Which is the strongest second tier league?

Having seen some segunda fooball here, a few serie b matches and obviously loads of championship matches, i´d have to say that despite the fact that imo the prem is not as strong as serie a or premiera liga, the championship overall is consistantly stronger than the 2nd leagues in spain or italy.

wot do you think?

I've no bloody idea to be honest

Well Serie B easily has the highest number of "big clubs" (Genoa, Napoli, Juve, Bologna + others), which IMO the other 2 2nd leagues dont have. Therefore, I would expect Serie B to be a bit better, but tbh I havent seen anywhere near enough of the leagues to judge on quality.

This year Serie B but normally I'd say the Championship

championship wth ease. The average attendances in the championship were higher than the top tier divisions in france,holland and scotland the other year.

@hardrada-how about West Brom,Leeds,Birmingham,Sunderland,Norwich,Ipswich...

even two time european cup champions nottingham forest are a division below

Tweedledum wrote:This year Serie B but normally I'd say the Championship

i agree why i said regularly

italian_hammer(DEANO!) wrote:championship wth ease. The average attendances in the championship were higher than the top tier divisions in france,holland and scotland the other year.

Attendancy is a moot point really. The same argument was used by Americans to claim that MLS is one of the more popular ligues in the world - more popular than ligue 1 and Eredivisie.

I can't speak for Ligue 1, but the Eredivisie is regularly fully filled, and there are plenty of teams that cannot house everyone who wants to go to the game. Many Dutch teams have small "stadiums" (most can host at best 6-7k), whilst you have people playing in the stadium of light and other big stadiums. Same goes for MLS being played in 100.000 person enormo-domes in the US with only 15k in attendance.

Absolute numbers without the reletative numbers say f*ck alll. And attendancy isn't even a way to gauge a leagues competative quality.

in a way it is

would 15,000 people turn up to watch a bunch of schoolboys??? no they wouldnt. So quality of the league can reflect in attendance in a way. I didnt say it was the only point though did i!

italian_hammer(DEANO!) wrote:in a way it is

would 15,000 people turn up to watch a bunch of schoolboys??? no they wouldnt. So quality of the league can reflect in attendance in a way. I didnt say it was the only point though did i!

Apparently there are 50,000 paadophiles in Britain.....

italian_hammer(DEANO!) wrote:in a way it is

would 15,000 people turn up to watch a bunch of schoolboys??? no they wouldnt. So quality of the league can reflect in attendance in a way. I didnt say it was the only point though did i!

So you're claiming the German league is the best league in Europe ?

English pay 30 pounds for an EPL ticket, Germans 7-10 euro for a Bundesliga match is that a reflection on the quality on offer or just how crazy some people are (I still can't believe you'd structurally pay that much for tickets....) ?

For the record : I do think the English league is way better than the German league (I just don't think attendance is any kind of measure).

Tweedledum wrote:

italian_hammer(DEANO!) wrote:in a way it is

would 15,000 people turn up to watch a bunch of schoolboys??? no they wouldnt. So quality of the league can reflect in attendance in a way. I didnt say it was the only point though did i!

Apparently there are 50,000 paadophiles in Britain.....

lol. ok then

would 15,000 people turn up to watch hornchurch vs chelmsford town?

Axeslammer ! wrote:

italian_hammer(DEANO!) wrote:in a way it is

would 15,000 people turn up to watch a bunch of schoolboys??? no they wouldnt. So quality of the league can reflect in attendance in a way. I didnt say it was the only point though did i!

So you're claiming the German league is the best league in Europe ?

English pay 30 pounds for an EPL ticket, Germans 7-10 euro for a Bundesliga match is that a reflection on the quality on offer or just how crazy some people are (I still can't believe you'd structurally pay that much for tickets....) ?

For the record : I do think the English league is way better than the German league (I just don't think attendance is any kind of measure).

no as again i did not say "attendance is the only measure". i think the fact an average of 18,000 fans are willing to pay £25 per ticket to watch their team in the 2nd tier shows it must have some quality about it.

but then again look at attendance numbers at Juventus. You can hardly say their football is of a poor level?

Maybe it also has to do with the entertainment value of the English game in general

and the passionate middle class fans who buy tickets maybe

toon h wrote:but then again look at attendance numbers at Juventus. You can hardly say their football is of a poor level?

Maybe it also has to do with the entertainment value of the English game in general

there you go, were juventus entertaining? i'd have to say they are one of themost boring sides ive watched.

anyway forget the comparision i made, and just look it at it that i mean, attendances in the championship are quite high now and have increased over the last few years.

I don't know what is happening here but I seem to be losing half of my posts somewhere along the line.

In any case, entertainment value and quality are two different things.

I still think the English league wins it.
The Spanish Segunda is very competitive (amongst each other) but not as high quality as either the Italian or the English. It may be more or less the German 2nd Division.

I suppose the demographic issue becomes more important there and the quality of Spanish football is really concentrated in a few clubs.

italian_hammer(DEANO!) wrote:anyway forget the comparision i made, and just look it at it that i mean, attendances in the championship are quite high now and have increased over the last few years.

No problem.

Attendancy is based on many things, among which quality of play is one of them. In that aspect you're a bit right, but its far from the sole reason for it. That's why you can't turn the reasoning around. Thus, you can say that attendancy is based on quality of play, but not that quality is based on attendancy.

We'll drop it.

for today

Serie B has big named teams, and the likes of Juve, Napoli and Genoa can still attract big name players. However, the league is very unbalanced and the teams around the bottom are very small and struggle to compete, whilst the top teams have the money and better players. Genoa for example have just signed Figeroa on around £3m a year which is insane for a serie b club. The league overall also lacks attendences and facilities.

The championship has many decent players, decent grounds, good attendences and a decent standard of overall football.

italian_hammer(DEANO!) wrote:championship wth ease. The average attendances in the championship were higher than the top tier divisions in france,holland and scotland the other year.

@hardrada-how about West Brom,Leeds,Birmingham,Sunderland,Norwich,Ipswich...

even two time european cup champions nottingham forest are a division below

Leeds are a big club - Ill give you that.

But IMO they are the only team from that list remotely comparable to Juve (27 scudetti + 2 CL), Bologna (7 Scudetti), Genoa (a number of Scudetti quite high but I dont know), Napoli (only 2 Scudetti, But Maradona also). Napoli and Genoa get higher attendances than nearly all Championship clubs I think. I didnt even mention teams like Brescia, Bari and Lecce who are IMO on a par (at least) with the Birminghams and West Broms of this world.

Notts Forest are comparable to the big clubs as well as well, but theyre in the 3rd tier, so im not sure if I can count them.

Can't be bothered to read the whole thread, but attendance is not a sign of league strength.

Celtic for example have close to 60 thousand every game, are we going to claim they have more quality than the average Juve team?

Juve have trouble getting 30 thousand at home...

If attendance indiactes the quality of the football being played, then surely the Asian leagues are amongst the best.

Segunda. Some teams in segunda play better football than some teams in primera

Attendance doesnt have anything to do with the level of a league.

Luso 'Sporting' wrote:

Celtic for example have close to 60 thousand every game, are we going to claim they have more quality than the average Juve team?

me and me dad got lost when we first went to celtic, its a lovely stadium
the cheese pizza lovely

Can we can compare the success rates of The 2nd tier leagues - i.e those who get promoted, do they come straight back down, etc?

Juve in seria b is a bit of a freak and I dont think you should really be using them to say 'b' is more superior to the championship.

The lower English leagues are certainly the best supported but there is a lot of long ball and poor football going on (not that its all like that). It is usually touted as being the best lower league.

You're all having a laugh right ? THe PL have already some mediocre teams not able to do twoo short passes in a whole games and you think the english D1 is the best second division in the world ???

clowns.
I'd say the french league 2 and the spanish league 2 have the best teams.

I dont believe attendance is a good variable to use as an indicator as to how good a league is, neither is price as price is determined by what the buyer is willing to pay demand V supply.

The english league often pack out their stadia and have high ticket prices, all that implies is that the english like football a great deal and are willing to spend relative large amounts of money to watch football, in terms of quality it comes down to opinion, my opinion is that Serie B this year will have the highest quality of teams and players, normally id opt or the premiership,

@Arnaud, ligue 2 is bollocks infact the quality of football is comparable to the english league 1/2. Its quite laughable that you (obviously biasedly influenced) believe this, Infact the spanish second division is although technically competant lacks organisation tactically.

Thats my view anway

One of the biggest strengths of Italian football has been the amazing level of Serie B... for teh past 20 seasons, Serie B will easily be in the top 10 of european leagues.

The Championship has been improving steadily, but even now I think Serie B is the strongest. EPL and la Liga have caught up with Serie A, but teh second division in Italy is still huge and very difficult to win. Thats why I am surprised when people assume that Juve (with all their stars) will easily overturn the 17 point penalty. Its not going to be that easy, believe me. Remember Batistuta's Fiorentina, anyone??

I don't think juve will win the league by 17 points but I think they will be guaranteed at least a play-off place and will thus progress