same roster budget. Someday MLS will raise the salary cap (please, oh please) and then they'll be able to compete with bigger teams. That's all it will take.
I disagree. It'll take much more than money. Look at "middle of the road" teams like Man City (no insult intended) that are throwing huge money at big names and being told to take a walk. You need prestige, champions league qualification, etc.
salary wise i dont know, id be suprised if any team in the group stage of UEFA pay less then 2.5 million on players, but attendence wise suprisingly there is always some teams in the group stages that average attendence as low as 15,000 fans and even lower.
not sure maybe about League 2 teams, but i have seen some League 1 teams and Championship teams that have made it rather far into the FA Cup rounds and played big teams like Man U or Chelsea and seen them play some big names against the smaller clubs.
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