League vs European Cup, salary caps and agents, Wycombe, Burnley and more mails…

Is the league title or European Cup harder to win? Plus, salary caps and agents, Wycombe, Burnley and more…

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League vs European Cup

This topic was very prevalent back in the mid-2000’s when Rafa’s Liverpool had won the European Cup and made the final a few years later. My take on it was always that you while you have to admit that the European Cup is ‘harder to win’, you can also be right in saying that winning the league proves more about your team/your management/your ability as a player. And as a result, it’s fair for anyone to feel that the league is ‘more important’ than the European Cup (although I think this is entirely subjective and not really worth debating at length).

The league proves who is able to be consistent across 38 games / 9ish months. This format proves more about the ability of a team/player/manager primarily because the larger the sample size, the more confidence you can get from the results. Secondarily, in a cup competition you can hope that your rivals in the competition are defeated in upsets, leaving you with potentially/theoretically easier fixtures (Villareal). Imagine if Liverpool’s league fixture against Tottenham had been replaced with a match against Brighton because Brighton happened to beat Tottenham a few weeks earlier. Some might also point to the mentality required to maintain the consistency in the league, but I’d argue that significant mental fortitude is required to win cups too, albeit in a different way.

Despite the above, I don’t think you can rightly deny that the European Cup is “harder to win”. To start, you just have to look at the number of leagues each club has won and compare it to the number of European Cups. (Obviously you