ayrshire_blue said:
It wasn't long ago we were in div 2 guys, when did our fans become so arrogant and smarmy?
That aside, good post. Putting things into perspective is important when talking about the Scottish league. Putting things into perspective shouldn't involve comparisons between two things that aren't remotely similar, that being third tier English league football and top tier (or international) Scottish football. It was crap when we were in Div 2 and I slagged it off all the time back then, too. But I digress.
Portuguese league, ranked 6th in the Europe, has a very different overall structure to the Scottish league but there are some parallels. Three big clubs have won 95% of all the top division league titles in history. But there are only two main divisions (16 teams in each - I assume all are professional), then the divisions below that have regional splits (and I'm guessing semi-pro or amateur). The top two teams usually get into the Champions League, but that's often on merit through qualification, not by default, despite the league's fairly high ranking. And at least one of their teams usually does pretty well in the CL. The top three walk the domestic league, and do compete with each other. It seems to me that having a competitive (if broad in quality) top division should be something that all football leagues should have.
It has always amazed me that there's any coverage at all of football below the Championship in England; likewise I'm surprised when anything below the top three of the Scottish league gets any coverage. I think the FA Cup has a lot to blame for that state of affairs in England. Even ITV Digital didn't kill lower league football, although it did put it firmly back in its place. The FA Cup is still magical. What does Scotland have? Old firm day, four per year plus cup meetings.
The comparisons between Scottish and Romanian leagues are even more pronounced (and they are similarly ranked). Most of the silverware in the league's history has gone to one city, Bucarest. All the country's top players play elsewhere in Europe because there's more money there. Their satellite channels show mainly matches with foreign teams. And Romania, a decent national side in the 90s, aren't anything like as good nowadays.
Does anyone in Romania bemoan the poor quality of the Romanian league? No, not particularly, presumably because Hungary, Moldova and Bulgaria don't have a multi-billion pound football league, and also because Romanians realise they are quite lucky that their money is worth more than fuck all nowadays without wanting to argue about spending tens of millions on footballers and the increases in gate receipts that level of funding would naturally cause.
It's just sour grapes from Scotland, if you ask me.
