FanNation - The Republic of Sport

Im guessing KansasToonami is going to pick the AFA.

if he answers

A bit busy watching March Madness since Thursday...I have two alma maters involved... tough weekend ;-)
And yes, there are really only two to consider. Uruguay just doesn't stack up :-p

watch for Siena my man

OMG jeeves, Your Cup runneth over here. U have amazing detail in your arguments. I'm going to wait to vote cause this one's a beauty. but ur argument will be hard to top.

will be back later this eve. to make my 2nd argument... watching Chelsea v Arsenal at the moment, then some more March Madness... I hear ya about Siena jeevs, not too many saw that coming.

It's a legitimate push, I think. And keep in mind we're arguing "leagues", not "national teams"! I didn't overlook that, I led off my first argument with that fact. The Brazilian *national team* is better. But this throwdown is about "legaue" only... ;-) I'm not going to rehash the national team comparison in my 2nd argument, as I need the space to compare the individual teams from the two leagues.

Also, you account for the competitions for 30 of the 206 international titles--what competition(s) account for the other 176? Might those indeed be domestic (Brazilian-only) titles, such as "state" championships such as the "Paulista" for clubs from Sao Paolo? Clearly Argentinian clubs cannot enter a Brazilian domestic competition...

no...

There are several international tournaments they've taken part in, for example the Jarrito Cup and the Cuitat de Barcelona trophy that take place in other countries

Damn.

A little *too* late this eve.

Missed my turn by about 30 minutes. That'll teach me not to leave it until after I go watch March Madness at the sports bar...

I'll just combine my 2nd and 3rd arguments into one... as I indicated, the 2nd was going to compare the individual club teams... (you can take that into account for your 3rd argument, jeevs).

Hopefully since tomorrow doesn't have any March Madness games I won't miss the cutoff again.

The Brazilian league is far deeper. No question.

I like both leagues, but the Brazilian is just too deep. Argentina has two big teams (River and Boca), and then La Plata sometimes have a good team. Other than that, someone from Buenos Aires usually wins it. In Brazil you have Sao Paulo, Santos, Gremiom, Internacional, the list goes on and on. Sorry but vote to jeevs on this one Kansas. Good TD though. We need more of this.

Leaning strongly to Jeevs side here. Kansas has a chance to make another argument, but even still it would be tough to overcome. Vote to the left for now - leaving open the option to change later if Kansas makes an earth shattering final turn.

Awesome TD by both. Loved it!!!

Great debate by you both... jeevs, I would contend that you should've stated that this was a debate about RIGHT NOW in the topic sentence or the first argument RATHER THAN THE THIRD...

You basically let Toonami go for a whole argument (& would've been a second had he not forfeited) about something which you later declared irrelevant. Further, you yourself go into a lot of historical data (including national-team data) which I would assert is IRRELEVANT to the topic @ hand... though you try to make a tie into your topic, yso @ least you gave it the ol' college try (& it will certainly convince some...)

But as far as competitiveness, overall quality of the teams FROM TOP TO BOTTOM, and quantity of talent, I would assert that it IS correct that Brazil has the best league in Sudamerica... while Argentine & Brazilian clubs have both had success in international competitions, these are often one-off affairs (as the Intercontinental/Toyota Cup was for many years)... and the Club World Cup is usually only a tight affair in the semis & finals...

So by overall argumentation, my vote is going left...

i was talking about how it includes right now, but its all time as well

Jeevs, you're totally off when you said that Argentina is only Boca and River. Argentina league has the big 5 (Boca, River, Racing, independiente & San Lorenzo). And you'll have Estudiantes or Newells come up every once n a while. Also, the Brazilian league is always influx and inconsistent (ie Corinthians and Santos). Consistency among the great teams is an argument the Pro-EPL pundits used. Also, Independiente and Boca are two teams that have the most international titles for any club in the world (AC Milan & Real Madrid are up there too but behind these two I think).

Anyhoo, great TD

Yeah, dont forget Arsenal from Argentina won the South American Cup.

Nice TD, go soccer! It's nice to see someone soccer TD's without people coming in and saying how soccer is terrible. And i i agree with Jeevs.

I chose to stick to my guns, and though I didn't get as much into the corruption issue as I'd like, I wanted to focus on the two South American "prestige" tournaments (since I already had covered the Intercontinental/FIFA World Club tournament).

Because, why are people saying right now that the England Premier League is the best in Europe? Not because it's competitive top-to-bottom... but because of the performance of its best 4 (in this case) teams in the UEFA Champions League.

Again, this argument should not be about the respective performances of the national teams, nor the quality of the players--not since the days of Pele has Brazil been able to keep a top-notch player in its domestic league (and that was primarily due to Pele having right of refusal to be traded from his club Santos; Pele finally jumped ship to the New York Cosmos, but that was a postscript (P.S.) to his career more than a real "poaching").

Of course, Argentina also sees its best players poached by European clubs (most notably the *other* player of the 20th century (according to FIFA), Diego Maradona.

And if the throwdown was meant to be about "internally" best (i.e. competitiveness) rather than "externally" best (i.e. international performances by the clubs that make it to the international scene in Libertadores or Sudamericana) then those performances--not to mention those of the national teams--shouldn't figure into it.

And if we *do* count the international cups won by clubs, then I don't count the "city invitational cups" (Jarrito Cup and Cuitat de Barcelona), as those aren't at the same level of international competition as Libertadores and Sudamericana are. That would be like considering Manchester United's "Asian Invitational" trophies from trips to Bangkok, Dubai, or Saudi Arabia as equally important as their Champions League titles, for instance.

Looking internally (if you really want to, you can't discount the organizational schizophrenia of the Brazilian league and the Corinthians/MSI/Tevez 'n Masch scandal) from top-to bottom, I would think the Argentinian league has an advantage, both in longevity *and* in competitiveness.

Brazilian clubs were limited to "state" championships such as the "Paulista" (Sao Paolo State) and the "Carioca" (Rio de Janiero State) until the national league was created in 1971. By contrast, Argentina has had a national league from 1931, and even though the structure was modified, it never went through the obscene (for "football purists", anyway) machinations of the Brazilian league structure, with 40, 60, 80, or even 100 or more teams being considered "top-tier".

Proportionately (the Argentinian national league is just about twice as old as the Brazilian national league) the "internal" competitiveness is just about the same. And please note the three most recent champions in Argentina: Estudiantes, San Lorenzo, and Lanus.

Thanks for waiting, everyone. I hope I can sway some votes... ;-)