Spanish 4th team always underperforming?

[Dragonite]

greenbay,

Spain, as the undisputed leader of the country ranking, is the most deserving country to get a fourth spot. Whatever your calculations might say, even if the English 4th and German 4th get better CL results, the first country to “deserve” a fourth CL spot must be Spain.

I’m not saying that England and/or Germany don’t deserve a fourth spot as well. Just not before Spain, they don’t lead, they follow.



Overgame: underachievement or overachievement is a comparison between what happened and what was “supposed”/”expected” to happen.
If the reality is better than the expectation, that’s an overachievement. If it’s worse, it’s an underachievement.

So yes, a CL last 16 can be an overachievement (“good”) for Celta de Vigo, and an underachievement (“bad”) for Real Madrid.

Real Madrid 2004/2005 wasn’t much different from current Real Madrid. They had two CL wins, two semifinals and one quarter final in the previous five seasons.
Nowadays they have also two CL wins and three semifinals over the previous five seasons – almost the same.

Celta de Vigo was better in 2003/2004 than they’re now, but still, advancing from a group with AC Milan (title holder) and Ajax (quarter finalist in the previous season) was impressive.
Ajax then wasn’t the useless team they’re today. Even Club Brugge, the other group opponent, was also strong.


Real Madrid’s 2004/2005, to refresh your memory:
Casillas, Raúl, Roberto Carlos, Helguera, Míchel Salgado, Guti, Figo, Zidane, Morientes, Pavón, Ronaldo, Beckham, Solari, Celades, Raúl Bravo, Samuel, Gravesen, Owen

“Not a European giant”?!

[Overgame]

I'm sriously tired of your nonsense. Stop your useless spam.

[Aidann]

And remind that one of the failures of Portugal was Paços de Ferreira, that was a one-time phenomenon. The problem with the 4th spanish team is the fact of Real Sociedad ended with 1 point in GS

LOL
So, Paços is allowed to be a failure, because is a one-time phenomenon, but you think that Real Sociedad is a top powerhouse in European football, right?
Let's see the last 10 years:

Code: Select all

      Real Sociedad    Paços Ferreira
      final position   final position
      La Liga          Primeira Liga
2007     19                6
2008     2nd tier          15
2009     2nd tier          10
2010     2nd tier          10
2011     15                7
2012     12                10
2013     4                 3
2014     7                 15
2015     12                8
2016     9                 7

Clearly, Real Sociedad is a La Liga top favourite alongside Real Madrid and Barcelona every year. The problem is that they are unlucky with the referees.

[greenbay]

greenbay,

Spain, as the undisputed leader of the country ranking, is the most deserving country to get a fourth spot. Whatever your calculations might say, even if the English 4th and German 4th get better CL results, the first country to “deserve” a fourth CL spot must be Spain.

I’m not saying that England and/or Germany don’t deserve a fourth spot as well. Just not before Spain, they don’t lead, they follow.

Interesting "logics". So if tomorrow Sheik Abdul buys Celtic and Sergej Oligarch buys Rangers, both spending a fortune on buying the finest players, both winning CL and EL a couple of times, making Scotland #4 in the UEFA rankings, then Scotland deserve to get four spots in CL instead of Italy...? For Aberdeen and Hearts...?

[greenbay]

Let's do it like this:
- Those 16 that made it to R16 are automatically qualified for the next edition of CL.
- Those 16 that didn't make it enter qualifiying rounds for the next edition along with the best not yet qualified team from every of the 54 FAs, all starting in Q1/Q2.
It will take not more than a few years, before the big four do have more than 20 spots in CL.

[Dragonite]

Spain isn’t the undisputed leader because of two or three clubs.
Most of their clubs are extremely competitive.
Spain’s “secondary” clubs have better results that the “secondary” clubs from anywhere else, that’s why Spain’s lead is huge, not because Real, Barça and Atlético are dragging a lot of dead weight.

Answering your question, if Scotland one day is above Italy in the country ranking, then Scotland deserves at least as much, or more, than Italy.
Aberdeen/Hearts taking advantage of the accomplishments of two strong neighbours is something that always happened in several European countries.

They don’t “deserve” 4 being 4th because Italy doesn’t either, it’s an unacceptable modification. They’d deserve 4 if they were top 3.

[Lyonnais]

Let's do it like this:
- Those 16 that made it to R16 are automatically qualified for the next edition of CL.
- Those 16 that didn't make it enter qualifiying rounds for the next edition along with the best not yet qualified team from every of the 54 FAs, all starting in Q1/Q2.
It will take not more than a few years, before the big four do have more than 20 spots in CL.

agreed.

I suggested in another thread (not really a wish, but more for fun) to set up a system of promotion/relegation in CL with the 8 teams finishing at the bottom of their groups being replaced the following season by the 8 quarter finalists of the EL.

It is indeed likely that after a couple of years the big 4 trust most of the CL spots.

[Aliceag]

Greenbay and Lyonnais this is NOT what I proposed. That makes little to no sense. What I propose was something slightly different. Teams have to qualify to CL via their home league as always. Now, if the last time they played CL they achieved R16 then they enter in GS. If the last time they played CL they were not able to reach R16, then they go to qualifiers.

This way would be much more balanced and sensible. The top 4 would NOT grab all the spots, because those spots are earned via the domestic league. So each association would be capped to 4 slots as always (of 5 if TH). However, this would condition weather they start in GS or qualifiers despite being 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th, based on individual past merit in the competition.

As such, Leicester would have gone to a qualifier despite being 1st, and Man City would to go GS directly because they were semi-finalists last year; Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico would enter directly in GS, but Sevilla and Villareal go to qualifiers; PSG and Monaco would be in GS directly but Lyon would have gone to qualifers instead, etc, etc...

[max tre]

Greenbay and Lyonnais this is NOT what I proposed. That makes little to no sense. What I propose was something slightly different. Teams have to qualify to CL via their home league as always. Now, if the last time they played CL they achieved R16 then they enter in GS. If the last time they played CL they were not able to reach R16, then they go to qualifiers.

This way would be much more balanced and sensible. The top 4 would NOT grab all the spots, because those spots are earned via the domestic league. So each association would be capped to 4 slots as always (of 5 if TH). However, this would condition weather they start in GS or qualifiers despite being 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th, based on individual past merit in the competition.

As such, Leicester would have gone to a qualifier despite being 1st, and Man City would to go GS directly because they were semi-finalists last year; Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico would enter directly in GS, but Sevilla and Villareal go to qualifiers; PSG and Monaco would be in GS directly but Lyon would have gone to qualifers instead, etc, etc...

As such, if Liverpool had won the 2013-14 PL, it would have gone to the 2014-15 EL instead of CL GS 'cause all its English comrades achieved the RO16?
If I got it right, you obviously can't entirely cap the slots. These "unlikely to happen but who knows" things are messing my exhausted mind, and if you simply grant the RO16-achiever a CL slot, then I can see some leagues (namely the PL and the Liga) sending 5 or 6 teams quite often.

Btw, did anybody here ever propose something like: let's say that there are 16 (or 20, or whatever you want) GS-slots, allocate them among the leagues via the Imperiali highest averages method (applied on the country coefficients, or on some adjusted coefficients) and then give each country one (or two?) QR-slot(s)?

[Aidann]

Sorry for the "on-topic":

Summary:
While the quality of the 4th Spanish team has been decaying over the last few years, it’s still much better than the quality of the 1st placed team in most countries.

So, performance of the 4th Spanish team was pretty good in past years, and it's above average (as shown in my first post) in recent years. Only shame were teams like Villarreal and Real Sociedad who, now and then, qualify for UCL or get relegated to Spanish 2nd tier.
I still don't see why it is been said again and again that Spanish 4th team is an underachiever.
------
end of "on-topic"
you can go on now discussing your preferences about how many teams per country must play the qualifiers

[greenbay]

So, performance of the 4th Spanish team was pretty good in past years, and it's above average (as shown in my first post) in recent years.

Simply NOT true.

The average league path qualifier earned 7.2 points in group stage.

Per country:
England 9.25 points
Germany 7.8 points
Spain 5.2 points

Last time I checked, 5.2 points are NOT better than 7.2 points...

[Dragonite]

I believe that the “4th Spanish team underachieves” fans are basically fanatics of the country ranking; they’re too lazy to look at teams individually and prefer to look at them based on nationality.
Spain is #1, so for them any Spanish team is better than any non-Spanish team, and whenever a Spanish team loses against a non-Spanish, they call it an “underachievement”.

Actually this very simple way of seeing things has been very effective recently, non-Spanish teams defeating/eliminating Spanish teams over the last few years isn’t common.

[nemesys]

I don't know how reliable transfermarkt is (if there are more reliable sources, please point them out), however:

Code: Select all

LA LIGA
--------------------------
Real Madrid     769,30 Mil
FC Barcelona    756,50 Mil
Atlético Madrid 493,00 Mil
--------------------------
Sevilla FC      205,00 Mil
Valencia CF     195,00 Mil
Villarreal CF   166,20 Mil
Athletic Bilbao 146,10 Mil
Real Sociedad   111,30 Mil
Celta de Vigo   107,80 Mil
Málaga CF        71,70 Mil
--------------------------

Source: http://www.transfermarkt.com/laliga/sta ... bewerb/ES1

Code: Select all

PREMIERSHIP
--------------------------
Manchester Utd. 534,25 Mil
Manchester City 518,00 Mil
Chelsea         514,80 Mil
--------------------------
Arsenal         468,50 Mil
Liverpool       387,20 Mil
Tottenham Spurs 365,50 Mil
West Ham United 241,50 Mil
Everton FC      239,25 Mil
Leicester City  210,50 Mil
Southampton FC  199,00 Mil
--------------------------

Source: http://www.transfermarkt.com/premier-le ... bewerb/GB1


I think that you guys should first agree on Over/Under achieving relatively to what?

Their 1st in the ranking country status, or their budget?

Two different arguments, on my books: Arsenal has a squad budget comparable to Atletico; Sevilla or Villareal do not (they compare to Leicester or Southampton, or even lower, according to transfermarkt).

That being said, yes, Spain misses a 4/4 in CL KOs in every season, so this repeated fact can be seen as a partial failure from the 4th club, compared to occasional 3/4 semifinalists!

Over/Under achieving is relative: it depends on what it is related to.

Edit: formatting.

[bugylibicska]

Maybe, because I root for the Spanish teams a bit more among the big 5, I`m disappointed with their playoff performances. After the big 2, 3 if we count Atletico the others are way behind in financial terms still perform admirably in the EL. So, yes every time I`ve thought they`d make it and failed, I was disappointed. Could have been bad luck - like Villarreal having scores of injuries this season - or something else, not sure.

[Dragonite]

nemesys,
The values you posted aren’t budgets; they are “market values”.
The English teams are always overrated/overpriced and the Spanish teams usually are underrated/underpriced.

Spanish teams get good players for cheap prices, so they have lower “market values”, while English teams get bad players for expensive prices, so they have high “market values”.


I think you guys are overrating the “advancing from the CL group stage” thing.
Sevilla’s season was a success, despite not advancing from the CL group, while Chelsea’s season was a failure, despite advancing from its CL group.