- Arsenal v Sporting 8pm Wednesday, and the problem of accumulated minutes.
- Why is no one asking why in football, some things are
By Tony Attwood
One of the fascinating issues that we see in certain European leagues at the moment is how the same few teams rise to the top and become utterly unreachable by the clubs below. It is something that we see from Germany to Portugal, from Scotland to France, and it is a factor that has been avoided for many years in England. And indeed it was a factor that made the English league stand out from the rest, although of late that excitement has been somewhat overthrown.
This is not to say that there are not some clubs that regularly turn up in the upper parts of the league in England, and put on a bit of a show at attempting to make it to the summit, but rather it is the issue of just two or three or sometimes just one club always winning the league. And that of course destroys the whole notion of “competition”.
In France, for example, Lyon won the league seven seasons running in the first part of this century. In Germany, Bayern Munich won the League 12 out of 13 seasons. In England, Manchester City has won the league six out of seven seasons recently.
In Portugal, in the last 12 seasons, Benfica have won it six times, Porto three times, and Sporting three times. Indeed, apart from a couple of odd seasons, no one else has got a look in.
Obviously, for supporters of the clubs that win all the time, this makes for lots of celebrations, but in terms of competitive football, it means, as we have often noted, that there isn’t as much competition as there was in the fabled old days.
From 1966/7 to 1972/3 seven different teams won the first division in France, and two of those won it for the first time ever.
But nowadays the idea seems to be to build a club that is not only going to win the league but also become part of the new elite. Thus, various very rich men buy clubs like Nottingham Forest or Tottenham Hotspur with the clear aim of becoming the new kings of the Premier League, only to find that some other mega-rich people like Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan have got there first.
Of course, not everyone is like this. Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought Wrexham and have taken the club they love from the National League to the Championship in four consecutive seasons. And they are surviving, for they are currently seventh. That is a very different story from that of clubs where the winning is more important than the long-term support and certainly has nothing to do with “playing the game.”
Portugal is one of the countries where there has always been some competition to win the league, more than in France and Germany these days, but not really so much as in the olden times.
This table shows the comparative points per game after 29 games in England and Portugal for the top five clubs. The final column considers which of the two leagues the club that comes in that position (shown in column one) gets the most points per game and thus makes life easier for the top teams.
| League position | PPG Portugal | PPG England | Easier |
| 1 | 2.62 | 2.19 | Portugal |
| 2 | 2.52 | 2.06 | Portugal |
| 3 | 2.38 | 1.72 | Portugal |
| 4 | 1.86 | 1.72 | Porgual |
| 5 | 1.62 | 1.63 | England |
As you can see, the top four in Portugal all get more points than the top four in England – but this is not because those teams are better than English teams, but rather because the opposition against whom they play are a lot poorer. This works well for Portuguese teams in their domestic season, but means that they have a much tougher time of it when they play against teams from other tougher leagues, such as those found in the Premier League.
Now we can see what a difference playing in an easier league makes if we compare the two clubs after 28 games each. For Sporting, as we can see here were ten points better off, had scored 17 more goals, had conceded four goals fewer and had a 21 better goal difference than Arsenal. This table makes Sporting look like the clear favourites.
| Pos |
|
|
|
|
F | A |
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 28 | 18 | 7 | 3 | 56 | 21 | 35 | 61 |
|
|
28
|
22
|
5
|
1
|
73
|
17
|
56
|
71
|
On that basis, it looks like Sporting ought to slaughter Arsenal. But once we consider the level of opposition that Sporting play against, we are immediately reassured that this most certainly is not so.
