As I look around the European leagues, it seems this season is objectively the weakest and worst in terms of top-level quality that I can remember. There is not one team around the top 5 leagues that could come close to the best teams of the past:
Real Madrid don’t have a #9 of any real pedigree and rely of Bellingham’s brilliance for most of their goalscoring and on Ancelotti tactical brilliance for keeping them afloat with a talented, but unbalanced team.
Xavi’s experiment at Barca seems to be on the verge of failing. Their only world-class attacking talent is Pedri who is always injured and a 36-year-old Lewandowski; none of their prime age forwards would look out of place at a mid to lower table English team.
Atletico Madrid are still chugging along under Simeone, but they are certainly weaker compared to themselves at their peak a few years ago.
Inter looks like the only top class team in Italy right now. Napoli has dropped off badly after winning the scudetto and Milan is consistently inconsistent.
Bayern seem to be the most balanced team in the world in terms of squad age profile and talent, but they are rarely playing like one. It’s debatable whether the team took a step forward or backwards under Tuchel and overall something seems rotten in German football.
PSG are a joke of a club.
Man City are still the best club team in the world on paper, but look to be in a bit of disarray due to injuries and loss of key players and kind of lost their spark.
We’re in the rebuilding phase and the new players have not truly made their mark yet; to the extent that we’re consistent it's mostly thanks to the old guard of Salah, VVD and Alisson.
Arsenal seem to be getting closer to building a title-winning team, but still have a couple of key pieces missing and it remains to be seen if they possess a real winning mentality.
United and Chelsea are so badly run that they are not even in the conversation.
Looking at players across the clubs, there is barely anyone worthy of a world-class status. Mbappe and Haaland are superb, but still a step down from the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly; other than Bellingham are there any other stand-out talents in their prime? Where is the new Xavi, Iniesta and Modric, a new Gerrard and Lampard, Henry and Zidane and Pirlo and Ronaldinho, Cannavaro and Buffon? #10's have mostly died out as a class, but where are the clinical strikers: your Raul, Van Nistelrooy, Huntelaar and Owen types, even someone like Defoe? We might look at our current front 5 and justifiably say they are not “all that” compared to Mane, prime Salah and Firmino, but which other team can really boast a great front line? I love Saka, but he doesn’t score nearly as much as the best wing-forwards of the past; Rashford seemed destined for superstardom but it’s all going wrong; almost the entire generation of German attacking talents has failed. I can go on, but you get the picture.
It’s a bewildering situation. There is more money in football than ever before; there are more games and longer games and more competitions than ever and the football-related media is booming. And yet in terms of pure quality this is the lowest and poorest I can remember football in my lifetime.
Real Madrid don’t have a #9 of any real pedigree and rely of Bellingham’s brilliance for most of their goalscoring and on Ancelotti tactical brilliance for keeping them afloat with a talented, but unbalanced team.
Xavi’s experiment at Barca seems to be on the verge of failing. Their only world-class attacking talent is Pedri who is always injured and a 36-year-old Lewandowski; none of their prime age forwards would look out of place at a mid to lower table English team.
Atletico Madrid are still chugging along under Simeone, but they are certainly weaker compared to themselves at their peak a few years ago.
Inter looks like the only top class team in Italy right now. Napoli has dropped off badly after winning the scudetto and Milan is consistently inconsistent.
Bayern seem to be the most balanced team in the world in terms of squad age profile and talent, but they are rarely playing like one. It’s debatable whether the team took a step forward or backwards under Tuchel and overall something seems rotten in German football.
PSG are a joke of a club.
Man City are still the best club team in the world on paper, but look to be in a bit of disarray due to injuries and loss of key players and kind of lost their spark.
We’re in the rebuilding phase and the new players have not truly made their mark yet; to the extent that we’re consistent it's mostly thanks to the old guard of Salah, VVD and Alisson.
Arsenal seem to be getting closer to building a title-winning team, but still have a couple of key pieces missing and it remains to be seen if they possess a real winning mentality.
United and Chelsea are so badly run that they are not even in the conversation.
Looking at players across the clubs, there is barely anyone worthy of a world-class status. Mbappe and Haaland are superb, but still a step down from the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly; other than Bellingham are there any other stand-out talents in their prime? Where is the new Xavi, Iniesta and Modric, a new Gerrard and Lampard, Henry and Zidane and Pirlo and Ronaldinho, Cannavaro and Buffon? #10's have mostly died out as a class, but where are the clinical strikers: your Raul, Van Nistelrooy, Huntelaar and Owen types, even someone like Defoe? We might look at our current front 5 and justifiably say they are not “all that” compared to Mane, prime Salah and Firmino, but which other team can really boast a great front line? I love Saka, but he doesn’t score nearly as much as the best wing-forwards of the past; Rashford seemed destined for superstardom but it’s all going wrong; almost the entire generation of German attacking talents has failed. I can go on, but you get the picture.
It’s a bewildering situation. There is more money in football than ever before; there are more games and longer games and more competitions than ever and the football-related media is booming. And yet in terms of pure quality this is the lowest and poorest I can remember football in my lifetime.
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