I'm surprised that they have people at the stadiums now with what wages are like over there. You have to wonder what ticket prices are v.s. the amount of money spent on contracts. The two don't up to me.Originally Posted by OgtheDim
I'm surprised that they have people at the stadiums now with what wages are like over there. You have to wonder what ticket prices are v.s. the amount of money spent on contracts. The two don't up to me.
Completely disagree on the defending front. Read Giovincos interview on the difference between SerieA and MLS as well.
The defending tactics in Italy are way above MLS on all sides. There is a reason why teams like Hellas Verona can hold off Roma or Juventus to only scoring 1 goal a game.
Also - when MLS has entry level salaries of 500k Euros or higher then maybe it will pass SerieA. A lot of players in MLS still only make like 50-90k a year.
Last edited by SenorDingDong; 02-10-2016 at 08:49 AM.
I don't know what entry level Serie A players make but add several thousand on top of that if we were to see MLS compete for Serie A players.
It's not just about talent pool or playing prestige. There's the element of sports landscape. It's a bigger challenge here for eyeballs to notice those dollar figures. It's also why this comparison is so weak. Apples and exhaust manifolds.
FORMER FULL TIME KOOL-AID DRINKER
In 10 years I think MLS may hit the top 5 leagues. The low salary cap and prestige kills them now though.
But right now it's not close. AC Milan's 16 year old goalkeeper makes more then half the players in MLS.
Yes they would have the high end attacking prowess if they were playing against MLS sides. Please hold into context bottom tier serie a teams arew facing much much more better teams than LA/Portland/Seattle ect.. will ever face. Neither of those attacking teams I jut mention have anywhere close to serie a class defending. Let's see them attack mexican teams well consistently before even comparing them to seria a teams. It's easy to look good in your own poor defending league.
Salary cap can be raised but I think you're being incredibly optimistic to think it would be raised to equal the top 4 NA sports to rival the bigger leagues around the world NOT hamstrung by that league structure.
FORMER FULL TIME KOOL-AID DRINKER
Hahahahahahha, I am gald I saw this thread late, or I would have had a heart attack. Serie A has issues, but to be honest they starting to pass. The real thing holding it back that the two big teams from Italy's economic powerhouse Milan, both of which are still in the top 20 clubs in the world revenue wise, are not turning it around fast enough. But they are still full of talent, and quite a few young rising start players.
This Milan team would struggle to stay in the premiership. past the top 4-5 teams it's a pretty terrible league.
Last edited by molenshtain; 02-10-2016 at 12:29 PM.
Serious question. Is this irony or are you serious?
Do you actually think Aston Villa or Sunderland might be better than Milan?
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
Well fair enough. But those are two of the worst teams to feature in the top flight in a decade. Milan are only marginally better than either though. They'd be right in that 16-18/19 range in the table.
^ LOL. What stuff are you on?
lol....cool story bro.....
just for some perspective, Milan's GA is comparable to the 4th least allowed in the BPL.....GF around 8-9......how that translates to points I don't know but with those comparisons, to suggest that they'd be 16-19 shows a severe overestimation of the BPL.....
Wow this thread turned into a Serie A vs Premiership thread. Who would've called that in 10 years of following this league.
Try and keep it on the rails guys.
FORMER FULL TIME KOOL-AID DRINKER
The 16th place team in the EPL is Swansea. I've had a quick look at their roster, I feel quite confident in saying that, if 1000 fans were offered their choice of Swansea or Milan's roster, 999 would pick Milan.
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
You'd probably get the same answer with the first placed team, doesn't mean anything really. Leicester assembled for 21 million quid. Star players are Vardy- signed for 1 million quid, Mahrez- signed for 400,000 quid.
There's a tendency when comparing teams or leagues to use history, prestige and financial power as tools and normally that is right, but our friends at Leicester are tearing up that rule book.
I think comparison of leagues is futile, all have their own pros and cons. Just enjoy them for what they are.
You clearly haven't spent much time in south Wales ...
The cap will need to rise significantly to be able to compete with the big leagues in Europe.
The MLS might be able to compete for some big names every year with some big clubs, but the depth of MLS rosters just isn't there.
The better question in this thread is how MLS would fare against Serie B. Now that might be a more interesting match up. MLS should be starting to kick on the doors of the better second division Euro leagues. Not England or Germany yet but maybe France and Italy.
Still, until our our salary cap is nicely above $10M without counting DP money, we aren't a major world player.
MLS is pretty significantly above ligue 2 or serie b.
I'd argue that Journeyman MLS players are underpaid for their actual skillset.
I agree. I would be very interested to see how we would fare against Serie B. I appreciate Garber wanting to expand the league at a steady rate but he has got to realize that in order to truly compete on the world stage the cap has to increase.
@Initial B - Almost all Journeyman MLS players are very underpaid for what they offer to the game.
I'll always have a soft spot for Serie A because I grew up on it. The saddest thing about the decline of Italian soccer is the dilapidation of most of the stadia, among the corruption and waning support. Talent wise over the past several years, the league lags behind most of Europe in developing/keeping/stealing top skilled players, Italians especially.
MLS is clearly on the rise, but do I think a top MLS team could go toe to toe with even a mid-table Serie A club in a competitive match? Nope. That's not a knock on MLS nor is it euro-snobby...it's just the truth. Obviously removing or SIGNIFICANTLY raising the salary cap would change MLS' ability to develop/keep/steal talent. But realistically, I doubt that'll happen for a long time.
The European talent pool has had nearly a century to develop. It's part of their culture. Calcio is in their blood. I personally think it's counter productive to put a 20 year old league against the top flight league of a country that's always been among the greats for almost 100 years. Just my opinion. I think it's a bit premature to compare the 2. If trends continue though, that'll change. MLS is doing big things.
As someone mentioned earlier, the better question is MLS vs Serie B. Pit a top Serie B club, a notorious flip-flop club against a Seattle or LA and let them have at it...that would be interesting to watch. Lower divisions may not be as star studded, but they're hungry.
This brings my next question: What are people basing their opinions on about whether or not Serie A is better than MLS or not? It seems that many are basing on the salary figures rather than actual talent based on statistics. Does anyone have possession/TSR/chances created in the attacking third data that we can use to make an objective comparison rather than subjective? Eyes can be fooled but there is truth in data.
How about looking at what a gifted Italian player can do to this league but not in Italy? I wish that we had an example of that. Perhaps an attacking player that was good enough to be part of one of Italy's big teams, perhaps one of the best teams in Europe, but who could never be given first team minutes, and who then comes over here to play. I wonder how he would do. I would say that if MLS was as good as Serie A then that player would have similar results, decent but not extraordinary.
Too bad that we do not have a real live example of this.
jesus christ no one is saying our top teams are better than their top teams. It's just a very top heavy league and most of the teams in MLS wouldn't look out of place in the lower tier of Serie A.
^ I was making a joke, BUT, the thing that Serie A is better then most other leagues is their organization, tactical proficiency and football IQ is much higher then any MLS side.
It's not hard to be organized if you play the game as slow as they do. It's like watching a group of geriatrics run a molasses factory.
I can't agree, I think the MLS teams couldn't compete in Serie A, but I also must say I wouldn't be too interested in watching Frosinone play Verona.
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
Really? how many playoff teams from last year would struggle in serie A, and why? Where in say LA's lineup, or Dallas' or even ours come up short against the lower tier serie A lineups?
We really struggle to even compete against Mexican Clubs and sometimes even clubs in places like Honduras or Costa Rica in Concacaf Champions League. How many tittles have Mexican clubs won and how many MLS Clubs?? ya exactly. Lets focus on becoming dominant Clubs of North America first before we start trying to claim we can compete with leagues like Seria A!
Last edited by james; 02-15-2016 at 11:31 PM.
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