EPL vs Serie A vs La Liga vs Bundesliga part 2

In the previous update , we look on the basis of worldwide viewership and the overall worth of the football clubs to demarcate leagues.
Now we will look into the quality of player's aspect to rank the leagues.
The quality of a player is of course subjective, but over the course of three different surveys, the Premier League trails behind its rivals.

It fares well in the The Guardian’s list of the best 100 players in the world from last year, contributing 29 players compared to 26 from La Liga, 18 from the Bundesliga and 17 from Serie A.
 But the Premier League suffers with the statistical analysis of Opta and Football Observatory published in The Daily Mirror, which sought to find the top 50 players in Europe’s leading five leagues broken down into the best 10 strikers, attacking midfielders, defensive midfielders, central midfielders and full-backs.
The Premier League comes in at the bottom of the five leagues with just seven players represented, compared to 14 from La Liga, 11 from Serie A, nine from the Bundesliga and eight from France’s Ligue 1.
The best way to judge that is by reviewing their votes for the FIFPro World XI team of the year since it began in the 2005-06 season.
 Once again, it makes for sorry reading for the Premier League which has only been represented in the FIFPro World XI team of the year 18 times, compared to La Liga, which has had a player in the team 52 times. Serie A has contributed 13 players, and the Bundesliga has only been represented on three occasions.
The great success of the Premier League is that it manages to be the best league in the world without the best players.
The power and enduring appeal of the Premier League is not in the quality of its football but rather in the excitement it provides and its inherent competitiveness.
At this stage of the season, the gap between the top five in the Premier League is by far the smallest of any of the leading European leagues.
 Just 10 points separate Arsenal in first and Everton in fifth position, while in La Liga this gap is 17 points, in the Bundesliga it is 20 points and in Serie A it grows to a mammoth 24 points.
The Premier League is far from perfect, but when you take into account its global audience, sponsorship appeal, wealth generated through television rights and competitiveness, it can still call itself the most popular and powerful league in the world.

EPL vs Serie A vs La Liga vs Bundesliga

When determining the most powerful league in the world, it's important to take many things into consideration.

 With the rise of Bundesliga due to current exploits of BVB and Bayern Munich, the reigning European Champions, and La Liga currently plays host to the vast majority of the current World Cup winners as well as the two most outstanding players of this generation, the English Premier League remains the most powerful league in the world.
The Premier League derives most of its power from the simple truth that more people want to watch it than any other league.
 On average each Premier League game has a global audience of 12.3 million people, Per Football-Marketing.com, which far outstrips La Liga, the Bundesliga and Serie A. In fact if you added together the average global audience for these leagues, La Liga with 2.2 million (via EPFL-Euroleagues.com), the Bundesliga (via 2012's economic report) with two million and Serie A (via Alessandro Baroncelli and Raul Caruso) with 4.5 million, it still wouldn’t overtake the all powerful Premier League.
As reported in The Daily Mirror, the German-based SPORT+MARKT found that the Premier League commands the biggest television audience in the world, giving the Premier League an unprecedented power to negotiate both its centralised television-rights deal and the clubs' individual sponsorship deals.
This worldwide appeal plays a significant role in the Premier League having more teams than any other league in the top 20 richest football teams, a list which is published annually by Deloitte Football Money League.
While La Liga contributes just three teams, and Serie A and the Bundesliga account for four teams each, once again the Premier League comes out on top with six teams, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur.

more updates coming soon.......

Is £55 million enough for Bayern?

Having won the treble last season, Germany's finest Bayern Munich in pursuit of remaining the best shelled out over £50 million.
They brought in the best coach in world football and spent more than £50 million to strengthen their squad, primarily spending on Mario Gotze from rivals Borussia Dortmund and also bringing in Thiago Alcantara from Barcelona.

Pep Guardiola's job will be to repeat the success the club attained last year, and they have certainly added more than enough quality over the last few months to claim the best squad in the league once more.
 But is it good enough to conquer Europe again?

Bayern Guide to champions League

BAYERN MUNICH 

History : Five-times European champions, bettered only by Real Madrid and Milan. They have lost as many finals as they have won.
2012/13: German and European Champions. Bested Borussia Dortmund to the domestic title and demonstrated their class against the same opposition in the Wembley final to end 12 years of pain.
Status: Favourites to win it all. Last year’s exceptional squad, with addition of Pep Guardiola, Gotze and Thiago Alcantara, could, in principle, refine recent achievements.

Coach: Replacing Jupp Heynckes , Pep Guardiola must feel the pressure of previous season triumphs but Pep has a starry resume of his own winning it all and many times with Barcelona.

Captain: A star performer for club and country, Philipp Lahm has shown himself to be one of—if not the—finest full-back of his generation.

 CL group 

CSKA Moscow
If the current Russian champions have any hopes of qualifying for the next round, they will be hoping to take at least something from Bayern when they travel to Moscow.
Seydou Doumbia, the Ivorian forward, is a tricky striker who's likely to lead the line forCSKA, while adequate support from goalscoring winger Ahmed Musa and Alan Dzagoev, the highly coveted Russian playmaker, should give Guardiola plenty to think about when this unknown quantity come up against his defending champions.

Manchester City 
A side that should appear a little easier to grasp is English Premier League side Manchester City, who entered the group in the third pot, but will undoubtedly pose the greatest threat to Bayern's hopes of winning the group.
Yet the side that completely capitulated to fellow Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund in last season's tournament seems to be long gone, as new coach Manuel Pellegrinihas arrived along with a host of new stars.
FC Viktoria Plzen 
The final side in Group D are Czech Republic champions Viktoria Plzen who join this company of clubs as something of a minnow. Yet despite the odds that will be firmly stacked against them, Viktoria will be able to attack each game with a whimsical lack of pressure and truly throw everything they have at each game.

 Prediction: Winners

Bayern won as Thiago and Gotze disappoints

Bayern Munich extended their unbeaten record to 28 consecutive matches in the Bundesliga, beating Nurnberg 2-0 at the Allianz Arena. Goals from Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben helped them to claim all three points in the Bavarian derby, leaving them with a perfect nine points from three matches in the 2013-14 Bundesliga campaign keeping up with Dorutmund.

Guardiola continued his vision for a new Bayern Munich style by starting both new signings, Thiago Alcantara and Mario Gotze, in the central positions of his roaming front four, alongside Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben, while Mario Mandzukic led the line.
The first half offered no more than another troublesome 45 minutes for Bayern and their fans as the central pairing of Thiago Alcantara and Mario Gotze struggled. In the former Dortmund playmaker's first Bundesliga start for his new side, both he and Thiago offered very little in terms of attacking options, as both not only failed to adapt to their own roles in the side, but also to the strong defense of their stubborn opponents.
There were moments of brilliance from the defending champions, unsurprisingly through the ever-reliable Franck Ribery as he skipped past Timothy Chandler on the left-hand wing and continuously sought the attention of Nurnberg's remaining back line. Arjen Robben was also of use throughout the first half, peppering the right wing with his direct runs.
Bayern surprisingly began the second half with the same starting eleven intact, yet with a different range of instructions as Ribery and Robben put a greater emphasis on crossing the ball for their towering striker in the box.
By the 60th minute, Nurnberg's box was in utter bombardment from the service offered to Mandzukic, as the striker duly complied and threatened to open the scoring if not for an excellent effort by Schafer to push the Croatian's header over the box.
Change finally came in the following 10 minutes as the two first-half culprits, Thiago and Gotze, were eventually replaced by Thomas Muller and Toni Kroos. The difference was immediate and in the 69th minute Franck Ribery broke the deadlock with a passionate header. With the home side finally getting their goal, all that was left for Nurnberg was to simply sit by and helplessly witness a wonderful goal from Arjen Robben deep in the later stages of the half as he skipped by three rushing defenders and slotted the ball past the stunned goalkeeper.

 A goal that will go down as an "Arjen Robben trademark," as the icing on the cake of this incredibly comfortable win for the Munich side in the 187th Bavarian derby.

BVB looking better without Gotze

After the Champions League defeat things at Borussia Dortmund were rather looking dull.
Mario Gotze's release clause had been activated while Robert Lewandowski was widely expected to follow suit. To make matters even worse, Bayern their Bundesliga rival were the team they were joining which were in the process of finalising a historic treble-winning campaign by defeating Stuttgart in the Pokal final.
It looked as though Bayern were slating themselves in for another dominant, uncontested season, but Dortmund general manager Hans-Joachim Watzke finally snapped, deciding enough was enough.
"Lewy" was denied the move to Bavaria he so desperately sought, and the club reinvested Gotze's transfer fee to replenish the attacking options in the side.
The best teams change to stay on top, and BVB were no different in realising this. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang arrived from St. Etienne in France, while Henrikh Mkhitaryan was acquired from under Liverpool's noses from Shakhtar Donetsk.

Mkhitaryan is one of the most dynamic, expansive and unpredictable No. 10s in the world, and despite some bad form early on, injuries can be blamed in stifling his game.  He's the type of player who has to be sharp and fit to play well, and we're still a few weeks away from seeing the best of him.
Aubameyang offers something completely different again, and being used on the right-hand side of a 4-2-3-1 formation unlocks his ridiculous acceleration and top-end speed. While Robert Lewandowski leads the line and occupies the centre-back's attention, Aubameyang can drop off into space, receive the ball and sprint forward. Defensive lines, on the turn, hate nothing more, and when the Gabon international finds a slither of composure, he's going to be a lethal weapon in Klopp's system.
Opposite him resides Marco Reus—the player Aubameyang can aspire to become. Reus is lightning quick, too, but his close control and decision-making process are years ahead of his new colleague's.
With Ilkay Gundogan's playmaking ability, in addition to the presence of Jakub Blaszczykowski and Kevin Grosskreutz, ensures the club will have depth across the forward line.
Historically, Klopp has been fond of changing his tactics on a game-by-game basis, and he frequently moves the "playmaker tag" from player to player in order to ensure his key players aren't marked out of the game. You'll be hard-pressed to find another squad so capable of playing in so many different ways, and Klopp will feel he has an option for every potential situation he could come across this season.
Gotze may have left, but Klopp has bought so cleverly that it's arguable the club is now better off. The truth is, Borussia Dortmund are now an irresistible, varied and overwhelming attacking force, and it's looking incredibly likely they can take Bayern all the way, both domestically and in Europe.
They've started the season with nine points from nine, but it's clear the new players are still adapting—the overwhelming statistic drawn from their 1-0 win over Werder Bremen on Friday night was that 32 shots were taken on goal, yet only one found the back of the net. It's been the story of the season so far, and die Schwarzgelben have been haunted by it over the last three weeks.
But once this side clicks into gear, there will be few defences in world football capable of stopping them in their tracks.

BVB defeated Bremen 1-0

Champions League finalists Borussia Dortmund signalled their intent of making Bayern work for the Bundesliga title as they made it nine points out of nine this season by beating Werder Bremen 1-0 which does not show the true picture of BVB dominance at Signal Iduna Park.
Robert Lewandowski netted the only goal of the game after Marco Reus fed a superb ball across the box for an easy tap-in. But, in all honesty, this could have been five or six goals to nil.

Profligacy was the home side's worst enemy once again, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Jakub Blaszczykowski, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Nuri Sahin all missing great chances throughout the 90 minutes.
Werder rarely threatened, and Marko Arnautovic's drilled effort wide of the goal just before half time was one of the only chances of note. Jonas Hoffman saw the pitch once again and looked extremely bright.

STATS

Shots: Dortmund 32-7 Werder Bremen
Passing: Dortmund 78%-68% Werder Bremen
Possession: Dortmund 60%-40% Werder Bremen

Predicting Bavarian derby with Bayern playing against Nurnberg

Pep Guardiola's side will be hoping to get back to business this weekend when they face their old enemy, FC Nurnberg in a David vs Goliath fight.
In the 187th Bavarian derby between the two clubs, Bayern Munich will be hoping to continue their undefeated campaign in the Bundesliga thus far, as Nurnberg will be desperate for at least a point in this tasty encounter. Bayern have came through their two initial games unscathed, albeit against pedestrian opponents in Gladbach and then Frankfurt on Saturday, with six points intact as Pep and his squad continue to mould a new age for the German and European champions.
Nurnberg, on the other hand, have struggled in both of their initial fixtures. First, against fellow relegation battlers Hoffenheim in which two late second half goals were enough to rescue them a point, and then again against Hertha Berlin the following week in which Hiroshi Kiyotake's last minute free-kick again saved them from blushes.
No more than simply hanging on, for Michael Wiesinger's side at the moment.

Bayern player to watch:
Franck Ribery

Although Bayern's new season hasn't kicked off with the same tantalizing form that they ended the last one in, Franck Ribery has wasted no time with his quest to confirm his talent as equal to that of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Despite only playing two games,Ribery has already clocked up an assist and five key passes between both games, with an average of nine successful dribbles in each game. According to stats websiteWhoScored.com the Frenchman has easily been one of Bayern's best players this season and, as such, Nurnberg's greatest threat.

Nurnberg player to watch:
Daniel Ginczek

The former Dortmund youth striker has done fantastically well for Der Club since joining in the summer, with a tally of one goal and assist in his first two games for the new side. In particular, it was Ginczek's goal in the initial game against Hoffenheimthat won his side the vital point, while it was his through ball in the second game against Hertha Berlin that set up Josip Drmic's opening goal against the visiting side. Young, talented and hungry, Ginczek is quickly proving himself invaluable to Nurnbeg.

Prediction
 Although Bayern haven't been at their best in the opening weeks of this season's Bundesliga campaign, and Nurnberg have proven rather industrious in their ability to come back from losing positions in the past two games, it seems unlikely that the game will result in anything but a comprehensive win for the champions. Nurnberg are simply too weak at the moment, and Bayern too strong.

Bayern 4-0 Nurnberg


When: Saturday, August 24, 2:30 p.m. GMT (8:30 a.m. ET)
Where: The Allianz Arena, Munich
 Watch: ESPN UK

Bayern on target with winning the opener

Pep Guardiola couldn't have asked for a better Bundesliga debut, he has a reputation and his new side didn't let him down in an opening home tie that proved to be rather pedestrian despite a few bumps along the way from the lively visitors.

 Bayern Munich won 3-1 on goals from Arjen Robben, Mario Mandzukic and David Alaba, whilst an own goal from Dante offered the only moment of solace for the visitors.

 The first half was a lively encounter, offering a tasty opening display worthy of the Bundesliga's triumphant return, which stayed goalless for no more than 12 minutes, before Robben opened the scoring with a wonderful flick over Marc-Andre ter Stegen off an assist from Franck Ribery.
 Then, three minutes later, as if on cue, Mandzukic showed up for the second when he found himself in the right place at the right time during a set piece in which the initial shot rebounded straight in to the path of the striker, who happily slotted the ball away to double Bayern's lead.
 The Bavarian side looked good and set for all three points after the second goal, following a flutter of half chances around the Gladbach box.
That is, until an unfortunate tackle from Dante, whilst intercepting a strong Juan Arango cross in the 40th minute, bounced off the defender's foot and passed a surprised Manuel Neuer. Surprising in nature but reassuring in practice for Gladbach, as they picked up their pace and made things uncomfortable for Bayern before halftime.

 The second half began in much the same vein for Gladbach and Bayern, as the visitors continued their pursuit of an equaliser. New signings Raffael and Max Kruse offered plenty of space and opportunity for the Foals as they grew in to the game, whilst Bayern continued to pepper the Gladbach goalmouth with chances of their own. Both Neuer and Ter Stegen were needed at their best to keep the score at a minimum. Alas, Bayern finally killed things off through peculiar measures when Alvara Dominguez handled the ball in the box, offering Thomas Muller an opportunity to score the third from the penalty box.
 However, Muller would miss thanks to an outstanding save from Ter Stegen, and Dominguez again handled the ball in pursuit of the rebound. DAlaba then stepped up and professionally put the ball in to the back of the net.

 With that, 3-1 to Bayern, and ultimately game over for Borussia M'Gladbach.