Old Firm dominance (stranglehold)

[HibsMax]

I spent a little time going through Wikipedia and looking at football leagues in Europe to see if they exhibit the same pattern as we see in Scottish football. I know you can slice statistics to present almost any story you want but I think I chose a method that is pretty straightforward. I looked over the last 40 years (since I was born) and noted who Won and who came in 2nd each year and tallied up the totals.

40 years times 1st and 2nd = 80 data points. I took the top two teams from each list and determined what percentage of 1st and 2nd place went to the top two teams. I did not try to separate SPL from SFL, etc.

Scotland
Rangers and Celtic combined account for 59 1st and 2nd places = 73.75%
2 other teams have won the league (Dundee Utd and Aberdeen).
4 other teams have finished 2nd (Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts and Motherwell).

England
Liverpool and Man Utd combined account for 38 1st and 2nd places = 47.5%
8 other teams have won the league.
13 other teams have finished 2nd.

Italy
Juventus and Milan combined account for 40 1st and 2nd places = 50%
7 other teams have won the league.
9 other teams have finished 2nd.

Spain
Real Madrid and Barcelona account for 52 1st and 2nd places = 65%
5 other teams have won the league.
8 other teams have finished second.




I really wanted to continue this with other leagues as well but it gets tiring after a while so feel free to add to this if you can be arsed. :)

[Viva_Palmeiras]

Portugal


1st Place %
Benfica 32 42
Porto 25 32
Sporting 18 23
Belenenses 1 1
Boavista 1 1

So the top 3 cleared up 97% of the league wins between them.

And surely this is the model we need to repeat*. "The night the team died" - Portugal 5 Scotland 0 Super R Sole broke his leg. Was it not the last game for a few folks - Gough? Coincidence? I think not!

I worked with a bloke from Portugal in '97 who said to me watch out for this team they will be special.

And in many ways they were. The key?

Emphasis on youth. Bringing the players through the ranks. I think they also looked at the league setup. They had played with each other through the under 16s up. Why dont we do that? Why is it Hibs have many a Scotland captain until the seniors? Hunter for example?


* Braga come from no where in 2010 to get runners up. Where theres a will theres a way

[DH1875]

In Holland Ajax and PSV have won 32 of the last 40 titles with the other finishing runner up 23 times in the same period. Not sure how much that works out as a % but think it would be quite high.


Don't know about 2nd place but in the last 40 years Benfica and Porto between them have won the Primeira liga 36 times.

[HibsMax]

Interesting points. Does this mean that the Old Firm dominance in Scotland only seems like that because we support non-OF teams? Do we really have anything to complain about? I'm talking about on footballing terms here, nothing at all related to supporters, etc. It seems that the Scottish setup might not be that different from elsewhere.

[Purple & Green]

Prior to 1995, rangers and Celtic had only ever finished one-two for five consecutive years. Since then, they have finished 1-2 in fifteen of sixteen years.

[Matty_Jack04]

good thread made me think abit more about the scottish set up.

As has been said braga came from nowhere in the portugese league and no look set for uefa cup final, the same can be said for the likes of az alkmaar and fc twente who have managed to claw back the gap in holland over the years.
Could scottish football be suffering because the men in charge of non old firm teams are too scared to take the risks that the likes of alkmaar have? It certainly does seem that just being in the spl is good enough for some clubs and im fast beleiving mr petrie is falling into that catagory aswel, that kind of attitude doesnt build for a competitive league, st.mirren for example have flirted with relegation since they where promoted yet no risks taken to even try to get a higher league placing.

It could well be that the money on offer for a 7th place finish compared to an 11th isnt enough to justify pushing the boat out that little bit more

[Hibrandenburg]

Here in Germany Bayern are always expected to win the league, however in recent years we've seen other teams win such as Bremen,Dortmund,Wolfsburg and even Kaiserslautern in the year they got promoted. However like in Scotland,Bayern always decimate the competition by buying up their good players and poaching their managers.

[PeeJay]

Here in Germany Bayern are always expected to win the league....

Shouldn't that perhaps read "Bayern always expect to win the league..."??:wink:

[Kaiser1962]

Here in Germany Bayern are always expected to win the league, however in recent years we've seen other teams win such as Bremen,Dortmund,Wolfsburg and even Kaiserslautern in the year they got promoted. However like in Scotland,Bayern always decimate the competition by buying up their good players and poaching their managers.

Alan Sugar should have looked at the Bundesliga the other night for the way forward on club ownership and finances. While it has hampered German clubs ability to compete in euro competions I feel certain that they will have the last laugh.

[Caversham Green]

Interesting points. Does this mean that the Old Firm dominance in Scotland only seems like that because we support non-OF teams? Do we really have anything to complain about? I'm talking about on footballing terms here, nothing at all related to supporters, etc. It seems that the Scottish setup might not be that different from elsewhere.

Max, working from your stats I would take the opposite viewpoint. To me they show that Scottish football is dominated by the two big teams to a far greater extent than the other countries that you looked at. The nearest in terms of your percentages is Spain but the difference is still substantial. Looking at it another way, Spain has had 13 seasons out of 40 where the staus quo has been upset (5 other winners, 8 other runners up) to Scotland's 6 (I appreciate this may not be strcitly accurate, but the principle still holds).

Of the other two countries looked at by loko and DH1875, Portugal seems to be the most like Scotland, but it's worth noting that attendances there don't seem to be any higher than in Scotland and for clubs at the bottom end they are rather lower. This is despite Portugal having roughly double Scotland's population, producing several world-class players (Figo, Ronaldo etc), hosting the Euros in 2004 and performing far better in internationals.

To look at things on a more subjective basis, next season five or six English clubs will start the season with genuine hopes of winning the league while Scotland will only have the usual two. I can't speak with any authority on the other countries, but in most cases fans under 30 will remember several seasons when the league was won or nearly won by a club outside of the usual suspects.

To my mind this is what would improve the outlook for the game in Scotland and is what the authorities should be looking at rather than ineffectual fiddling with the number of teams in the league. The fact that Doncaster has acknowledged the problem but intends to do nothing about it (I believe he said we just have to live with it) suggests to me that he is not competent to do the job he is being paid for.

[HibsMax]

Max, working from your stats I would take the opposite viewpoint.
I think we have the same viewpoint, there is NO doubt that the dominance shown in our league is far greater. What I *meant* to say is that it doesn't seem that unusual for a league to be dominated by a couple of teams. I wasn't really meaning to imply that the level of dominance is the same. Apologies for the confusion. I agree with the rest of what you said. :)

I don't believe we have to "live with it". There are measures the governing bodies could take to make the league more balanced......but obviously they don't want to. One area that football differs from American sports (sometimes I draw comparisons) is that American sports only have to worry about each other. In football, there are other competitions played amongst European clubs. So while is might seem fair to hobble the opposition within one's own league, it doesn't seem fair to disadvantage them in ALL competitions. I still think something can be done to make the situation better.

[Lucius Apuleius]

Not disagreeing with the figures but surely comparing it to england shows that around 15 teams have no chance of winning the league whilst we have only 10?
:wink:

[pentlando]

Not disagreeing with the figures but surely comparing it to england shows that around 15 teams have no chance of winning the league whilst we have only 10?
:wink:

:agree:
Was about to point out that league size will have varied for all leagues over the last 40 years possibly skewing the results.

On a side note, i feel that moving forward there will be a few teams in Scotland that will put up a greater fight over the next few years. Put simply, the only clubs in Britain that can realistically buy from Scottish clubs with a transfer fee are top end championship and epl. Even with Whyte and Desmond's cash expect the old firm not to plunder the rest as much as before. Look at Dundee Utd's team from last year, if that was 5 years ago they'd have 4 or 5 in Celtic or Rangers colours by now. Clubs like Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen and Dundee Utd will have more chance to build on strong sides without having to fend off as many big offers.

[Stokesy]

. "The night the team died" - Portugal 5 Scotland 0 Super R Sole broke his leg. Was it not the last game for a few folks - Gough? Coincidence? I think not!


Fairly certain Gough's last game was away to Switzerland. We lost 3-1 and he got sent off.









I need to get out more.

[HibsMax]

Not disagreeing with the figures but surely comparing it to england shows that around 15 teams have no chance of winning the league whilst we have only 10?
:wink:


:agree:
Was about to point out that league size will have varied for all leagues over the last 40 years possibly skewing the results.

:)

To be fair, I did say, "I did not try to separate SPL from SFL, etc.". I know that league setups have changed over the years and that will skew the results, as will the league sizes, but I still think the results are eye-opening. I promise I didn't pour over the data until I found a set of numbers that suited my agenda.

[Caversham Green]

Not disagreeing with the figures but surely comparing it to england shows that around 15 teams have no chance of winning the league whilst we have only 10?
:wink:

It's a fair point. I think though that the more clubs that could win the league, the more general interest it creates, and thats the first step to getting people through the turnstiles.

Next season either Celtc or Rangers will win the Scottish league. In England it could be Man Utd or Chelsea. Or Arsenal might finally make the breakthrough. Or it could be City's year. Or Liverpool could make their long-awaited comeback. Spurs might also have a chance.

Which of those two scenarios is most likely to grab a neutral's attention?

[Woody1985]

Spurs or liverpool for the epl.maybe add interest to the fight for top four but not champions. THat's like saying dundee united might win.