Some devoted (or better said blinkered) football fans will always dismiss anything but the highest league in any country as something inferior. This is human nature if you think about it: we demand the "best", even if sometimes the "best" is just the result of more media attention and more money. Outside the UK, for example, people pretty much don't hear about the Football League at all, except maybe the transfer bargains made by Premier League teams. And the same goes for similar leagues in other countries, too, even though there is enough quality football to be seen there.

Nigeria National League

Nigeria National League is the second tier of club football in Nigeria - and gets more media attention than the first one. It has been around since 1979 but was only recognized officially in 1991. The winning teams are promoted to the Nigeria Premier League, while the least successful ones relegate to the Nigeria Nationwide League. The league has 40 teams divided into two divisions - North and South - with the best two teams in each playing a Super Four mini-league for the title.

The NNL is often used by international teams as a source of talent - players such as David Adekola and Sunday Oliseh, among others.

Ligue 2 (France)

France's "Ligue 2" also operates on a system of promotion and relegation - those more successful are promoted to Ligue 1, while those with a lower performance return to Championnat National. Ligue 2 has 20 teams, with the current champion being Stade de Reims (at its second title).

Ligue 2 has quite a few record performances tied to its participating teams' name. Among others, it's the shortest time for a hat-trick (11 minutes by Dijon player Sebastian Ribas), and the fastest goal in football history, scored by Remi Nantais Maréval against Nîmes Olympique after just eight seconds of play.

Zweite Bundesliga (Germany)

The Zweite Bundesliga is the second league of German football with a total of 125 clubs setting foot in it during its 44 years of history. The league consists of 18 teams competing in a single division to promote to the Bundesliga or be demoted to 3. Liga, a third division introduced in 2008.

And when it comes to the quality of football played in this league, here are a handful of record-breaking performances from its history: the win with the most goals (11-0, 1980), the match with the most goals (1. FC Kaiserslautern – SV Meppen 7–6 - 13 goals scored in total,1997), and the most goals scored by a player in a match (Ottmar Hitzfeld, six goals scored in a game in 1977). The 2. Bundesliga has a pretty high following (over 17,500 spectators, on average, in the 2017-2018 season) and quite a few prolific goalscorers.