Which team is better?

[og2002gr]

Sports are about who is better.
There are many ways to compare teams, through various competitions with different formats and different demands.

Question is, in your opinion, which is the most reliable way to compare two teams and decide who is better?

A: League format? Each team plays many games, all season along, against various teams with various styles and tactics.
So it sounds rational to consider the leading team as the best one since they were tested in many games against many obstacles.

B: Competition format like European Cups etc.? Usually such competitons include the best teams around Europe, and you have to advance through different round (qualification rounds, group stage, knock-outs and a final on neutral ground).
So it sounds rational to consider the Cup winners as the best team since they survived many rounds, they eliminated the teams that elimininated weaker teams and in the end they won the Final against another contenter you walked all the way till there.

C: Head 2 head?
It sounds rational to consider that the best way to compare two teams is see them play each other!

D: Various rankings like UEFA co-efficients, ELO, euroclubindex, Lyonnais ranking etc. which combine League results with/without european results and compore different parameters

E: Other?

This question came into my mind after watching yesterday that Zilina destroyed Spartak Trnava 6-0. At first I thought it was something like a revenge win for a former humiliation. Butprevious games was another 0-3 win for Zilina plus a "normal" 3-1 win plus a draw. So, in a single season Zilina played against Spartak Trnava 4 times, beating them easily 3 times, giving just a draw with a total record of 12-1 goals.
It is fair to consider Zilina a much better team than Spartak Trnava. Just to see after that Spartak won an easy championship title with 10+ points over ZIlina who struggles in 4th place!
Similar case was seeing Basel destroying Champions of Young Boys.

Another paradox is Real / Barca case. Who is the best Spanish team?
I guess it is Barcelona who has won 4 of the last 6 Championships against Real who only has 1.
On the other hand Real has won 3 of the last Champions League editions and are the favorite to make it 4 out of 5. Hands down Real is the best euopean team.
But how the best european team is not the best spanish team? They even finish 3rd this season!

Same case is Liverpool/Manchester City with the later just breaking every record in their League, but being easily eliminated by the first one.

[Carson]

As an Australian and who's all sports follow a finals-type post season... not that way.

[Polak]

It's a very broad question that would be difficult to give one answer to. It depends on so many different factors.

For instance, what do you mean by 'what team is better?' Do you mean right now? Or do you mean overall what club has achieved more?

At the time of writing, I see most people have picked the league. I certainly wouldn't pick the league when comparing teams from different countries, because for instance, Legia are not better than Tottenham just because they have won their domestic league more times.

The same could be said for European titles. Are Ajax better than Juventus, because they have won the ECC/CL more times? Juventus would probably smash Ajax right now, but overall, Ajax as a club have achieved more in Europe I suppose.

Comparing teams like Arsenal and Bayern is easier though. Bayern have not only been more successful in Europe over the years but have also been more successful in head to heads with Arsenal too. If you wanted to bring the domestic league in to it too, Bayern are more successful there also, although as I said, comparing success in different domestic leagues probably isn't wise. So both in overall achievements and in the present day/last few years, Bayern are better than Arsenal.

Of course, if the question is more about the present day rather than past achievements, as I suspect it is, then I would say you have to take a bit of everything, excluding the domestic league, unless you are comparing teams from the same country.

In some cases it is just too difficult to pick a definitive 'better' team. For instance you mentioned Barcelona and Real Madrid. This season Barcelona have won the domestic league and had a better head to head against Real Madrid in the league. They also won the Copa del Rey, but they lost in a two legged Supercopa tie to Real Madrid at the beginning of the season and were knocked out of the CL in the 1/4 final, while Real Madrid have reached the final. I would say in this case it is difficult to distinguish who is better and different people will have different opinions.

As I said, in the case of Bayern and Arsenal it would be easier to suggest that Bayern are clearly the better team, or in the case of Liverpool v Arsenal, because Liverpool finished above Arsenal domestically, beat them in the league head to head and reached the CL final, while Arsenal weren't able to even reach the EL final.

[Dragonite]

I think that any team starts by claiming itself the best and then searches for evidences to support that claim.
These evidences are customizable, whatever that team isn’t good at “doesn’t matter”, and whatever that team is good at is “VERY IMPORTANT”.
This propaganda is vital; no team is able to attract any new fans or keep the old ones with claims like “we’re the 14th best”, nobody wants to support the “14th best”, they all want to be number 1.

One of the customizable evidences is, like Polak said, the timespan.
“Better” when, this season, last 5 seasons, or last 10 seasons, or maybe all-time?!
They will obviously pick the most advantageous scenario.
And if none of the choices is pleasant enough, this is discarded to the “doesn’t matter” category and they’ll just focus on something else where the outcome is more satisfying.

[Lorric]

When I create my ideal versions of qualifying tournaments, I always try to get league systems in place over KO playoffs. Even the qualifying for CL and EL I'd have qualifying groups before the main groups. A KO tie is actually a two team league. Winning it just means you were better than that one team. Adding more teams means you were better than all of them if you win it, even if someone took 6pts off you, and the more games there are, the more reliable this is. It may well be that you would consistently fare poorly against that team that took 6pts off you, but overall, the top team is more capable of dealing with the variety of challenges that league presented than anyone else in it was.

I very much dislike KO playoffs at the end of leagues unless it's between top and bottom of two different leagues or necessary because of numerous regional leagues at the same level of a pyramid, such as in Scotland where two league winners must play to challenge the bottom League Two team. I especially dislike them in Britain, because we have them at the end of 46 game leagues in England and in Scotland we have them in leagues where teams play each other four times, making those leagues doubly reliable! Though at least they limit it to four teams, unlike the madness in Belgium.

Remember, winning the national league is always valued over winning the national cup. Cup competitions bring their unique brand of excitement, emotion and high stakes, but if you truly want to know who is the best, you look to the league winner.

[greenbay]

E: Other. Best of ninety-nine series.

[BurningStorm]

In '11, Bayern was eliminated by Inter in round of 16 (in injury time, typically) and then Schalke beat Inter in the QF twice 5:2 and 2:1! Of course Bayern was still the stronger team. But when a team like Liverpool beat City in the CL (even in both games), it's more difficult to say. In 38 league games, City was clearly the strongest team, but they didn't look like England's elite in these H2H games in the most important competition.

Every case is different. And it's hard to say in every case. It's better to rate a 3-year span or something.

[subway14]

I woulda said European competition but with Real buying all the recent competitions it's not a good indicator anymore so league

[Lyonnais]

I'd say I don't know as it really depends on the situation.

The Real/Barça or Liverpool/City issues are the perfect example. Winning the Champions League is an outstanding achievement but winning the league, namely the way Barça and City did it, are truely great achievements too.
So it's difficult to say

[SimonB]

To answer the question I would say that a perfectly designed rating method would give us the answer to this question, but it is unsatisfactory for a fan because they want to win trophies. I have yet to hear the chant "we have a higher eci/elo rating than you!" from the stands even though fans are probably a bit more knowledgeable about coeffs. etc. probably very few know or care about ranking methods.

It also, as some have already pointed out, depends on the time frame used for comparisons, the ratings do a fairly good but not perfect job of this with the time frame that they use.

If you finished a narrow runner-up in your own league and also lost in the CL final, and the winner of the CL final did not win his domestic league, you could perhaps rightly claim that overall you were the best team in Europe for that season, but nobody would care would they.

in a more general sense though across Europe, the ratings are the only real way of answering the question of who is best when comparing say the 15th place finisher in France with the 5th place in Switzerland say, if anyone really wanted to know that is!

[Lorric]

Portugal are European Champions but I expect few regard them as Europe's best team. They are not considered a favourite to take the World Cup. If somehow everyone had gone to France and played a league of 23 games I very much doubt Portugal would have topped it. If European club football was organised into leagues with national leagues merely being regional leagues in a great European pyramid, I'm sure the top team would be more reliable than in the CL format where a referee can bend things so much in Real's favour.

[Firnen]

Well, you can't advance with 3 draws this time...and Portugal's luck has to end at a point, they can't keep stealing matches with 1-2 counter-attacks the whole game...

[Lorric]

Well, you can't advance with 3 draws this time...and Portugal's luck has to end at a point, they can't keep stealing matches with 1-2 counter-attacks the whole game...

You can if one team beats the other two and the other two draw with each other.

[Carson]

I'm bitter after what happened this season but if you look at what happened in Australia this season it gives a prime example of this question.

A) Are Sydney FC better for finishing a 27 game season top of the league, finishing 14 points clear of 2nd place and only losing 3 times all season in the league.

B) Melbourne Victory for winning a final series by beating three teams (which included Sydney FC).

At the end of it, Melbourne Victory will be known as 2018/19 A-League Champions and that stings for a Sydney FC Fan.

[og2002gr]

Until now, the head 2 head option has zero votes.

So what about the Zilina vs Spartan Trnava case ?
Who was the best team this season?
The one that won easily their opponent after 4 heh games (not just a final or 2legs)?
Or the one that won an easy title ?