Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-USA TODAY Sports
As I currently sit here watching Manchester City currently showing their title rivals why they should be considered the frontrunner to take the league crown back to the blue side of Manchester, I am constantly reminded why the BPL truly is the top league in the world. A friend and ex-teammate of mine just last week posted a Facebook status that read “this is why the Premier League is the best league in the world – there is never a weekend where there is not an amazing match to watch.” – he is certainly not incorrect in that statement. Where am I going with this? Simple; why should newcomers to the sport go straight to the Barclays Premier League for their introduction to club football? The competitive edge that the BPL has over every other league is astounding.
Let us never mind the fact that La Liga can boast ownership of the worlds best players in Messi and Ronaldo (debate amongst yourselves on who you feel is better), the Bundesliga have arguably the best over-all club side in the world in Bayern Munich and Lique 1 having arguably the top two strikers in the world in Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Falcao, none of those leagues hold a candle to the BPL. Why? Because as my friend so simply put it; each match day is an amazing one. I failed to mention that said friend is born and raised in Spain before moving to the states and oozing the white of Real Madrid from his pores, but even he can calmly admit that the BPL is leaps and bounds more entertaining and action packed each time he watches. In how many other leagues in Europe can each weekend offer the possibility that a top side drop points or lose to a bottom feeder? In how many competitions do smaller sides truly have a legitimate chance of lifting a trophy in a cup competition? Most importantly, how many leagues have a five-team title race rather than two or three at most? Should Spurs somehow manage to win today, they will sit fifth in the table, only six points behind Arsenal who would remain in first should City fail to win. Only this year really, has La Liga become a three-horse race with the constant improvement of Atletico Madrid under the stewardship of Diego Simeone – Barcelona, Real and Atletico are only separated by one combined point, however the rest of the league is light-years away in talent level from the top clubs and realistically hardly stand a chance from ever taking points off the run-away leaders. In the Bundesliga, Bayern are soon to be 13 points clear of second placed Bayer Leverkusen, Juventus are running away with the Serie A yet again and PSG and AS Monaco are duking it out atop Lique 1 without any resistance to the contrary.
All these facts about point leads and tables are common knowledge if you do your research this is true, however, it’s the entertainment value through competitive nature that makes the BPL top notch. The closeness of the clubs in the league also dictates that, despite the money it can provide, the BPL offers plenty of destinations for quality players while other leagues can really only boast half a handful of sides that a player would want to venture to – this helps to keep the BPL a closer competition, as the talent pool is much larger but it is also spread out amongst many clubs.
Most importantly, at least for me when I consider the factors that draw me in to a sport in general, it is about the fighting spirit of the athlete’s in question and in no other league do you see that in abundance like you do in the BPL. I will yet again refer back to the comment my friend made – the reason each weekend is action packed in the BPL, is because every side, title challenger or relegation battler, go out each weekend and believe they can get a result. Now, I will say that their approach to that end will always vary (Stoke City and their rugby tactics is a prime example), but the fighting spirit is there. That same friend of mine in an earlier conversation a few months prior, noted that in La Liga teams do not go out and ever think they can take points off the title contenders. They all deploy tactical schemes to try to minimize the amount of goals they concede rather than deploy tactics that allows them to hit the big boys on the break to try to give them that added threat to make the favorite consider that in their own tactical set up. Despite going into matches far away from being favorites to get a result, BPL sides more often than not approach a match with the mindset that they must at least be competitive about their business – not to mention the fact that the fans will always expect their players to put in a shift, no matter what the odds.
Over the years, especially when I was growing up in New York City, I have been one of the few in my circle of friends that had such a love and passion for the game and often times it got me made fun of. The tables are turning now as, in the last five years or so, more and more of those same friends are coming to me and asking for advice on which BPL side I think they would enjoy trying to support based off their sporting loyalties to teams here in the States. They also often tell me how they appreciate that, while the MLS is not the best league in the world, it is however always close and competitive – they love the fact that each season something different inevitably can happen. Most people I have come across over the last half-decade who have begun to show interest in the BPL are MLS fans who have gotten snippet previews of the BPL through their pre-season tours of the United States as well as BPL matches airing on American television networks with great popularity – the amount of people who are starting to stand up and take notice is massive.
The beauty of the of the Barclays Premier League is not it’s star-studded starting elevens and it is not the endless stream of magical funding that never ceases – it’s the fighting spirit and the competitive edge and nature of the underdog that the BPL provides that makes it the best league in the world. Each weekend offers the possibility that something unexpected and even magical can happen. So I say to you, budding football supporter, look no further than England if you want to truly be drawn in to the sport for what it is truly about down to it’s core – the possibility of the improbable.