So if you leave this database alone for a few hours to simulate 25 years of the sport, the results will not be entirely out of thin air. The numbers that define players’ skills, abilities, and status here are not only intended to provide an immersive gaming experience. It is also the best attempt in the world of football to identify the talents of the entire population, and they are better at predicting the future than anyone else. How is the wealth generated by the new generation of stars distributed? When will Newcastle, the richest club in the world, win their first title? Will Cristiano Ronaldo stop scoring goals?
league
The Roman Empire was overthrown by La Samp
Juventus fans should sit better. Oracle has bad news. After winning the Scudetto for nine consecutive years in 2010, the “old lady” appears to have lost its footing as Inter strengthened. After winning the leading title in the real world at 20/21, the Nerazzurri won the following two titles. Roma won 23/24, followed by Milan, who finally won the Serie A title. However, anyone who announces a return to the “total football” days of the early 1990s is quickly silenced: Juventus are champions again and win the next title.
When Rome was good in the past, the Colosseum was brand new.
After that, all titles lead to Rome. Roma have won ten Scudetti in a 25-year simulation, including seven in a row from 26/27 up to the Champions League Cup in the 29/30 season. However, this is the only event at an unsuccessful time for the Italian teams in this competition.
Ironically, Sampdoria ended the hegemony of Rome. Yes, Sampdoria, who has not won anything in Serie A since David Platt’s era, won the club’s second title in the 33/34 season. And, having captured the next round, “La Samp” occupied the next seven. In the decade between seasons 35/36 and 45/46, Sampdoria always ended up in the top two teams.
Only Milan finished the impressive streak from Sampdoria by winning the title in season 43/44, followed by Inter in season 44/45 and Roma in the current season 2045/46.
How did Roma and Sampdoria become giants in the league? Well, the capital club owes it in part to Roberto Piccoli, who won the league’s top scorer award for five consecutive years. As for Sampdoria, it is well-equipped with Newgens and Regens respectively. Portuguese winger Manuel Semedo and Peruvian striker Alonso Maldonado, who together won the last twelve Player of the Year awards, appeared to be Ronaldo and Messi at the time and both made their way to northern Italy. Supposedly, Alonso Maldonado’s parents were big fans of the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix in Formula 1.
Bundesliga
The rise of Hertha, the fall of Bavaria
Don’t worry Bayern fans. At the start of the simulation, the Munich-based company expanded its already extraordinary series of successes to 14 titles in a row. But after the 25/26 season, the Southern Star’s stars are no longer good. With only three titles in the next 19 years, the once unstoppable force is now only competitive.
Bayern Munich’s monopoly on the championship cup was broken in the simulation.
During this time they shared the title with four other teams. First with RB Leipzig, then with Leverkusen, for whom the success of the 28/29 season is a dream come true for Neuville, Ballack and Lucio decades ago when they were still wearing red and black. RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich traded for a few years before an unexpected title candidate emerged – Borussia Mönchengladbach. A magnet for titles in the 1970s, De Vohlen ended a 56-year drought when he won the Bundesliga title in the 32/33 season.
Unfortunately, it’s a one-time thing for the fans. But as the years go by and Leipzig and Bayer 04 continue to fill their pockets with silverware, Hertha BSC plans to promote it. Since 1931 without a first division title, Hertha finally won again in 2037/38 – more than a century later. In four of the next five seasons, the capital club became runners-up, licking his wounds and then winning the title 44/45 and 45/46.
For the first few years, it was Lewandowski who kept Bayern in their goals, and Timo Werner, who returned to the Bundesliga and took the top scorer title in his new home in Munich.
Borussia Mönchengladbach dominated here for much of the next twenty years, with its attacking style that gave striker Richard and later many other players many defenders for top scorers.
Premier League
The long-term fortunes of Abramovich and Mansour
At the time of going publication, Newcastle United had just become the richest club in the world. This is the latest chapter in a story that began with Roman Abramovich’s takeover of Chelsea and continued as Sheikh Mansour made money to Manchester City to turn the club’s fortunes around. Emotions and feelings in England are boiling. There is a dispute over whether something more valuable and less tangible than what the team has is being sold. Across the country, beer mats are being thrown to the floor under angry fists that have slammed into sticky pub tables.
In the Premier League, simulation is dominated by “old money”.
What does a cold, senseless database think about all this? Well, if you want to buy success in the Premier League, you must have invested before 2011.
Man City and Chelsea are by far the most successful teams in the simulated 25 years, and together they have won 20 trophies – exactly ten per team. Newcastle will also receive the precious metals, but only in the 2038/39 season. Even then, they only managed one title two years later before the old Chelsea goalkeeper resumed his path to success.
Arsenal – champions 29/30 and 35/36 – and Manchester United – 23/34 champions – lived through new glorious times only for a short time. It seems that nothing in the next quarter-century of world football can harm the money giants who began their journey by signing players such as Mateja Kezman and Robinho.
There is also plenty to celebrate for English fans at European competitions. Chelsea and City have won many Champions League titles over the years, but Liverpool, Arsenal and Southampton have also won. Southampton!
In the Champions League, Germany and Italy were largely behind.
At least for the duration of the simulation, the league is peppered with stars. Erling Haaland is heading to Manchester City, perhaps as a final act of revenge for Roy Keane’s interference on his father while the Red Devils hunt down Kylian Mbappe of Paris Saint-Germain and get the prime.
What exactly did a fictional quarter of a century reveal about football? Probably, above all else, the unpredictability inherent in the sport is its greatest asset. As long as it is about hitting a ball as irregularly as a human foot, there will always be outliers – important to dreamers. Billionaires can increase their chances of success in the future, but they can’t dictate that entirely.
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