How strong is the English Championship?

roanoke

Seeing as Ireland squad seems to be getting increasingly represented by this league I'd like to get a feel for how strong it is generally, especially with respect to the top divisions and their teams in other UEFA countries.

I guess first general question would be, is the English Championship the strongest second tier league in UEFA?

After that, where for instance would the English Champions rank in the UEFA league coeffiecent system?

First off I know that the UEFA league coefficents is based on European representation so that coefficent table is more like a "ranking of the best teams in that league" but I hope you'll get a feel for my question.

For instance Would a guy playing for Cardiff or Hull be playing for a better club than if he was currently at Dinamo Zagreb or Montpellier?

Don't limit yourself to those two questions anyway. Feel free to give your views on how strong various Championship clubs are and how they might match up to all kinds of European opponents.

Thanks.

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UEFA league ranking...
http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/index.html

UEFA club rankings ...
http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/club/index.html

Chucky the tree

Montepellier won the Ligue 1 last year, although struggling a bit this year. Crazy to suggest a teams in the Championship are better than a good team in the top division in France. Their is a huge difference in quality in the Championship between teams so it's hard to rank the league. A team like Cardiff would be good while near the bottom wouldn't. The nature of the league makes it tough as well, it's a different beast to the premiership which can be hard for teams to manage. Wolves and Bolton are 20th and 21st in the league(22-25 is relegation).

Chucky the tree

Chucky the tree wrote: »

Montepellier won the La Liga last year, although struggling a bit this year. Crazy to suggest a teams in the Championship are better than a good team in the top division in France. Their is a huge difference in quality in the Championship between teams so it's hard to rank the league. A team like Cardiff would be good while near the bottom wouldn't. The nature of the league makes it tough as well, it's a different beast to the premiership which can be hard for teams to manage. Wolves and Bolton are 20th and 21st in the league(22-25 is relegation).

Do Barca know about this?

Chucky the tree

rarnes1 wrote: »

Do Barca know about this?

It even took me a while to figure out what you were talking about.

General Relativity

1: Spain
2: Germany
3: England
4: Italy
5: France
6: Portugal
7: NL
8: Russia
9: Greece
10: Turkey
11: Ukraine
12: Belgium
13: Championship? <---

13th best league in Europe? Any glaring omissions?

CSF

rarnes1 wrote: »

Do Barca know about this?

Barca didn't win it either!!!

CSF

CSF wrote: »

Barca didn't win it either!!!

Lol, indeed.

That backfired quite quickly :pac:

LuckyLloyd

applehunter wrote: »

Mid table Championship is about top half of the LOI going by the game last night in Turners Cross.

Nope

Most SPL sides would get relegated from the Championship imo. I'd suggest it would have superior depth to the likes of the Dutch or Belgian leagues (i.e you'd find the very best teams in those leagues might win the Championship, but most would struggle in it).

G.K.

Overly harsh on the Dutch league there imo Lloyd. Spot on about belgium though.

applehunter

I have deleted my blatantly trollish comment before I started something.

LuckyLloyd

G.K. wrote: »

Overly harsh on the Dutch league there imo Lloyd. Spot on about belgium though.

Dunno man, the bottom few teams in Holland always seem very weak to me.

dfx-

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Nope

Most SPL sides would get relegated from the Championship imo. I'd suggest it would have superior depth to the likes of the Dutch or Belgian leagues (i.e you'd find the very best teams in those leagues might win the Championship, but most would struggle in it).

PSV, Ajax, Feyenoord (eventually), AZ (when they were best in the league), Anderlecht...would rather than might win the championship. Possibly as easily as Newcastle did.

retalivity

the UEFA team coefficients are laughable..portsmouth are still regarded as the 92nd best team in Europe. they're ahead of montpelier, genoa, & rosenborg, and have somehow picked up 2.28 'coefficient' points this season in league one.

imo the championship would be somewhere in between the middle-ranking european premier leagues: belgian, swiss, austrian, polish, greek, etc.

Its also crazy that the championship used to be 5th in Europe for revenue, behind the big 4 & ahead of ligue 1 (although not sure what effect the qatari PSG deal has had on this now).

CSF

Really think people are looking at Belgium and thinking Anderlecht and Standard and not Leuven, Beveren or Beerschot, and I think that the same for most other European countries, and don't see the gigantic gap that exists between those one or 2 big teams and the rest in terms of quality.

Have been to games in the likes of Sweden, Norway, Holland and Belgium and not all of these have involved the good teams, and I've also been to a good few Championship games, and the difference between the 2 is big.

G.K.

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Dunno man, the bottom few teams in Holland always seem very weak to me.

Agreed, I was disagreeing over most. Bottom few clubs would definitely struggle.

bradlente

It's as competitive a league there can be imo.Any of 5-10 clubs have a decent chance of winning it before the season begins compared to the 3/4 teams (at best)that have a chance in most major leagues.

Judging from the most recent seasons and how the promoted/relegated sides have performed I'd argue its as hard if not harder to get to the Premiership now than staying there,Which is a shame.

Big Pussy Bonpensiero

bradlente wrote: »

It's as competitive a league there can be imo.Any of 5-10 clubs have a decent chance of winning it before the season begins compared to the 3/4 teams (at best)that have a chance in most major leagues.

Judging from the most recent seasons and how the promoted/relegated sides have performed I'd argue its as hard if not harder to get to the Premiership now than staying there,Which is a shame.

Competitiveness =/= quality.

CSF

THFC wrote: »

Competitiveness =/= quality.

It just indicates that the gap from top to bottom isn't that steep.

Kiwi_knock

The gap between the Premier League and the Championship is not that big, the promoted teams are not looking out of place in the PL. And the relegated teams struggle to get back up. The quality of football is of a high enough standard, it is certainly no longer has the old image of the hoof ball and physical league.

I think it is one of the strongest leagues in Europe. A lot of Championship would be good enough for a lot of other leagues around Europe. It is certainly not a bad league for Irish players to be playing in, there are plenty of competitive games.

764dak

Kiwi_knock wrote: »

The gap between the Premier League and the Championship is not that big, the promoted teams are not looking out of place in the PL. And the relegated teams struggle to get back up. The quality of football is of a high enough standard, it is certainly no longer has the old image of the hoof ball and physical league.

I think it is one of the strongest leagues in Europe. A lot of Championship would be good enough for a lot of other leagues around Europe. It is certainly not a bad league for Irish players to be playing in, there are plenty of competitive games.

This was from an article in 2010: "Smith: MLS better than English Championship"

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/smith-mls-better-english-championship

" “It’s always interesting to see these games,” Smith told MLSsoccer.com by phone. “I have to say, Coventry were absolutely dreadful. If they played like that in the MLS, they would be lambasted. It was route-one 1982 football.”

Smith said he was confident his Rapids team would beat Coventry “seven times out of 10.”

“It is a sad indictment of the Championship” "

CSF

764dak wrote: »

This was from an article in 2010: "Smith: MLS better than English Championship"

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/smith-mls-better-english-championship

" “It’s always interesting to see these games,” Smith told MLSsoccer.com by phone. “I have to say, Coventry were absolutely dreadful. If they played like that in the MLS, they would be lambasted. It was route-one 1982 football.”

Smith said he was confident his Rapids team would beat Coventry “seven times out of 10.”

“It is a sad indictment of the Championship” "

And you can bet your arse he'd be saying the opposite if it was Watford or Middlesbrough he was managing.

Smithwicks Man

In my opinion it's the same old propaganda nonsense that exists around English media and boasts about everything they're involved in. Such as saying the premiership is the best league in the world every single year regardless of how they compete in europe or how the national team is still regarded as there or there abouts the best in the world atm.

It's a matter of opinion and the majority of people (95%) who say the Premiership is the best league in the world annually often support a team playing in the premiership and rarely watch enough of the other top leagues to have a valid say on the matter. It's impossible to say for sure which league is the "best" league and they each have their own attributes. The same goes when comparing leagues like the Championship to the Belgian 1st division.

But to say that the championship is better than the Dutch 1st division is just wrong though imo.

Still a good enough league and ideal for up and coming Irish players to play in (better standard than LOI, similar environment).

CSF

Smithwicks Man wrote: »

In my opinion it's the same old propaganda nonsense that exists around English media and boasts about everything they're involved in. Such as saying the premiership is the best league in the world every single year regardless of how they compete in europe or how the national team is still regarded as there or there abouts the best in the world atm.

It's a matter of opinion and the majority of people (95%) who say the Premiership is the best league in the world annually often support a team playing in the premiership and rarely watch enough of the other top leagues to have a valid say on the matter. It's impossible to say for sure which league is the "best" league and they each have their own attributes. The same goes when comparing leagues like the Championship to the Belgian 1st division.

But to say that the championship is better than the Dutch 1st division is just wrong though imo.

Still a good enough league and ideal for up and coming Irish players to play in (better standard than LOI, similar environment).

Being realistic though if the likes of Beveren, a Rijeka, a Luzern, a Vojvodina has a player that even Huddersfield or Burnley want, then those clubs have the capacity and lure to sign that player (assuming someone else even higher on the food chain isn't interested too). Most European leagues outside the elite ones, have clubs who would win the Championship but the standard drops rapidly once you exclude the clubs who play in Europe regularly.

Holland though is definitely stronger.

bradlente

764dak wrote: »

This was from an article in 2010: "Smith: MLS better than English Championship"

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/smith-mls-better-english-championship

" “It’s always interesting to see these games,” Smith told MLSsoccer.com by phone. “I have to say, Coventry were absolutely dreadful. If they played like that in the MLS, they would be lambasted. It was route-one 1982 football.”

Smith said he was confident his Rapids team would beat Coventry “seven times out of 10.”

“It is a sad indictment of the Championship” "

It dosen't say much about the Championship considering they're in League one now,Partly perhaps because of the brand of football he described.

Whilst competitiveness might not equal quality,It's not detrimental to the league as far as I can see and I'd choose to speculate that it does somehow advance the quality to a slight extent however small it could be.If someone has proof that the competitiveness of the league breeds a worse standard then I'd accept that I'm incorrect.

Smithwicks Man

CSF wrote: »

Being realistic though if the likes of Beveren, a Rijeka, a Luzern, a Vojvodina has a player that even Huddersfield or Burnley want, then those clubs have the capacity and lure to sign that player (assuming someone else even higher on the food chain isn't interested too). Most European leagues outside the elite ones, have clubs who would win the Championship but the standard drops rapidly once you exclude the clubs who play in Europe regularly.

Holland though is definitely stronger.

I see what you're saying yeah. Good point. I suppose money must come into it to. I'd have to imagine (no figures, only guessing) that there's more money circulating around the championship compared to the likes of some of these leagues? Plus there seems to be a certain appeal, especially for black players, to play in the English leagues where racism is not near as tolerated as elsewhere across Europe.

764dak

CSF wrote: »

And you can bet your arse he'd be saying the opposite if it was Watford or Middlesbrough he was managing.

bradlente wrote: »

It dosen't say much about the Championship considering they're in League one now,Partly perhaps because of the brand of football he described.

Whilst competitiveness might not equal quality,It's not detrimental to the league as far as I can see and I'd choose to speculate that it does somehow advance the quality to a slight extent however small it could be.If someone has proof that the competitiveness of the league breeds a worse standard then I'd accept that I'm incorrect.

Robbie Earle: "The standard in the MLS is on a par with the upper part of the English Championship."

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/Robbie-Earle-U-S-stars-fit-right-Stoke/story-16484510-detail/story.html#ixzz2KNalLXia

764dak

General Relativity wrote: »

1: Spain
2: Germany
3: England
4: Italy
5: France
6: Portugal
7: NL
8: Russia
9: Greece
10: Turkey
11: Ukraine
12: Belgium
13: Championship? <---

13th best league in Europe? Any glaring omissions?

Norwegian, Swiss, Swedish, and Danish are probably better.

CSF

764dak wrote: »

Norwegian, Swiss, Swedish, and Danish are probably better.

Do you actually know how bad some of the teams in these leagues are?

764dak

CSF wrote: »

Do you actually know how bad some of the teams in these leagues are?

To be honest, I don't really like comparing leagues. It's kinda interesting that there are teams in the Premier League that gained back to back promotions.

CSF

Winning matches becomes a habit.

Smithwicks Man

764dak wrote: »

To be honest, I don't really like comparing leagues. It's kinda interesting that there are teams in the Premier League that gained back to back promotions.

Agree completely