Is the Premier League still the best league in the world?

Quality of football/ teams produced:

This is a difficult one to gauge, but it is fair to say that the Bundesliga, Premier League and La Liga lead the way in this category. They all have their strengths – the Premier League is renown for it’s physicality, competitiveness and athleticism; La Liga for it’s technical and tactical guile; and the Bundesliga is a mixture of the two, with teams like Bayern Munich symbolising a more Spanish approach, and teams like Dortmund depicting a more Premier League stance. So how does one judge the quality of football in a league?

One way to do this is by looking at how well the teams do in Europe. Over the past three seasons, La Liga has produced 3 semi-finalists, 3 finalists and 2 winners through Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid which has resulted in Spain being UEFA’s highest ranked country in the Champions League. The Bundesliga teams have also regularly featured in the latter stages of the Champions League, producing 4 semi finalists, 2 finalists, and 1 winner, with Bayern winning in the 2012-13 season. Alternatively the Premier League has just one semi-finalist (Chelsea 2013-14) in this time period, has produced no winners or finalists, and this provides a huge gulf in class between Spain and Germany, compared to the Premier League.

However, there are other ways to view the quality of the teams in a league. For example, one could look at the quality of the teams lower down the table. This season, there was a difference 74 points behind Barcelona at the top of the league (94), and Cordoba at the bottom (20). This points gap was 57 for the Premier League, and only 48 for the Bundesliga, which would indicate that their is greater all-round quality in the Bundesliga.

Additionally, La Liga tends to lack balance: great attacking flair, but a defensive rashness and fragility that is not always seen in other leagues, and this is demonstrated by the huge gulf in class between the top 4 or 5 teams and the rest of the division. Success in the Champions League is slightly artificial, because with large proportions of revenue generated by La Liga going to either Barcelona or Real Madrid, they are almost shoe-ins every year for semi finals and finals, hence the reason they have such a regular showing in the latter stages of competitions.

Ranking:

1. Bundesliga
2. La Liga
3. Premier League