Why English Premier League is the most exciting league in football?
Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and France Ligue 1 are considered to be the top five leagues in european football. Top teams in these leagues fight for the league titles, domestic cup competitions and to win the ultimate glory UEFA Champions league. All these leagues have famous clubs with unique history, fantastic players and the amazing fans.
But English Premier League is the most exciting league. Why? Let’s have a look at what happened on the last day of the 2019–20 season before I explain the reasons why it is so.
Nerve-wracking last day of the 2019–20 season.
Fight for survival
On the last day of the season, three teams were battling for survival in the league among them. The teams were Aston Villa FC, Watford FC and AFC Bournemouth.
Aston Villa and Watford were on the same points with only goal difference of one keeping them apart. Both teams needed some result on the last day and hope other team would drop points or score less goals than them.
Bournemouth needed to win and hope other two teams to lose.
Football can’t be so cruel and exciting at the same time.
In the end, Aston Villa drew with West Ham away from home and had to wait till the result of Arsenal vs Watford came out which confirmed their survival and other two teams got relegated to Championship football.
Battle for European spots
Liverpool had already secured their first league title after 30 years and a place in the next season’s Champions League spot.
Manchester City could not defend their title this time. But were confirmed runner-ups already. Champions League football sealed for Manchester City.
That left only two spots for Champions League football, and three teams were in contention for it.
These teams were Manchester United, Chelsea and Leicester City. Manchester United were third with only goal difference keeping them above Chelsea while Leicester were one point behind these two.
Manchester United were playing Leicester City away from home. They needed a win or a draw to qualify. If they were to lose, Chelsea must lose against Wolves.
Chelsea needed a win or at least a draw. If they were to lose, a draw in the Leicester City-Manchester United or Leicester City win would have knocked them out.
The most exciting and nerve-wrecking day of the season ended with Manchester United and Chelsea qualifying for the Champions League.
If this wasn’t enough to convince you I have many more reasons to convince. Yo you ready? Here we go! 👀
5 different champions in the last 10 seasons.
Unlike other top flight leagues, Premier League has 5 different champions in the last 10 seasons.
Manchester City won it four times, Manchester United twice, Chelsea twice, Leicester City once and Liverpool once in the last decade.
This proves that there are always title challengers in this league and its not a one horse or a two horse race.
The Crowd
Any live sporting event is impacted by the crowd and plays a vital role in the outcome of the game. Whether the crowd is in full voice in its support of the home team or is silenced by the quality of the visitors’ play, the performance of each team is impacted.
The atmosphere in the stadiums is thrilling when the crowd is singing for their team and ever more so when they are singing to mock the opposing team or a opposing player.
Fight for the european spots.
Top four teams in the league are guaranteed UEFA Champions League spot and fifth placed team is guaranteed UEFA Europa League spot. Team finishing sixth and seventh may or may not get into europe depending on the domestic cup winners.
The fight for the european spots is very tight every year. And its getting tighter year on year.
You would not find this level of competition in any other league.
The likes of Wolves and Sheffield United are among the teams fighting for these spots who were not so long ago playing in the lower divisions of English football. This tells us the about the quality that Premier League have got.
Premier league is unpredictable.
Unpredictable is exciting 👊
Every team is capable of doing miracles.
Leicester city fought for survival in the season 2014–15. Fortunately for everyone, they escaped it. Otherwise, we would not have able to see them winning the title the very next season.
Leicester City winning premier league has to be one of the most beautiful things happened in football for a long long time.
I have another example for unpredictability of this league. In the season 2017–18, West Bromwich Albion was relegated after a series of poor performances that landed them at rock bottom of the English Premier League.
But guess what?
They had the most impressive records against the top 6: undefeated against Tottenham (1 win, 1 draw) and Liverpool (2 draws), defeating Manchester United at Old Trafford, knocking Liverpool out of the FA Cup, making Manchester City fight blood, sweet and tears to get away with 3-points after a 90+4' goal.
Top Managers in the league
Premier league has been graced by great managers like Sir Alex Fergusion and Arsene Wenger who transformed the English football for the very best.
And currently, this league has manager like Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelloti, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp which adds to the excitement.
Broadcasting and Commentary
Matches are broadcast live and are eagerly anticipated all over the world. The income from the overseas broadcast rights are enormous and are distributed collectively amongst the 20 clubs. In other European leagues, with the exception of the Bundesliga, the money tends to go to the individual clubs with most coverage.
Because of the depth, quality and excitement the Premier League is one of the most watched sports on any continent.
The commentators for the likes Peter Drury, Jon Champion, Martin Tyler, Jim Beglin, Andy Townsend, etc have made the game even more special. The commentary definitely adds spice to the entertainment.
Fantasy Premier League(FPL)
More than 7.5 million individuals played fantasy league this season. Part of this, naturally, is the growth of the Premier League. It has brought a new angle to football watching for many and in some case it will have attracted people to the sport.
FPL has ignited fans all over the world.
Fantasy football is topic in it’s own. There are online communities devoted to this. Lots of analysis and prediction goes into the performance of players all across the division.
Twitter erupts when Lord Lundstram scores.
A bad gameweek may be equivalent to “about to break the controller after losing in FIFA to a friend” to some of the players in FPL.
This has definitely increased engagement of people in the game. FPL makes weekends even more so special.
The Premier League is one of the most difficult in the world. There’s five, six, or seven clubs that can be the champions. Only one can win, and all the others are disappointed and live in the middle of disaster.
— Jurgen Klopp
Now we know why English Premier League is the most special and exciting league.
Thank you for reading. Have a nice one!
