Ranking the World's National Soccer Leagues from Best to Worst

[Madmick]

Don't forget that MLS is only been around for 25 years where all the other big leagues and Clubs have 100 or more.
Soccer being an sport with talents from all around the world you simply can't go to the top in 20 years...specially with the salary cap system.

Horseshit. Yes you can. Money buys everything.

Money can't buy views, directly, and the MLS doesn't have the base for that. This is the backbone of future revenue stream. That level of money isn't there.

 

[Nesk]

Horseshit. Yes you can. Money buys everything.

Money can't buy views, directly, and the MLS doesn't have the base for that. This is the backbone of future revenue stream. That level of money isn't there.

Soccer in America is always gonna have two big differences from NFL, NBA etc...
The first one is MLS has competition of other top leagues outside of America. NFL, NBA etc...don't have this problem.
The second and even more important is the Holy Grail of club football "the UEFA Champions League"...as long as American teams don't compete in the UEFA Champions League a lot of top players are always gonna prefer to play in Europe.

 

[Madmick]

Soccer in America is always gonna have two big differences from NFL, NBA etc...
The first one is MLS has competition of other top leagues outside of America. NFL, NBA etc...don't have this problem.
The second and even more important is the Holy Grail of club football "the UEFA Champions League"...as long as American teams don't compete in the UEFA Champions League a lot of top players are always gonna prefer to play in Europe.

Yes, and the "competition" is a superiority of dollars in almost all of those leagues. Yet it isn't in 51 of them. Not even close.

You're failing to grasp the simple concept of degree.

 

[UVee]

I knew the list wasn't going to look great with Brazil in at 3.

MLS will be the worlds best now Zlatan has arrived.

 

[Nesk]

Yes, and the "competition" is a superiority of dollars in almost all of those leagues. Yet it isn't in 51 of them. Not even close.

You're failing to grasp the simple concept of degree.

No you are the one who fails to grasp the concept. 90% of the top talents in Europe play in the top 5 leagues...and they all make 10-20M pro season or even more...football in Europe is not like hockey or Basket were the majority of the top players only make like a couple hundred thousand. Money is not a issue like in those other sports.
If money was everything like you said then the majority of top players would have accepted the offers of Chinese clubs that offered the double of what they are making right now.
Giovinco who was a reserve player for Juventus was making 3M and Toronto overpays(7M) to make him come to MLS...if you think that's the way to go then okay.

For a guy that don't follows football you surely act like you are the only one who knows how it works...so I'm not gonna start arguing with you like last time in the best known athlete...Good luck.

 

[El Che]

La Liga and EPL are the top 2 and in a class of their own
then it's Italy and Germany in the next tier
then it's a mix of France, Portugal, Brasil, Argentina, Mexico, Netherlands and Turkey
then other South American/European leagues and MLS
then no one gives a shit.

 

[wang xiangzhai]

Is the MLS more competitive than the Mexican Primera "La Liga X"?

Not sure, the MLS has more exposure here in Europe since many old stars go there but as far as pure soccer quality i dont really know

 

[DangDaGawd]

Thomas Dooley

 

[Madmick]

What a splash:



'They wanted Zlatan, I gave them Zlatan'

 

[trolldum]

IFFHS is garbage. Estimated market value of the players by league made by Transfermarkt:

According to this MLS is 14. strongest league in the world. Sounds about right.

 

[Madmick]

IFFHS is garbage. Estimated market value of the players by league made by Transfermarkt:

According to this MLS is 14. strongest league in the world. Sounds about right.

Yeah, everybody knew both "Rankings" in the OP were garbage: #7 or #52. But I didn't know enough myself to peg where they should rightly go.

In essence, I created this thread to find this post:

La Liga and EPL are the top 2 and in a class of their own
then it's Italy and Germany in the next tier
then it's a mix of France, Portugal, Brasil, Argentina, Mexico, Netherlands and Turkey
then other South American/European leagues and MLS
then no one gives a shit.

/thread for me.

 

[ens189]

I would think that English Championship level teams would all beat their MLS counterparts. MLS should be somewhere in the 20-30 range imo.

 

[UltraMagnusReturns]

Man city, Man utd, Liverpool, Totenham, Chelsea, and arsenal.

No league in the world has 6 teams of that quality.

Last time was the superb 90s version of Serie A

Inter milan, AC milan, Juventus, Lazio, Fiorentina etc.

 

[blokeybloke]

Semi-retired LA Galaxy left back Ashley Cole is giving Zlatan better service than he got from his Utd team mates under Mourinho.

 

[Kadafi]

Follow this link to see the 2017 IFFHS full list (it's in a table):
https://iffhs.de/the-strongest-national-league-of-the-world-spains-primera-division-again/

The MLS is ranked at #52? Really? I know we aren't Tier 1, but that's hard to believe.

This is back from 2013, but it's a ranking from some think tank analyst firm called "Sporting Intelligence". The MLS made #7 on this list:


In fact, math nerd Nate Silver maintains a list of the top clubs (not leagues) in the world using his purely mathematical driven approach to these questions, and 23 of the MLS's teams make it on his list of 460 total clubs across the world (the highest, ironically, being the Canadian club Toronto FC appearing at #212):
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/global-club-soccer-rankings/
Come on. That's nearly the entire league, and this is just 460 teams. MLS teams compose 5%, or 1/12th, of the list.

Meanwhile, not that players are restricted to leagues of their national origin, but even using the purely mathematical ELO rankings of national teams in the world, right now, the USA is ranked at #29:
http://www.eloratings.net/
That's way down from our peak around #11 or so, IIRC, we might have broken into the top ten at one point in this ranking, but I'm not sure. I know we've gotten as high as #6 on the FIFA list, but that's bullshit.

In any case, even with male American soccer in such a state of disrepair, our national team itself is nowhere near #52, and despite the relative lack of interest in the sport in the USA, we are so wealthy that I find it impossible to believe we aren't in the Top 20 best-funded/highest-paying leagues in the world. That's what attracts talent.


What do you soccer nerds think? Is there a worse placement of a league on this list? What stands out to you?

MLS is such trash. It's definitely 3rd or 4th tier English league level football.

 

[Kadafi]

Semi-retired LA Galaxy left back Ashley Cole is giving Zlatan better service than he got from his Utd team mates under Mourinho.

Yeah, but it's also Cole. He's a legend...mostly for marrying Cheryl.

 

[blokeybloke]

MLS is such trash. It's definitely 3rd or 4th tier English league level football.

Fitness & athleticism alone puts MLS standard in the low 2nd tier/high 3rd tier bracket of English football. 4th tier level goalkeeping though.

The standard of lower Lg footy in England has dropped off a cliff. Since manufacturing was exported to china all of the factory sports grounds have been sold off nationwide & lego housing tracts have been built on them. My local area back home used to have 14 sunday leagues when i played as a teenager. It has 3 now. The pyramid is shrinking.

 

[Literally Bricked]

Also, The Netherlands all the way down at #22?

Really? Is that accurate? That seems way, way too low for them.

No that is very accurate. The Netherlands right now might be the worst team in Europe. I am positive that Turkey would steamroll them atm. Heck, I don’t think the Netherlands team as a whole would win MLS with the coaching and talent drain with retirees.

 

[blokeybloke]

The Dutch youth academy system used to be eyed jealously by many other European footballing powerhouse nations. Johan Cruyff took it to Spain & built Barca with the foundation of Ajax's total football philosophy.

They banned Dutch kids from playing on full sized pitches which helped them focus on strong technical fundamentals. Such as being able to play out of tight spaces with solid positional movements, on & off the ball, and crisp passing. They also have kids play on 4G pitches which helps give them a better foundation for learning to control the ball.

England never followed suit so in our pre teen years lumping the ball up front got hardwired into our DNA. This causes a lot of inaccurate passing so we then had to focus on tackling to get the ball back. Whereas kids on the continent(Spain, Italy, Holland) are trained to make less mistakes so you dont need to tackle.

Dont know why the Dutch system has failed so badly of late. Their new generation of players are very timid. I imagine the lure of other nations money has something to do with it.

 

[Madmick]

No that is very accurate. The Netherlands right now might be the worst team in Europe. I am positive that Turkey would steamroll them atm. Heck, I don’t think the Netherlands team as a whole would win MLS with the coaching and talent drain with retirees.

The question is about national leagues, not national teams.