Towards an understanding of player fail

[Pillz]

While I generally agree with you, there's a few things that make this just generally tough to refute, but not necessarily true
1. You haven't really given a definition of what "most formidable land army" actually entitles or how to measure a land army's greatness. Battles won? Size of the empire? Longevity?
2. Sparta's most direct competition (Athens) had a completely different type of army, so any victories over them or defeats suffered doesn't equate to having a more formidable land army.
3. Victories/defeats themselves aren't necessarily a display of who has a more formidable army. The United States most had a less formidable army than Great Britain, but we still won. There are tons of historical examples of the "underdogs" beating the mighty empires. The issues are usually outside stuff like economies, terrain knowledge, ect, which even further mucks up any "Who has the baddest army in the world" talks
4. Could the Spartans have beaten the Chinese? Or the Gaul? Or Egypt? Any argument for or against is pure conjecture so nothing is really "proof"

The context is 650 BC to 371 BC.

Sparta was the most feared city in Greece, nobody wanted to fight them. Athens wasn't a competitor until their balls dropped at Marathon, and they were still second fiddle to Sparta until Pausanias' betrayal and the pan-hellenic rejection of Sparta. That gave way to the Delian League aka the Athenian Maritime Empire, which Sparta defeated.

I've covered the Greco-Persian history. Most victories were not Spartan, but given that Sparta was still considered the preeminent land power in Greece until 371 BC, and did participate in several successful campaigns against Persia, they win there. We're not discussing the greatest Empires or the longest running, just military might.

Egypt used light infantry similar to Persia's, so yes, a Spartan army would have likely defeated an Egyptian army.
If the Romans could defeat the Gauls it's likely that any Greek force would have as well in a pitched battle. This is speculative, yes, I'm not even sure the Greek colonies in Iberia and France had to contend with Gauls or if they fought other barbarians.
Bart is our China expert I guess. I know nothing of Chinese history outside of the history of the development of their script and how contentious that is for the chinks.

2. Sparta's most direct competition (Athens) had a completely different type of army, so any victories over them or defeats suffered doesn't equate to having a more formidable land army.

u wut m8
Why does it matter? If they fought on land and won, that is proof of a more formidable land army. Keep in mind that easily half of all Greek citiesin Greece proper, most of the Aegean, and pretty much all of the Black Sea/Thracian/Macedonian colonies were under Athenian control. So Spartans engagements would have not only been against Athenian hoplites, depending on who was revolting against Athens at the time and where the fighting occurred.