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There seems to be an excess amount of soccer leagues and tournaments in the world today. Almost every country in the world has at least one major soccer league. The most famous leagues, however, are in England, Spain, and Italy...

An American's Guide To European Soccer And How It Relates To The USA

by Thomas (Senior Writer)

38

1207 reads

Opinion

August 27, 2008


There seems to be an excess amount of soccer leagues and tournaments in the world today. Almost every country in the world has at least one major soccer league. The most famous leagues, however, are in England, Spain, and Italy. The most famous European tournament is, without a doubt, the UEFA Champions League.

To an American that doesn't usually follow these leagues and tournaments, it can be very confusing. I'm here trying to clear things up and show how these leagues and tournaments relate to MLS and the USA.

The top league in England is called the Premier League and was started in its current form back in 1992.  Previously, the top flight in England was called the Football League First Division.  It was part of a bigger league called the Football League which was founded back in 1888.  It has twenty different clubs all competing to be the best in England. To many people the Premiership is the best league in the world. The rankings seem to agree with this fact.

The Premier League is ranked first in UEFA for the best soccer performance, ahead of Spain's La Liga and Italy's Serie A. More people watch the Premier League than any other league, and it's also the most lucrative league in the world.

The Premier League has always been kind to American players and MLS. A total of 21 Americans have played in the Premiership since its beginning in 1992. Among them were stars like Brian McBride, Claudio Reyna, Clint Dempsey, and Tim Howard.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Fulham had a reputation of bringing Americans to the club. However, with the loss of Brian McBride, that trend seems to be going to other clubs.

Don't worry though, it seems that many more players will move from MLS to the Premiership. The most recent player to make the move was Brad Guzan, who moved from Chivas USA to Aston Villa. Premiership clubs has also played many off-season friendlies in the USA. Most recently, West Ham United played MLS All-Stars, a match where MLS won.

Behind England's Premier League is Spain's La Liga, founded in 1928. Unlike the Premiership, La Liga has twenty four clubs competing to be the best in Spain. La Liga can boast the most successful clubs in Europe. La Liga is regarded as a technically better league than England.

Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, and Valencia have all won five or more international trophies in their history. UEFA has La Liga ranked second in terms of performance. They're behind the Premiership and ahead of Serie A in Italy. Real Madrid have won the Champion's League or European Cup as it used to be known as a record nine times.

Until recently, La Liga hasn't had many Americans play in the league. However, with the transfer of Jozy Altidore to Villareal FC, it might spark Spanish interest in Americans.  That's not to say that there's absolutely no interest in American soccer from La Liga. 

Spanish giants Real Madrid signed a 10-year partnership with the MLS club Real Salt Lake back in 2006. Also, the other Spanish giant Barcelona played friendlies against MLS clubs during this off-season. Maybe other Spanish clubs will get on board and start helping out MLS clubs.

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38 comments Last one added 10 months ago — Leave a Comment

  1. Andrew McNair 10 months ago

    Interesting piece mate. Maybe just a mention of how far the top flight in England dates back. The Champions League is not an international tournament but a European one. International are for national sides.

    Well written though. I enjoyed it.

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  2. Brian Hood 10 months ago

    I've been waiting to see an article like this. I just picked up soccer 3 years ago and am still learning all this, b/c the US media doesn't explain it well AT ALL. I'm in the latter stages of learning about all the various tournaments and verbage etc. but I think people need to read this to understand.

    Thanks Thomas.....and aren't there a lot of Americans who are starting to purchase many Premiership teams?

    Also, what does the partnership with Real Madrid and Real SL all entail? Just player transfers?

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    • Thomas 10 months ago

      yes alot of Americans are buying Premiership teams. Most famous are the Glazer family who bought Man. Utd. they also own the Tampa Bay Bucs.

      the partnership contains a biannual friendly, free anual training for Salt Lake players at the Real Madrid training grounds, and the joint creation of a youth academy. I think the main part of the deal is the youth academy. its the first true "youth academy" in the USA next to New York.

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  3. Yoosof Farah 10 months ago

    Nice article Thomas. Hopefully the CONCACAF Champions League will help promote the MLS, as it is a good league. And hopefully more clubs will do what Real Madrid have done, sign cooperation agreements. That will be good for MLS clubs financially, and good for the big european clubs in terms of players, as there is a lot of talented American players out there.

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  4. Brandon Brown 10 months ago

    Great article and well written. Just wanted to comment about something dealing with the UEFA Champion's League.

    "Any European club that finished first to fourth in their league is eligible for the tournament." I don't know if you meant to say that for ALL leagues. So I wanted to clarify the rules for UEFA's qualifying.

    Taken from wikipedia, as uefa.com is down at this moment.

    The number of places in the competition depends on the association's rank in the UEFA coefficients table:

    associations ranked 1 to 3 have four positions,
    associations ranked 4 to 6 have three positions,
    associations ranked 7 to 15 have two positions,
    associations ranked 16 or lower have one position.

    So you were pretty close. I thought the top four teams from all leagues made it, too, until i was bored one day and doing major research on European football.

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    • Thomas 10 months ago

      ah, thanks Brandon. The whole UEFA Champions League is quite confusing. Thanks for clearing it up. I'm not a guru of soccer, I just know the basics. Thanks.

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  5. Salaar Arshad Shamsi 10 months ago

    Good article, enjoyed the read...raised some good points there...the Champions League is a European Masterpiece of World Class Quality.

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  6. L.J. Burgess 10 months ago

    As a completely unversed and rabid football ignorer, I have to say that this is the most informative piece I've ever read on the structure of league play. I'm going to read this a number of times so I'm no longer ignorant of league play when I see it in the papers and on-line.

    Leemon this is the best piece of work that I've seen this month across the board. I've printed out some copies for study and emailed links to appropriate friends of mine and to Sports Illustrated.

    This piece is worthy of any major newspaper in the world that desires to educate football neophytes.

    10 Starz and my ultimate POTD.

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  7. David Wilson 10 months ago

    Good article Thomas

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  8. Joe G 10 months ago

    You've written a quite thorough recent history of all of these European leagues. It's excellent!

    England has a partnership with American football clubs dating back to the NASL. Since American leagues play in the summer, England's offseason, some English clubs came over and masqueraded as NASL clubs for a few seasons. West Ham was the most prominent, but I think Queen's Park Rangers did as well, and some others.

    Five stars.

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    • Thomas 10 months ago

      I wasnt quite planning on going that far back, but yea. English clubs were really connected to NASL. Also, I forgot to mention that some Championship clubs are partnering with USL clubs. For example, Crystal Palace began a Crystal Palace Baltimore a few years back. So English influence isnt limited to just MLS.

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    • Joe G 10 months ago

      You could've also mentioned Arsenal's partnership with Colorado. I can't believe I forgot about that one! I like these partnerships, I think it may help legitimize the MLS in the eyes of some "EPL-only" Americans.

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    • Thomas 10 months ago

      I forgot alot of stuff. Yea, these partnerships will really help EPL-only fans realize that MLS is awesome too. I (or someone else) could end up writing a book about this.

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  9. J. Michael Morris 10 months ago

    Thanks Thomas! Thanks for writing this for me, it clears up a lot. All my 7 year old son wants for Christmas is a Real Salt Lake jersey.
    P.S. where does the World Cup fit in? I assume it is a national all star team.

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  10. Tomi Salvucci 10 months ago

    With popularity rising in tiny, tiny, leaps and bounds, why has no-body suggested an Inter-Continental Cup in between Euro and World Cup years. It would give a chance for our players and the Mexican and Canadian players to gain exposure over seas. Could also be quite lucrative.

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  11. Eric Gomez 10 months ago

    Good article.

    It's definitely worth noting that the MLS is taking a page from top European leagues in most aspects and that this will undoubtedly result in better things from the league. Despite the constant stream of exports though, I feel that MLS and American soccer for that matter still have a ways to go before they're considered a powerful league and team, respectively.

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    • Thomas 10 months ago

      yes, the constant exportation is a problem for us, but then again, we're getting a constant stream of imports also. MLS is working very hard to be like European leagues. Although, its the only league i know of in which its divided into divisions. Always gotta have something unique in American things, eh.

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  12. Daniel Kaiser 10 months ago

    Great Article, Thomas.

    The Uefa-Ranking is indeed quite confusing...even for Europeans. It took me some time to understand it.

    The ranking changes from time to time. I know a site, where you can examine the results of the last 40 years:
    http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/crank2009.html

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  13. Eric Gomez 10 months ago

    Good article.

    It's definitely worth noting that the MLS is taking a page from top European leagues in most aspects and that this will undoubtedly result in better things from the league. Despite the constant stream of exports though, I feel that MLS and American soccer for that matter still have a ways to go before they're considered a powerful league and team, respectively.

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    • Thomas 10 months ago

      people are exported from MLS yet people import to MLS. There's a constant stream both ways. I agree that MLS and American soccer has a long way to go. Hopefully, it'll get there before I die.

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  14. Saraswathi Siriginia 10 months ago

    wow nice article Thomas, good job, 5 starz and POTD

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  15. Anthony Sanchez 10 months ago

    Nice work Thomas. You should really mention that the name premiership dates back to 92 but the league dates back to 1888. Good luck trying to educate your countrymen on the worlds most popular sport.You'll need it!

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  1. Ryan Knapp 10 months ago

    Good article. Don't forget about Danny Sztela who played for Racing Santander, but now is off on loan to Brescia.

    There are actually lots of La Liga fans that exist in the states, and that support other teams beside the Evil Empire (Real Madrid) and Barcelona.

    Myself and some other Sevilla fans organized the first official Peña in the US (peña is essentially a supporters club). Others are forming for separate teams as well.

    It mainly has a problem of lack of TV coverage as FSC only plays the EPL and Serie A, while you need GolTV, which isn't even found on dish anymore, only on FiOS for Verizon (at least if you live in Buffalo, elsewhere it can be bought as an addon to Time Warner or your cable company).

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    • Thomas 10 months ago

      so Real is the evil empire? haha.

      i know that Sevilla has alot of interest in the Americas, but other than them, Villareal & the Evil Empire, i dont know of any more La Liga clubs interested.

      Yes, I did forget bout poor Danny. Sorry. I agree that La Liga needs to shown more often on TV. Luckily, I get FiOS so I manage to watch GolTV sometimes.

      Thanks for the comments. Hope this helps ppl who have no clue in what happens in Europe.

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  2. gem asdani 10 months ago

    I think the MLS is pretty good for a league thats only a decade old. They already developed some pretty good goalkeepers and a few great prospects like Adu and Altidore. Heres to seeing the league continue its growth :)

    Cheers mate

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