Farmer's League: how and when did this originate and become caf lexicon?
- Thread starter Fortitude
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Jamie (@Vault Dweller) are here to talk about United's dreadful home defeat at the hands of Big Ange's Tottenham Hotspur. Should this have been the end of Ten Hag? How long does he actually have left? And does Nik finally want ETH out?!
Elite "Hipster" wannabe top leagues vs farmer's league.
I addressed this in the cl thread. I've never heard it outside of a couple of edge lords who label everything trash anyway.
Never heard it outside this forum.
Every other league except PL gets branded a farmers league. La liga gets a pass but there you have just 2 good clubs apparently.
I think that Mark Goldbridge fella said or says it a fair bit, might be wrong. But then he's playing a character anyway so isn't to be taken seriously.
Looks like he's used it a few times on Twitter, not specifically for the French League, but any he's trying to poke fun at plus the Europa League - https://twitter.com/search?q=farmer (from:markgoldbridge)&src=typed_query&f=live
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Farmers league yet we want all the talent from Ligue 1 
Ligue 1 gets massively disrespected. Is it a great league? no, but it deserves respect.
Ligue 1 gets massively disrespected. Is it a great league? no, but it deserves respect.
Thing is, it is a farmer's league. Or atleast was. Very good season from them this year be interesting to see if they can grow on it.
But Europe-wise they've not had a look in up until this year. The same team has won their league for 9 years on the trot. Pre world cup internationally they left a lot to be desired.
Obviously they won the world cup, they've done well this season and have fantastic players coming through so potentially that farmers league label will be dropped. However, ligue 1 was certainly a farmer's league for years.
But Europe-wise they've not had a look in up until this year. The same team has won their league for 9 years on the trot. Pre world cup internationally they left a lot to be desired.
Obviously they won the world cup, they've done well this season and have fantastic players coming through so potentially that farmers league label will be dropped. However, ligue 1 was certainly a farmer's league for years.
Farmers league yet we want all the talent from Ligue 1
Ligue 1 gets massively disrespected. Is it a great league? no, but it deserves respect.
Isn't that the point? It is a league that works as a talent farm for the richer leagues apart from PSG.
If that talent stayed in the league, it would be fine. If the top French players stayed in France for their whole careers (the same way English, German and Italian players tend to) then French sides would regularly be making the semi-finals. Imagine if Pogba, Griezmann, Varane, Kante, Laporte etc were all playing for Lyon or Marseille. You'd imagine Mbappe will be heading to Spain soon enough and all this talent at Lyon will be sold in the next two summers (probably to the Premier League). The only positive is that there will be another set of players in Lyon's academy waiting to take their place.
The usual rule of thumb is that if everyone suddenly starts parroting the same stupid phrase on the internet, it's probably from 4chan.
Farmers league yet we want all the talent from Ligue 1
Ligue 1 gets massively disrespected. Is it a great league? no, but it deserves respect.
Farming as in gaming term = producing goods, collecting resources from lesser opponents, fodders.
Someone (young) coined the farmers' league term as an insult to smaller league. Only good to produce talent to be farmed by big clubs from other leagues, but no good in big competition.
So if people don't understand the term, and keep going on about other leagues want talent from Ligue 1; then it no helps but only further the farmers' league image.
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Not only the media, but fans also.
I remember 5-6 years ago, when English teams were failing in Europe the narrative was that the premier league is too competitive and you can't win every game 5-0 like Barca, Bayern or Real. Then Guardiola came and showed that it can be dominated. Liverpool also showed it the last 2 seasons. And its not like the midtable teams are weaker in the league. You have sides like Wolves, Leicaster, Sheffield, Burnley. Its just that the premier league is not that much harder than the other leagues. Players like Silva, Aguero, Sterling dominated the league, yet its made out like you need to be some certain type of player, so you can handle the "intensity", like its 2007. Yet, as I said, you have players that were success in the PL like Costa, Hazard, Coutinho who for some reason can't replicate it in Spain/Germany.
I actually think the Premier league is the most competitive league, because the top 2-3 teams change, so its harder to stay at the top. But competitive, doesn't equal best. Also when it has/had the best teams like 2005-2009 and last year, I got no problem with being labelled as the best.
I've seen people call la liga a farmers league. It's a term bellends use.
He used English because it's not the French who call it farmer's league. It's the English.
Sorry you misunderstand me, perhaps I wasn't clear enough.
I know he uses English because the English call it a farmer's league, I'm just a little surprised he knows or cares about it. I wouldn't have thought that Harry Kane knows or cares what German fans of Bayern Munich are saying about the Premier League, or that Sergio Ramos knows or cares what Italian fans of Juventus say about La Liga.
Yep, English teams have only been in the final stages 4 times in the last 10 years. As for a French team... well.. zip..
He probably gets its spammed to him in his replies all the time on his social media when he celebrates a goal or win or whatever. Idiots trying to put him down because he's "only" playing in Ligue 1.
Because English is the global language, especially on internet. English, meme, banter, trend ... dominates the internet. Using social media then eventually you know these popular terms. For someone famous like Mbappe, him to be exposed to these term even more likely with people take it to him for banter or whatever
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Nope, the reason it was used was to describe clubs like Guingamps or Auxerre, clubs from small towns. And claim that Ligue 1 was literally played by farmers.
It's not "caf lexicon," it's all over Reddit and Twitter as well. It's just one of those football memes. Can't say there isn't a grain of truth to it, though: for the size of the country and its national team's prominence, the sheer amount of great players and so on, Ligue 1 has not been a good enough league to live up to those things. They don't even have one serious, persistent powerhouse club, even now that PSG is oil-rich, and even less so before that. It's a little bit like the Bundesliga: for such a powerful footballing nation, you would think there had been more prominent and consistently succesful teams. At least Germany has Bayern. The Bundesliga should have done better than they have, but Ligue 1 has underperformed even worse.
Of the 64 total Champion's League trophies, France has... one, from twenty-seven years ago. They haven't had a finalist since. For a country with a rich footballing history and several generations of excellent national teams, that's kind of pathetic. There has never been a French club with real long-term success. That's frankly a little embarrassing for them. It's basically the Bundesliga without Bayern. PSG will probably end up winning the CL eventually, but it could take another ten years. They're just a French copy of Man City, after all.
Of the 64 total Champion's League trophies, France has... one, from twenty-seven years ago. They haven't had a finalist since. For a country with a rich footballing history and several generations of excellent national teams, that's kind of pathetic. There has never been a French club with real long-term success. That's frankly a little embarrassing for them. It's basically the Bundesliga without Bayern. PSG will probably end up winning the CL eventually, but it could take another ten years. They're just a French copy of Man City, after all.
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Isn't it 5? Liverpool twice, Tottenham once, Chelsea once, United once? Which is the 2nd highest nationality. Spain basically dominated the last 10 years with England coming best of the rest.
There is one french team that did it, Lyon in 2010.
Let agree to disagree here. France has been producing generations and generations of players (not just French nationality only) playing at high level. No sane person would insult the whole league because some players' background. It's more insult on clubs from French league achievement in Europe despite the amount of talent it produces, and possesses
I suppose you're right. I of course would guess that Mbappe has a better grasp of English than Kane does of German or Ramos of Italian because of the prominence of English being taught in schools but I hadn't really thought of how much English dominates the memes too. I'd have perhaps erroneously thought he'd be caught up in a bubble of French language football banter, memes and punditry without really looking outside of that.
I was counting this year as the tenth.
Spain has dominated for long periods of time, but that is expected as they have two teams that have been taken 50% of the monies over the years:
Here
I have only seen people talk about it as if they're literally farmers, as in part time players in a shit league. Your version makes way more sense though.
Okay.....
No one told you that they were sane but you are wrong. In fact, people would say that it was easy to play against farmers. It's not clever but your rationalization of it is actually clever, too clever for that lot though.
Did I do something wrong?
Yep.
Some exotic explanations of what it means in here (no offense to those who posted what they believe it to mean), but the actual use of the term was totally pejorative and not even a sideways compliment.
Honestly, it has only been used to denigrate for as long as I saw the term used. You've actually elevated it something that is somewhat complimentary - it was never that.
They say this about Portugal as well but Portugal and France are arguably two of the biggest exports of talent in the world.
Not to mention that the biggest club in Portugal and France give the so called "elite" teams a run for their money plenty of times.
Not to mention that the biggest club in Portugal and France give the so called "elite" teams a run for their money plenty of times.
Of course and so is Holland. You can’t keep hold of talent and it’s only expected that you perform to the standard that your top teams end up having. Which is not very high seeing as the best talents get plucked out before they get the chance to hit their peak for the team that they came through with.
No, I was talking about finals. Hope PSG don't win it..
Sorry I read final 4 for some reason.
It is .
Mbappe is a superstar, so he probably hears a lot of noise on social media from idiot fans who downplay everything he's achieving in ligue 1 by the farmer's league concept, so he's just having a bit of fun with it. I wouldn't be shocked if it came directly from him.
Mbappe wins the twitters.
(Monaco in 2017)