There isn’t one bubble though. The sporting world is made up of many different bubbles. The Premier League seems immune. The NFL is immune. The AFL in Australia is probably immune.
The NFL and AFL are the dominant players in one country leagues in sports which aren’t played outside the US or Australia respectively. They’re professional. They have a system of redistribution which works. The competitions both conclude with a month of knockout action.
The Premier League bubble won’t burst for a long time if ever because it’s devouring the other major leagues, it’s emerging as the fittest among the competitors in a largely unregulated environment.
The Premier League’s dominance means La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 are basically fucked. Those leagues are also fucked because they’re all predictable to a greater or lesser extent. Real Madrid could win 10 or 12 La Liga titles in a row given Barcelona’s woes. PSG completely dominant in France. Bayern Munich completely dominant in Germany, this year is the exception that proves the rule. Serie A is a bit more competitive currently but the big three will always rule the roost there.
This all means the Champions League is much less attractive too. The Champions League feels less attractive because Barcelona are done as a force, there’s no more Messi and Ronaldo and Liverpool and Manchester United are not there. Atletico Madrid are pretty much done. It’s Abu Dhabi, Real Madrid, PSG, and is there anybody else?
Has the premier league bubble not completely burst Cheasty? The big games never feel as big anymore. There’s no real animosity either between the teams. The managers all get on too.
No. Abu Dhabi are doing their best to kill it but when Guardiola leaves they will revert to the mean.
England is different from other countries in that it has a load of well supported big clubs, some of them not even in the top division at the moment. And even if working class locals are increasingly priced out, there are more than enough people that want tickets to fill most stadiums.
Liverpool v Abu Dhabi has been the biggest game in world football since 2018 and still is. The Premier League will feel Klopp’s loss because he has probably been the league’s main driving force of interest since 2015, but Ferguson and Mourinho moved on and nobody batted an eyelid. It will survive.
MLS becoming the kingpin is the biggest threat to the Premier League’s dominance and that’s many decades away, if it ever happens.
I’m sorry but nobody cares about Liverpool v Man City. There hasn’t been a memorable moment between the two ever. Maybe the champions games but that happened so frequently
To Man City it sort gets forgotten about.
The 4-3 in January 2018 (marked the beginning of the rivalry), the 3-1 at Anfield in November 2019 when Guardiola went berserk at the ref and the 2-1 de facto title decider at the Etihad in January 2019 were all memorable league games to be fair.
The 90’s were great I’d say in that there was no universal What’s App to organise training and matches. If you missed one you’d probably have to be ringing lads on a landline to find information of the next. It would make a secret early morning session in Innisfalls very difficult to arrange.
For me I’d say the premier league is fading. Sky keep hyping it but a lot of the fall out is from the pundits after the game trying to be controversial.
You don’t have the unbridled hatred between managers and players any more either.
For Man City to really play their part they need a Jose type in charge but under pep they are pointless and just bloodless. Any game they are involved never feels like a proper big game.
The reason for this is that you have the empty sportswashing club up against the ultimate establishment club.
Real Madrid v Barcelona in the Messi v Ronaldo/Guardiola v Mourinho era worked on every level. There are nine decades of political history there.
Liverpool v Abu Dhabi works on a clash of civilisations level. Real v plastic, tradition v no tradition, traditional football club v petro state owners.
Liverpool v Chelsea worked on that level in the 2005-2009 period even if the football was mostly shit.
Chelsea v Barcelona worked on that level.
Dublin v Mayo worked on that level. Dublin v Kerry doesn’t.
But Man City aren’t even sports washers anymore. That’s long been forgotten about. They are a weird inoffensive squad with a similar manager. Nobody really cares about them. You just shrug your shoulders.
They’re currently under investigation for 115 breaches of financial fair play so that couldn’t be further from the truth. Maybe for an ill-informed 14 year old.
Yep but they were a novelty to them then and there was the tevez angle. Even when Man City were really shite they could turn over man United.
Nowadays they are Just incredibly boring. You’d barely know any of the players. You can’t really hate them because you don’t know them.
I never sat and watched a Liverpool and Man City game thought wow this is a game big. A far cry from a Real Madrid v Barcelona tie or even a Liverpool v Chelsea games from the Jose and Rafa era.