What is the best football league in the world?

                                                 What is the best football league in
                                                                the world?


In the football community there is always a very strong debate between Fans, Pundits and Players a like when it comes to the discussion of what is the best football league in the world. There are various ways in which you can look at certain leagues and say why they are the best and in this blog I will take all of these into consideration. When in discussion about the best league in the world the five main leagues that are always discussed are La Liga - Spain, Barclay's Premier League - England, Bundesliga - Germany, Serie A - Italy and Ligue 1 - France.

Below I  will look at the various categories I have taken into consideration and i will be using a ranking system of points for each category 5 being the highest and 1 being the lowest;


Quality of players 

La Liga - Well you have to say that La Liga is full of top quality and world class players. The two best players in the world currently ply their trade in the league- Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi - other top players that play in the league are Xavi, Andreas Iniesta, Neymar, Gareth Bale, Angel Di Maria, Luka Modric, Sergio Busquets, Diego Costa and Thibaut Courtios. This is the best league in the world in my opinion for top quality player talent.







Premier League - The Premier League has a lot of top quality players but players of a top top quality in the league are decreasing every year. Players in the league that are of the top quality though include Luis Suarez, Yaya Toure, Sergio Aguero, Vincent Kompany, Eden Hazard, Mesut Ozil, Wayne Rooney and Robin Van Persie.







Bundesliga - The Bundesliga is about on the same level as the Premier League for top quality players. The players in the league that I'd consider to be top quality would be Frank Ribery, Arjen Robben, Bastian Schweinstiger, Phillip Lahm, Manuel Neuer,  Robert Lewandowski, Marco Reus and Klaas Jan Huntelaar.

Serie A - If i was writing this blog about ten years ago then Serie A would be the best league in the world but since the 2006 match fixing scandal the quality of the league has decreased. This means there are few quality players currently plying their trade in the league these include Arturo Vidal, Andrea Pirlo, Carlos Tevez, Gianluigi Buffon, Daniele De Rossi, Kevin Strootman and Gonzalo Higuain.

Ligue 1 - Ligue 1 is by far the weakest league of the five i'm looking at but because of PSG and Monaco's money more top players are joining the league these players include Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Edison Cavani, Thiago Silva, Radamel Falcao, James Rodriquez and Joao Moutinho.








Going by the above I would rank the leagues based on player quality as the following:

1. La Liga = 5 points.
2. Bundesliga = 4 points
3. Premier League = 3 points
4. Serie A = 2 points
5. Ligue 1 = 1 point


Quality of Managers 

La Liga - As you would expect with such a big league the quality of managers in La Liga is very high. Carlo Ancelotti in my opinion is the best manager in the European game and current manager of Real Madrid. Diego Simione is another who has worked wonders at Atletico Madrid getting them to the champions league final. Gerardo Martino has a big reputation following success in Argentina and as the manager of Chile but his time at Barcelona hasn't gone to plan. Ernesto Valverde is a manager that many in England won't have heard but he has worked wonders to get Athletico Bilbao from mid table to being the best of the rest after the top three teams by achieving a forth place finish. Luis Enrique the manager of Celta Vigo is also poised to become the new Barcelona manager next season as Martino is expected to be sacked.

Premier League - The manager that most people talk about in the Premier League is Jose Mourinho but that is mainly to do with his media outbursts rather then success as Chelsea are going to go a season without a Trophy under Jose. As the longest serving manager in the Premier League Arsene Wenger is respected by everyone - apart from Mourinho who describe Wenger as a 'specialist in failure' - He has been the manager of Arsenal for eighteen years and in that time has led them to eighteen top four finishes and one of the most successful periods in the clubs history. When Manuel Pellegrini arrived in England there were doubts about his quality as a manager but he proved the doubters wrong by securing the Premier League title in his first season in charge with Manchester City. Brendan Rodgers was a slip away from winning the Premier League but had a great season in securing Liverpool second place. Roberto Martinez is the manager to watch in the Premier League after guiding Everton to fifth this season.

Bundesliga - The Bundesliga is also full of some very good managers the main manager that everyone will 

know from the Bundesliga is Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola. Guardiola enjoyed Monumental success at Barcelona which persuaded Bayern that he was the right man for the Bayern job but he has come under criticism for the way he played as Bayern crashed out of the Champions league at the semi - final stage. Jurgen Kloop is another manager who is highly valued by many pundits and fans a like from around the world, people like him because of the passion he displays and the fact he guided Dortmund to back to back titles on a limited budget, also guided Dortmund to the champions league semi final last season. An upcoming young manager in the Bundesliga who is expected to go on to bigger things is Mainz coach Thomas Tuchel. He is being wildly reported as being the next Schalke manager. 

  

Serie A- The main manger that everyone around Europe rates in Serie A is Napoli Manager Rafa Benitez. He has won numerous trophies as a manager and is the last manager to break the Barcelona - Real Madrid monopoly in La Liga and last season he may have been unpopular at Chelsea but unlike Mourinho he secured a trophy. A manager that is considered a top manager in Italy but not so much outside of Italy is Juventus manager Antonio Conte, Conte is highly rated in Italy as he has led Juventus to three consecutive Scudetto's which is a very good achievement considering Juventus were in Serie B five years ago. Rudi Garcia is another manager who will be unknown to many in England but in Europe he is highly regarded in Europe especially more this season as he has led Roma to a second place finish after they finished sixth the previous year. Another Notable manager who is working in Italy at the moment is the former Italy manager Roberto Donadoni who is currently the boss of Parma and has led them to seventh place so far this season.

Ligue 1 - The quality of Ligue 1 managers are not as high as the ones in the rival leagues. The biggest name currently managing in the French league is Claudio Ranieri. He will be best known to people in England for his stint as manager at Chelsea, more for the lack of English skills he had rather then his actual managing ability. This season he has guided Monaco to a second place finish in the league in their first season back after promotion but he is expected to be sacked in the summer. Laurent Blanc also has to be considered a top manager simply because he manages the best team in France, PSG. he has guided PSG to a domestic double this season and despite failure to get past the quarter finals of the Champions League he has recently signed a one year contract extension at the club. Christophe Galtier the current manager of Saint Etienne is a manager to look out for in the future and has been linked to several jobs abroad. 

Going by the above I would rank the leagues based on manager quality as the following: 

1. La Liga = 5 points 

2. Premier League = 4 points

3. Serie A = 3 points

4. Bundesliga = 2 points 

5. Ligue 1 = 1 point

Competitiveness of the league  

To way in which I am going to gauge the competitiveness between the leagues is by by saying how many points are between certain places on the table. 

La Liga - If you look at the La Liga table from the season that has just finished you can see that Atletico Madrid won La Liga by 3 points which is a very respectable margin. However if you look at the gap from first to fourth in the table - the champions league places - the points difference is a staggering twenty points which shows the top three teams are far ahead in terms of quality. The difference in points between first and seventh - the final European place - in the table is thirty one points which is again a very high number. The final points difference I am going to take into account is the difference between first and last in the table, in this instance that number is sixty five points which shows the top clubs are far, far ahead of the bottom clubs.

Premier League - If you look at the premier league table from the season that has just finished you can see Manchester City won the league by 2 points which is a competitive margin. If you look further you can see the gap between first and fourth in the table you will see that the points difference is only seven, a very low amount which shows the top teams are evenly matched. After this you can see that the points difference between first in the league and seventh is only twenty two points which is a very low margin when you take a lot of factors into consideration. Finally you can see that the difference between the teams placed first and last in the table fifty six points which shows that the cream does rise to the top.

Bundesliga - If you look at the Bundesliga table from the season that has just finished you can see that Bayern Munich won the league by a staggering 19 points which shows they are a dominant team. If you look further at the table you can see the gap between first and fourth is twenty nine points which is also a very high number of points difference.  After this you can also see that the difference in points between first in the table and seventh in the table is thirty seven points which is a very high number. Finally if you look at the amount of points between first and last in the table is sixty five points which again is a very high number which shows that this league isn't very competitive. 

Serie A - If you look at the Serie A table from the season that has just finished you can see that Juventus won the league by 17 points which is very high for the Italian league, which shows that they are a quality side. After this you can see that the gap between first and fourth in the table is a very high thirty seven point which shows the league is low on quality. If you look at the number of points between the teams in first and seventh you can see that the number of points between them equals forty five points which is a very high amount when compared to the other leagues i have compared in this article. Finally you can see the difference in points between first and last in the table is seventy seven points which shows that the quality of this league isn't evenly spread out at all.

Ligue 1- If you look at Ligue 1 table form the season that has just finished you will see that PSG won the league by nine points which is an okay amount of points to win a league championship by. If you look further on you will see that the number of points between the teams first and fourth in the league was twenty points which compared to the other leagues is a good amount of points between them. You will also see if you look at the table that the amount of points between the teams that came first and seventh in the table was thirty six points which is about the same as the other leagues i have looked at. Finally if you look at the number of points between first and last in teh table you will see that the number of points between them are sixty six points. 

Going by the above I would rank the leagues based on league competitiveness as the following: 

1. Premier league = 5 points 

2. La Liga = 4 points

3. Ligue 1 = 3 points

4. Bundesliga = 2 points

5. Serie A = 1 point 

So after taking all the above factors into account here is what i have found to be the order of the best leagues in the world.

1. La Liga = 14 points

2. Premier League = 12 points

3. Bundesliga = 8 points

4. Serie A = 6 points

5. Ligue 1 = 5 points