football dominance

have i mentioned i like to just read datas and statistics about soccer?

there's this game, called championship manager, arguably the best soccer simulation game available, and not only does it give you a chance to take charge of a team, but it includes history of competitions and such. i can spend hours looking at who won what, which team used to be great, etc etc. there's not much other than history of winners, runners-up and sometimes third placed teams, but when you go online, obviously you can find tons more.

i can look at these things for hours. there's no use, of course, but to mentally build up these database in my head is somewhat fun. it also gives me a chance to explore a new dimention of history in soccer. like for example, i know that there was a team in italy called pro vercelli who was a dominant force in the early days of italian league, but now are now playing in obscrity in the serie C2. or find out that aside from the 1966 world cup success, england has won nothing else on international stage. why? initially the english football association seemed to oppose the creation of an international football governing board. due to continuous disagreement, england didnt participate in the first few world cups nor other international competitions, resulting in their rather traditionally very poor performance in the world cup, primarily because they never supported the idea of having a world cup, or so i've found out. i can go on and on about useless facts that no ones needs to know, but it shows how much i love the game.

so, one trend i noticed, is that throughout the course of history, there's always a team in a domestic league that is dominating. as in, whether they win or not, there's always a certain team in contention for the title. most obviously, and pretty recently, manchester united and arsenal can be classified in that category. manchester united has dominated the english scene over the past decade. its funny to think that until alex ferguson came and won his first championship with them, they were in a stage of decline, being overshadowed by the likes of liverpool, everton, arsenal and leeds united. man utd were dominant forces in the '60s, well not quite, but they were powerhouses. for the record, since the english league began in 1889, liverpool have won the most at 18 titles, followed by man utd with 15, arsenal with 13 and everton at 9. (newcastle have won 4, but they were all in the early 20th century.)

and, i think between 1972 and 1982, 9 out of 10 champions league titles went to english teams. those were the days.

lets switch to other leagues. spanish primera liga. this is needless to say, dominated by the galacticos of real madrid. they have won 29 titles since the league inaugurated in 1929. barcelona follows with 16 and athletico madrid with 9. a big difference between the top 3. italy? since 1898, juventus has won 27 titles, followed by AC Milan with 16, city rivals Inter Milans won 13. Genoa follows after that, but current powerhouses AS Roma has won 3, with their neighbours Lazio, 2. Germany? since 1903, bayern munich has won 17, borussia monchengladbach won 5 times, werder bremen 3, borussia dortmund 3, VfB stuttgard 2, kaiserslautern 2.

some other major leagues. greek has been ruled by 3 teams, olympiakos with 32, panathinaikos with 18 and aek athens with 11. dutch football, needless to say, ajaz with 28, psv eindhoven with 16 and feyenoord with 14. portuguese football, has been won by only 5 teams, 3 dominant, the other 2 has won it only once. benfica leads the pack with 30, porto with 19 and sporting lisbon with 18. turkish football has also been clearly dominated, galatasaray with 15, fenerbehce with 14 besiktas with 10 and trabzonspor with 6.

south american football, argentina, river plate won 31 and boca juniors 19. mexico, seems america (mex) has won 13.

and the most dominated league in the world is scottish football. wanna know why? since it started in 1891, rangers has won a whopping 50 times, which is a guiness world record. celtic follows it up with 37. of 113 years, these two teams have won 87 years between them. thats almost 80% of the leagues titles won.

there are some leagues which arent dominated, but shared fairly well among couple of teams.

French football started on 1933, with St. Etienne winning 10, olympique marseille and nantes 8, as monaco 7, bordeaux 5.

brazilian football, which i think provides the most equal competition, has been won most by flamengo, but only 5 times! but then again, the official brazilian national football league started only on 1971, which is pretty recent. prior to this, they participated in regional leagues, the two biggest one are rio de janeiro state and sao paolo state. RJ state has been won 29 times by fluminense and SP by corinthians, 25 times.

okay, i probably hav wasted quite a bit of u readers time, but this is wat i mean. i derive pleasure in knowing and finding out these records, coz it improves my understanding of the leagues and teams.

like s-league, its always SAFFC or Home. japan, antlers or jubilo. US, LA or DC. Argentina, Boca or River, Scottish Ranger or Celtic. england, its either man utd, arsenal, liverpool or chelsea. german, usually bayern, spanish, real, barca, valencia and maybe deportivo. italian? juve, ac, inter, roma, lazio. there's always these few teams that are in clear contention.

the only useful knowledge i can claim is this. i seem to notice a change in the dominance cycle every 10 years. well, for english football. i havent observed or noticed obvious cycles in other leagues yet.

talking of most recent examples, it was liverpool and everton during the '70s and '80s, then it was man utd. i think with the appointment of jose mourinho to chelsea, they might be the next dominant force in the coming decade.

even when u go to international stage, brazil seems to dominate throughout, but there r traditional powerhouses, france bein the recent one, holland used to be, then italy, etc etc.

i hav no idea why im posting all these data, but i just wanted to blog about it. but as with everything, statistics dont speak for themselves, because there's always anomalies and surprises, which is what makes soccer the most popular sport in the world, and also the nickname, the beautiful game.