Spanish Football now in Decline.

[NeilMcD]

Dunphy writes off Italian Football one week and now its Spanish Football. He is laughable at this stage. Madrid are a joke, despite the fact they may win the league.

[stojkovic]

Well there is only one Spanish team left and one Italian clinging by a thread compared to possibly four English teams.

I cant see Schalke, Fenerbache or Roma winning it, can you.

It's a United-Liverpool Final.

[jebus]

Well there is only one Spanish team left and one Italian clinging by a thread compared to possibly four English teams.

I cant see Schalke, Fenerbache or Roma winning it, can you.

It's a United-Liverpool Final.

How many times have English teams won this cup this decade again?

[stojkovic]

How many times have English teams won this cup this decade again?

The point is about current form, the last 2/3 years.

Winners - England, Spain, Italy one each

Finalists - England - 3, Italy - 2, Spain - 1.

And this year, look at the QF teams left.

Where are Madrid, Valencia, Sevilla, Milan, Juve and (Inter) ?

An English team WILL win it this year.

[jebus]

why is it the last 3 years that form is taken? I'd say you'd need at least 5 to properly gauge it, although since football seems to move in decades (team of the decade etc.), I'd ask which is the better league this decade, and the answer is really just a toss up between Italy and Spain in that respect. Just because Liverpool fluked a win in 2005 doesn't mean the Premier League has come close to the other two if we are taking Champions League performances as the end all of this discussion.

I bet you were on of the guys who harped on about 3/4 of the semi finalists last year being from England and then disappeared when the still couldn't win it

[stojkovic]

I bet you were on of the guys who harped on about 3/4 of the semi finalists last year being from England and then disappeared when the still couldn't win it

No, I wasnt.

Im actually more of a connosoir of the Continental game than the English one.

I think that the 20 La Liga teams are better than the 20 English ones but when it comes to the top four teams, I'd have to go for the Premier League.

[sligoman]

I cant see Schalke, Fenerbache or Roma winning it, can you.Roma yes.

[gustavo]

I think Roma have a good chance , very impressive last night , if they can control a game over 2 legs against the best team in Spain , then why not.

[NeilMcD]

I think Chelsea will win it but there one weakness is their coach in big games. I am not sure he has it but if they had a top coach or manager I would reckon they have the best chance.

In relation to the Spanish game every team plays good football and plays possession football but the English game is strong at the moment. 4 teams in the quarter final of the Champions League and 3 teams in the Uefa Cup and one of those is Bolton who are struggling against relegation and they knocked out a potential Champions League team from Spain. This has been achieve with a 2 Scottish, French, 2 Spanish, Israeli/Portuguese and 1 English manager and mostly non English players.

[Over the post]

None of the big Spanish teams are having a good season. Madrid lead the league by default, not on merit. Barça can't seem to get their act together despite the wealth of talent at their disposal. Valencia are in a mess on and off the pitch. Sevilla still haven't got over the loss of Ramos. Zaragoza, who had a superb season last year, are now facing relegation. Not a vintage year.

Great article by Sid Lowe in today's Guardian about Spain and Italy from a footballing perspective:

You only win when you're sinning

The Spanish media are desperate to put some kind of gloss on the unthinkable - that their rivals across the Med play better football

Sid Lowe March 6, 2008 11:14 AM

As if going out of the Champions League was not bad enough, as if seeing the dream of a tenth European Cup disappear in smoke was not sufficiently painful, Real Madrid had to go out to a AS Roma, a team from Italy - that most bitter of Spanish rivals.

Because if there's one thing the Spanish really, really hate, it's the
Italians. In fact, it's become an obsession. Not because of the fashion, the impossibly perfect facial hair, or even the crazy driving and rubbish mopeds: Spain has got its own fair share of those. No, the Spanish hate the Italians because of their football.

And Roma are not your typical Italian side because they attack, because they score goals, because they are worth watching. In Spain, where football has to be aesthetic as much as it is effective, your typical Italian side is plain dull, hideously defensive.

Few people were less impressed with Fabio Cannavaro winning the Golden Ball as European player of the year than the Spanish, even if he had just joined Madrid. "It's a miracle that he didn't boot it into touch when they gave it to him," sniped one columnist.

When Cannavaro played poorly, he was rubbish; when his partner, Sergio Ramos, played poorly he was suffering an injury, having an off day, too keen to win - or dragged down by the Italian playing alongside him.

Likewise, when Fabio Capello was sacked as coach of Real Madrid for being "too boring" despite winning the club's first league title in four years, ending the longest Santiago Bernabéu drought in over half a century, his "anti-football" - and, yes, that is what they called it - was seen as being the logical conclusion of his nationality.

And the day Claudio Ranieri was sacked as Valencia coach after not managing a win in six matches, it was treated as if the Mestalla had been delivered from evil. The Italian coach was a "dictator"; according to one report; Valencia had been freed from "the yoke of Ranierism".

Valencia won their first game after sacking him and employing Spaniard Antonio López. And the locals could hardly contain themselves, especially as López's tactic had been so simple: drop the Italians. By leaving out the Ranieri signings Marco di Vaio, Emiliano Moretti, Bernardo Corradi and Stefano Fiore, Valencia had, the sports daily Marca gleefully said, gone through a process of "de-Italianising" themselves.

Over here, people think Italian football is dirty, cynical, talentless and boring. Few Italians have succeeded in Spain because they are rubbish, they say, while few Spaniards have succeeded in Italy because the football is rubbish - and full of cheats.

When Real Madrid faced Juventus in the 2003 Champions League quarters, a Spanish television trailer used the music and opening credits from Star Wars to announce an apocalyptic clash between Madrid's galactic superstars and the "miserable football" of the evil empire from across the Alps. TVE waved off Madrid's Jedi knights with an Obi-Wan-esque, "May the goals be with you."

A few years earlier, after the Italian press complained about a blatant - and deliberate - handball goal by Raúl in the Champions League, the Spanish press got their knickers in a twist, screaming: "How dare you lecture us?!" The sports paper Marca published a "dossier" on the tricks of the trade of Italian football, "the most unsporting in the world" - tricks such as diving, fouling and, ahem, winning.

And that is, kind of, the point. Because perhaps the worst thing about the Italians is that they are successful, the current World Cup winners. Spain's only international triumph is the 1964 European Championships - a four-team tournament played in Madrid.

Italian football so perfectly fuels the schizophrenic Spanish psyche, that uneasy coexistence of massive superiority and inferiority complexes. The Spanish are convinced they are better than the Italians. But, deep down, they are also convinced the Italians will beat them. By foul means, not fair.

When Tassoti smashed Luis Enrique's nose - in the penalty area - in the last minute of the 1994 World Cup quarter-final, leaving Italy going through, Spain going out and Luis Enrique going to hospital, it was the perfect embodiment of Spain and Italy: one side played all the football; the other smashed an innocent man's nose all over his face - and won.

Those victories are illegitimate, whispered sins. Asked about Italian dominance of the Champions League a few years ago the Real Madrid defender Iván Helguera, a man who had played in Italy and a genuine Italophile, defended the country: "You know what? I'd love it if we [Spain] could say we had three teams out of four in the semis, plus success at international level. That's the bottom line. That's all that matters." The next day, his remarks were nowhere to be seen.

Just as this Madrid will be nowhere to be seen in the draw for the next round of the Champions League. Down to ten men with a contentious decision and out of Europe, slain by Italians once more, there is a familiar ache in Spanish hearts.

The Guardian 6 March 2008

[cheifo]

Thanks for that, entertaining article.OH how I use to enjoy those lazy hungover Sundays in the early 90s watching Live Italian football on C4.
Those days Seria A was incomparable

[OwlsFan]

Thanks for that, entertaining article.OH how I use to enjoy those lazy hungover Sundays in the early 90s watching Live Italian football on C4.
Those days Seria A was incomparable

So, what do you do with those lazy hungover Sundays now?

[eirebhoy]

I don't think Roma's defence is strong enough. Mexes is excellent but Juan is very inconsistent. The 2 full backs are very attacking. The keeper's prone to errors. The 2 central midfielders (De Rossi and Aquilani) are attacking by nature. In fact, if their central midfielders were coached in England they'd be more Gerrard and Lampard type players than sitting midfielders.

I'd love to see them win it though. One of the best passing teams in the world.

[shakermaker1982]

I'm hoping for a Manchester United-Barca final.

I'll jump off a bridge if it's Chelsea-Liverpool. In theory we could end up with 4 English teams in the semi finals of the CL which doesn't interest me in the slightest.

[ifk101]

De Rossi is a defensive midfielder for me - and I thought he was excellent in that role against Real.

I can't see Roma winning the Champions League - of the remaining sides in the tournament I'd rate them as one of the weakest - only "better" than Schalke and Fenerbache.

[eirebhoy]

De Rossi is a defensive midfielder for me - and I thought he was excellent in that role against Real. .
Aye but if he was brought up in England he'd be a Gerrard type player. He plays deep because he has so much tactical intelligence which I doubt he'd have if coached in England from a young age. Scott Brown at Celtic is very similar to De Rossi. It'll be interesting to see what type of player he turns out to be.

[Kingdom]

Thanks for that, entertaining article.OH how I use to enjoy those lazy hungover Sundays in the early 90s watching Live Italian football on C4.
Those days Seria A was incomparable

Agreed.

[sligoman]

When's the draw for the next round?

[gustavo]

Probably Friday week after the Inter Liverpool game

[osarusan]

Few people were less impressed with Fabio Cannavaro winning the Golden Ball as European player of the year than the Spanish, even if he had just joined Madrid. "It's a miracle that he didn't boot it into touch when they gave it to him," sniped one columnist.

Great line in that article.

[Marked Man]

Serie A's not too shabby these days either.
I could see Roma winning. Would like to see a final between them and Barcelona.

[jebus]

If thge Premier league is obviously better than La Liga due to their exploits in a cup, then would the Championship now be considered the greatest league since the dawn of man due to their exploits against the Premier League in the FA Cup?

[DmanDmythDledge]

One offs happen every now and again.

Anyway, your being tabloid-esque OTT as usual.

[jebus]

One offs happen every now and again.

Anyway, your being tabloid-esque OTT as usual.

congrats on not getting the bloody point as usual

[Billsthoughts]

Dunphys "man in the pub" analysis of Ibrahamovic was hilarious. "Hes a bloody good player" - Brady ; que mock indignation and a "let me explain how he isnt a top player" from Eamo.:D

[OwlsFan]

Italian game in decline :eek: as well according to Father Time, John Giles:

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/john-giles/italian-game-is-in-terminal-decline-1314424.html

Interesting comments posted by the ordinary punters under the article.

[gustavo]

Article by the excellent Phil Ball
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=517431&root=europe&cc=5739&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1

[NeilMcD]

Barca all over the shop tonight, 2 nil up away to Betis and about to close the gap to one point and now its 3-2 to Betis. Missed penalty to Betis along the way too. Ten mins left.

[feo123]

madrid and barca are falling to pieces in the last few weeks. could be a goalfest next weekend

[TheBoss]

I would not be surprised to see a Sevilla win.

[viagogo]

I actually think Barcalona will win the Champions League. They should get through to the semi probably playing Man Utd. Think it is a big ask for Man Utd to beat Barca over two legs as they have not beaten a top European club over two legs in a long time. Then they are in a final against Chelsea/Liverpool/Arsenal, dont think its beyond reason that they will be European champions this season.