The Facts You Think to be Undisputedly True in Football Which Has Not Been Talked about Enough?

[fergiewherearethou]

No.

You can try to remember a single UCL knock out tie in which Man Utd knocked out a non EPL team with a wrong crucial referee decision in our favor in past 20 years. I bet you can basically recall none (the closet call is that PSG penalty but it was arguably correct in the end).

It is also a very rare occurrence for other EPL teams too.

But you can count numerous games in which Real Madrid or Barcelona knocking out other teams with weird referee decisions in their favor.
Barcelona vs Milan
Barcelona vs Arsenal
Barcelona vs PSG
Barcelona vs Chelsea
Real Madrid vs Man Utd and their countless offside goals in their multiple UCL wins... and so on

Yes it's true and I agree with what you are saying, La Liga teams were favored by the referees and Ballon D'Or electors alike.

But we also have to accept that in the last 20 years or so Spanish football was at his best, having 2 of the greatest if not the greatest footballers of all time mostly playing there and almost all the Ballon D'Or's were won by Ronaldo and Messi.
Besides having the 2 greats in their league, they had the power to buy the best players from other leagues as well, including PL. Not so long ago players like Bale, Modric, Ruud, Beckham, Pique, Xabi Alonso and especially Ronaldo and Suarez went there because let's face it, those were the best clubs in the World.
I don't remember any point in football history where a PL club went to buy the star player from Barca or Real.

Another thing is the national team, that won 2 Euros and 1 WC, consecutively which is remarkable and probably not repeatable.

In the last few years it's clear that the dominance of the Spanish teams has been decreasing and with all the PL money involved it will be harder for them to keep up, even though I wouldn't write them off completely.

 

[horsechoker]

Referees should punish foul throws everytime. It's a simple bloody thing, almost every throw is a foul throw these days. Even the guys who launch them into the box never stop at the line.

The foul throw rules are mostly stupid and limiting. It's just throwing the ball, why do they have to make it so particular? I'm kinda glad they don't enforce this so strictly

 

[Alan Partridge]

The environment (everything from footballing system to the mood and lifestyle of the player) and headspace matter more than the subtle variations in talent amongst top footballers in their overall performance.

 

[Terranova]

PL football would be vastly inferior to other European leagues if not for all the money and therefore foreign players involved.

Not quite true. PL teams can brute force their way to sucess due to the money, so they usually brute force it because it's easier. But if the money weren't there the clubs would probably find a way to compete.

 

[JeffFromHK]

I think you’re underplaying (a) the role of individual performances versus team achievements, and (b) not placing enough weight on international performances.

To give a few examples:

1999 - Rivaldo was almost a one-man band such was his performance level in carrying Barcelona to a La Liga title (they weren’t 4th) and dominated and won the Copa America. He was a long way ahead in the voting which further reflected what he was doing on the park every week.

2000 - The narrative around Figo’s move may have played a part, but it wasn’t the decisive factor. The award was given mainly on a combination of Euro 2000 and Champions League performances. Zidane was absolutely outstanding at Euro 2000, but just at the time of voting was sent off twice in the CL group stages as Juve crashed out. That’s what did him in, especially for journalists who are bigger on fair play. Even then there was only a ball hair between him and Figo whose performances across the 99/00 CL, Euro 2000 and 00/01 CL were consistently very good. The only players from the Premier League to register at Euro 2000 were Henry and Vieira and neither were going to usurp their teammate Zidane.

2001 - Owen won the award despite playing in the Premier League and despite the competition from Figo, Raul, Zidane and Rivaldo.

2002 - Carlos was 2nd because he was outstanding for Real Madrid and Brazil, winning both the Champions League and the World Cup. He assisted both of Real’s goals in the CL final and was unleashed as a wing-back for Brazil in their 3-5-2.

2004 - Deco’s second place was everything to do with what he did with Porto and nothing to do with Barcelona. Porto had won an improbable Champions League, after a UEFA cup the previous year, and he was their talisman.

2005 - Ronaldinho’s performances were off the charts. He only peaked for 3 years, but many rate him as one of the greatest of all time because his peak was so high. Worth noting that Lampard and Gerrard were 2nd and 3rd this year, but nobody jumps up and down about how they were robbed given the level of genius Ronaldinho was delivering every week.

2010 on - All the things I have said above about Ronaldinho could apply for Messi and Cristiano. If two players are operating in the rarefied echelons of the greatest of all time, then it’s going to be very difficult for anyone to defeat them.

What has changed over the decades is that week-to-week performances are more accessible to voters, whereas before 2000 journalists based proportionately more of their vote on what was done when everyone was watching in continental and international competition. I don’t think that’s a La Liga thing, more the changing nature of media shifting the voting criteria. It just so happens that La Liga has benefited the most as that’s where Messi and Cristiano’s every performances were showcased to the world.

You are contradicting yourself man. at the beginning you say "individual performance" is important but than use team's performance (Porto being UCL winners and Portugal in Euro 04 final) to justify Deco's 2nd place finish in Ballon D'Or 2004. Deco wasn't even in champions league's team of the year (2 goals 6 assists) or Euro 04's team of the year (0 goals 2 assists), he was only Primeira Liga's player of the year (scoring 2 league goals). Talking about individual brillance, Henry surely outshined Deco, he scored fecking 39 goals for invincible Arsenal all competitions including 30 league goals + 6 assists and 5 UCL goals, but he finished 4th behind Ronaldinho whose Barcelona finished 2nd and played in UEFA Cup and got knocked out in the round of 16.

And the way you justify every single La Liga Ballon'd Or winner/high ranker could justify every single Ballon d'Or nonimee to win the Ballon d'Or.

Just answer me franky, do you think Bale's 12-13 performance justifies 12th place Ballon D'or finish, do you think 12-13 Van Persie deserves 9th place finish? Do you think 13-14 Suarez deserves non-nomination?
Why Ronaldinho rocking La Liga alone with 9 goals and 13 assists and doing meh in UCL in 2005 deserves him Ballon d"or but those players rocking EPL (even more so than Ronaldinho rocking the La Liga) deserve no more than 9th place finishes??

Different standards apply on La Liga and non-La Liga players, it is undisputedly true. To win Ballon D'or as a Premier League or Bundesliga player, you need all stars aligned, like how Ronaldo did it in 2008. But people still argue against it for their immature urge to play devil's advocate or for their childish "let's mock premier league" sentiments.

Remember, La Liga being the strongest league in the last decade (which I think is undisputedly true) is independent of whether La Liga players are favored by the referees or Ballon d'Or electors (i.e. journalists/national team coaches/captains).

 

[SilentWitness]

Drug use. Both recreational and performative.

Dodgy cover ups.

LGBTQ+ community in football.

 

[Ish]

Well duh? This is hardly groundbreaking. If you took the money out of any of the top leagues the quality would go down.

yeah I thought the point was a bit….obvious! Either way, you adapt with or without money to find a way to compete. All that’s happening now is that the PL clubs are overpaying for talent because they have more money.

 

[UpWithRivers]

Corruption in football. Yeah we have had Chelsea linked to Putin and a number of other scandals - FIFa etc but thats only the tip of the iceburg. No coincidence that last world cup were Russia and Qatar. The whole of football is probably rife with corruption from shady deals with agents, paying off parents, bribes to politicians and on and on. The Saudis definitely paid off a lot of people to get Newcastle for example and is anyone keeping an eye on what else they are up to especially after the Chelsea saga? Nope. Everyone will take the cash and turn a blind eye. Same as Qatar. Same as a lot of it.

 

[BigDycheEnergy]

Since 1999, La Liga got 16 Ballon d'Or winners, EPL got 2 winners, Series A got 3 winners, PSG got 1 (though it was Messi), bundesliga got ZERO

Yes, but 10 out of those 16 is Messi and C.Ronaldo. Those two clearly broke the system.

@Gio alrerady said what I wanted to say about the players you feel didn't deserve it, so I'm not gonna duplicate his good post.

The only one I kind of agree with is Deco, but Owen won it for Liverpool a few years prior and that was equally weird. It's not a perfect system.

Check how undisputedly world class La Liga players and non-Liga players peaked in Ballon d"or rankings:

If I'm not mistaken, the voters only write down their personal top 3? In which case, you can't really take the rankings outside the top 5 seriously. I hope you understand why, because I am terrible at explaining mathematical principals.

The short story is this: if players A, B and C get 90% of the votes, players D and E get 9% combined and the remaining players share the last 1%, then you're not going to get an accurate ranking among them. I might think that Messi, Ronaldo and Iniesta are the 3 best players, but then some other random throws Peter Crouch into his top 3. There is no way for me to "correct" this by voting for the players who are better than Crouch, because I've already used my votes.

I don't think the Ballon d'Or is a perfect system or anything like that, but I don't see sufficient evidence for La Liga bias. The Ballon d'Or is ultimately an individual award and Real and Barca have been superstar magnets.

 

[Red4Ever]

I normally don’t go for ref conspiracy stuff but the decisions that go against United at home to Spanish teams are unreal

prob just a coincidence but still
I think United need to wise up & be as cynical
As the opposition

 

[Devil77]

VAR is ruining the game by putting a wet blanket over all emotions. Why celebrate before the mandatory 2 minutes check? Maybe he was offside by a nose length.

 

[MexicanCowboy]

My 2 cents:

1. Players playing in La Liga are favored in those Fifa/ Ballon'Or elections

2. Teams from La Liga are favored by the referees in European competitions

Real Madrid have a huge propaganda machine. We just had Messi.

 

[Korwas]

I think VAR is a massive mistake and should be removed right now. Goal line technology can stay. I don't understand the VAR argument that it make the game fair, because most people I've met that use that argument seem to use it as a coping mechanism more than anything. If we want all the refs decisions to be correct then it should be in the rule book that every single VAR decision should take atleast 30 minutes so that the refs are sure they got it correct. That would clearly eliminate almost every single mistake from referees and VAR today, but not even the people that like VAR would want a rule like that. That's because football is about entertainment not about being fair. If VAR always took 30 minutes for each call offsides would be drawn perfectly and rules would be applied exactly like they '''should'', but the games would the unwatable. I can see a near future with a computer system for offsides, but give me back the normal ref and raise their salary so that it's worth dealing putting up with fans.

 

[Cloud7]

give me back the normal ref and raise their salary so that it's worth dealing putting up with fans.

Yeah let’s give the people who can’t do their job properly more money

 

[MDFC Manager]

PL football would be vastly inferior to other European leagues if not for all the money and therefore foreign players involved.

To be fair, big reason why the money came in is thanks to the profile rise in the 90s, which came about thanks to smart marketing, especially with the global advantage that the English language has.

 

[fps]

The great Barcelona side was doping

 

[NinjaZombie]

That's easily explained. England/the English top division, just hasn't produced or attracted as many truly great players as the other leagues have.

The fact that Rivaldo won the Ballon d'Or in 1999 is kind of disagreeable though. There is clear tendency for these awards to be given out to continental players who play a certain way.

 

[Fortitude]

Doping is the improvement in sports science.

 

[RedDevilCanuck]

Properly celebrating a goal is finished due to VAR.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

Oil money and sports-washing has made the competition unfair and ruined the game.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

The great Barcelona side was doping

They were?

 

[Pickle85]

PL football would be vastly inferior to other European leagues if not for all the money and therefore foreign players involved.

Such a dumb post. Do you mean if you yanked all foreign players out of the PL but left foreign players in the other leagues, the other leagues would be better? Well wow, that sure is a revelation to me.

 

[horsechoker]

Oil money and sports-washing has made the competition unfair and ruined the game.

Manchester United ruined the game

 

[CarbonStoolBites]

The great Barcelona side was doping

Everyone should be on drugs then, imagine how better football would be.

 

[Withnail]

I think VAR is a massive mistake and should be removed right now. Goal line technology can stay. I don't understand the VAR argument that it make the game fair, because most people I've met that use that argument seem to use it as a coping mechanism more than anything. If we want all the refs decisions to be correct then it should be in the rule book that every single VAR decision should take atleast 30 minutes so that the refs are sure they got it correct. That would clearly eliminate almost every single mistake from referees and VAR today, but not even the people that like VAR would want a rule like that. That's because football is about entertainment not about being fair. If VAR always took 30 minutes for each call offsides would be drawn perfectly and rules would be applied exactly like they '''should'', but the games would the unwatable. I can see a near future with a computer system for offsides, but give me back the normal ref and raise their salary so that it's worth dealing putting up with fans.

The new Hawkeye system being trialed at the moment should sort out offside with accurate calls within 25 seconds. Also according to PGMOL the % of correct decisions increased from 84% pre-VAR to 92% with VAR. That's still way too low but what you're arguing for is more wrong decisions in the interest of entertainment and I don't see how increased salaries would make any difference to the decisions. What we should have is full transparency and to be able to listen to the refs deliberations as per Rugby.

 

[mu4c_20le]

They were?

Messi has been doping since he was 10, it's a known fact

 

[Withnail]

Properly celebrating a goal is finished due to VAR.

Maybe for some fans but for most goals it's fairly obvious there wasn't any issue so I don't let it affect me.

 

[hasanejaz88]

Balon D'Ors should not be invalid any argument when comparing players in this era to past. No player in the history of football would have won a Balon D'Or in this era from peak Ronaldo and Messi.

 

[RedRob]

I think VAR is a massive mistake and should be removed right now. Goal line technology can stay. I don't understand the VAR argument that it make the game fair, because most people I've met that use that argument seem to use it as a coping mechanism more than anything. If we want all the refs decisions to be correct then it should be in the rule book that every single VAR decision should take atleast 30 minutes so that the refs are sure they got it correct. That would clearly eliminate almost every single mistake from referees and VAR today, but not even the people that like VAR would want a rule like that. That's because football is about entertainment not about being fair. If VAR always took 30 minutes for each call offsides would be drawn perfectly and rules would be applied exactly like they '''should'', but the games would the unwatable. I can see a near future with a computer system for offsides, but give me back the normal ref and raise their salary so that it's worth dealing putting up with fans.

With VAR in the PL, it's a poor application problem rather than an existence problem. Think back to the Euro 2020 when every decision was checked by VAR and it was widely lauded throughout. It can work well if it's being used by people who know what they're doing. Nobody likes VAR until it saves their team from an injustice, which is exactly what it does. Similarly, think of the infamous refereeing performance from Clattenburg in the 2008/09 Merseyside derby (shortly after he got back from Liverpool taking him on pre-season tour). No way does this nonsense stand up under VAR scrutiny - below if it helps.

Spoiler: Refereeing Nonsense

 

[LInkash]

Everyone’s on PEDs

Except for United. Well, maybe Ten Hag ordered some PEDs after the Brentford game.

 

[Hammondo]

I don't think that this is true. It's just that C. Ronaldo and Messi spent the best part of their careers playing for La Liga teams. You can't really say that they didn't deserve it.

La Liga has "won" 23 Ballon d'Ors, but 10 of them are from Messi and C. Ronaldo. Serie A has 16 Ballon d'Ors. The Bundesliga has 9. If anything, I think the real issue is that the English top division doesn't get enough Ballon d'Ors! Just 6(one of them being Ronaldo) in total.

When have we deserved them?

 

[Hammondo]

They did just fine in the 80s, don't be daft.

Yea but it's not the same anymore. England do not produce many top players compared to some other countries.

We tend to waste a lot of money.

 

[Gio]

Just answer me franky, do you think Bale's 12-13 performance justifies 12th place Ballon D'or finish, do you think 12-13 Van Persie deserves 9th place finish? Do you think 13-14 Suarez deserves non-nomination?
Why Ronaldinho rocking La Liga alone with 9 goals and 13 assists and doing meh in UCL in 2005 deserves him Ballon d"or but those players rocking EPL (even more so than Ronaldinho rocking the La Liga) deserve no more than 9th place finishes??

I agree that those players should have been higher based on the great seasons they had. But that's not a La Liga bias, rather a reflection that players' reputations as Ballon D'Or contenders takes more than one great season to develop. There is often a time lag between a player producing great performances, and a player receiving global recognition for those performances. You see it at the other end when players continue to get put forward for awards long after they deserve to, as their status is what carries them, particularly amongst voters who won't watch every league in depth. To give you a La Liga example:

• Diego Forlan in 2008/09 scored 32 goals in 33 games for Atletico, many of them screamers from long range (like Bale's 12/13 season), outscoring Eto'o, Villa, Messi and Henry to win the Pichichi. At that time scoring a goal-per-game in one of the top leagues hadn't been done in decades. His Ballon D'Or placing? 19th.

Cannavaro -1st (with due respect, he had a great 2006 World Cup, but the fact that he played for Real Madrid when the election occurred mattered)
Deco - 2nd
Carlos - 2nd
Neymar - 3rd
Grizemann - 3rd
Falcao - 5th

To spell this out, the rankings of each of those players was driven by what they did outside La Liga.

• Cannavaro was a mess at Real Madrid and anyone voting on his showing there would have marked him down, rather than up. He won that after a great season in Italy and an impeccable and dominant World Cup.
• Deco and Carlos - as per my previous post, both won the Champions League, Deco had a good Euros, while Carlos won the World Cup and was a massive player in both.
• Neymar - he was arguably unlucky to only get 3rd, scoring 39 goals for Barcelona and winning the Champions League. Again he's been knocking on the door all decade.
• Griezmann - won the best player award and was top scorer at Euro 2016
• Falcao - had been the record-breaking top scorer in the Europa League and man of the match in the final in consecutive seasons, then absolutely demolished Chelsea in the Super Cup.

Where I'll concede some ground is that the players voting in the Ballon D'Or in the last decade changed it slightly. Journalists would have given the 2010 Ballon to Sneijder and the 2013 one to Ribery. Journalists probably bigger on the main man in the best team and the narrative around it, while players more about whoever has got their juices flowing in the run-up to the vote.

 

[GatoLoco]

The fact that Rivaldo won the Ballon d'Or in 1999 is kind of disagreeable though. There is clear tendency for these awards to be given out to continental players who play a certain way.

Rivaldo won Copa America in 1999 being named best player of the tournament. Also won La Liga, which was among the two strongest leagues in the continent, scoring 24 goals and giving 12 assists.

Who was your pick and why do you disagree exactly?

 

[JPRouve]

Regarding number one, not there is no favoritism for La Liga.

The Ballon d'Or is largely based on who was the best performer for teams that won international and continental competitions. La Liga happens to have teams that won many continental competitions and also had two of the best players that we will ever see.

Also I spot a pretty bad mistake in terms of timing, for example Cannavaro moved to Real Madrid in 2006, his Ballon d'Or had nothing to do with Real Madrid but his season for Juventus and more importantly for Italy.

 

[Sandikan]

Referees should punish foul throws everytime. It's a simple bloody thing, almost every throw is a foul throw these days. Even the guys who launch them into the box never stop at the line.

And how the 6 second rule for goalkeepers is never enforced.

Spot on for the first bit, plus stealing yardage each time is infuriating.

But didn't the 6 second rule get binned years ago?

 

[pacifictheme]

PL football would be vastly inferior to other European leagues if not for all the money and therefore foreign players involved.

This could be said for any league for decades.

 

[Sandikan]

Yes, but 10 out of those 16 is Messi and C.Ronaldo. Those two clearly broke the system.

@Gio alrerady said what I wanted to say about the players you feel didn't deserve it, so I'm not gonna duplicate his good post.

The only one I kind of agree with is Deco, but Owen won it for Liverpool a few years prior and that was equally weird. It's not a perfect system.

I don't know exactly how it worked back then, but in 2001 you had a separate World Player of the year - which Figo won. What Owen won was a lesser version of what it became later on when the 2 awards combined.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Regarding number one, not there is no favoritism for La Liga.

The Ballon d'Or is largely based on who was the best performer for teams that won international and continental competitions. La Liga happens to have teams that won many continental competitions and also had two of the best players that we will ever see.

Also I spot a pretty bad mistake in terms of timing, for example Cannavaro moved to Real Madrid in 2006, his Ballon d'Or had nothing to do with Real Madrid but his season for Juventus and more importantly for Italy.

I think there is some bias. Messi had one of the worst years in 2021 but only won it because of the Copa.

 

[JPRouve]

I think there is some bias. Messi had one of the worst years in 2021 but only won it because of the Copa.

Not based on the league. And for France Football international tournaments are a premium, I don't know how many times it needs to be said.