rjw63 Posted August 27, 2015 Share Posted August 27, 2015 I could scarcely care less for this competition. The only thing I want is for the English sides to do really badly. Champions league - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Still, it gives keenun sumthinck two doo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted August 27, 2015 Share Posted August 27, 2015 The European Cup being for champions only would mean the UEFA Cup would be a great competion again and also bring back the Cup Winners Cup. If the neutral who never gets off his arse to go to a game and watches it on TV is offended so what!? I would not dream of telling other sports how to manage their competitions. It is getting repetive now and I think BT will realise people won't pay to watch it. I can't think of one person that has paid for their service for that reason. It's the foreign rights that may see them break even not the UK market. Yep it was much better in the 90s, quality was decently spread between the three competitions and you had Barca and Inter Milan winning cup winners and Uefa cup. Teams were generally happy to be in those competitions and you didn't get the disdain you do know when clubs drop into the europa. I couldn't care less about the group stages (unless an English team hilariously gets knocked out) but there are always good games in the knock outs so tend to watch it seriously from then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted August 27, 2015 Share Posted August 27, 2015 Champions League as the name really annoys me, they should call it at least the European Cup but before the bloating of it to allow 2nd-4th place sides it was still a good competition and allowed other trophies to become more relevant. Obviously money talks so thats what UEFA care about at least to their credit they got rid of the 2nd group phase which was an absolute load of rubbish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted August 28, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted August 28, 2015 Group A: Paris St-Germain, Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, Malmo Group B: PSV Eindhoven, Man Utd, CSKA Moscow, Wolfsburg Group C: Benfica, Atletico Madrid, Galatasaray, Astana, Group D: Juventus, Man City, Sevilla, Borussia Monchengladbach Group E: Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen, Roma, BATE Borisov Group F: Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Olympiakos, Dinamo Zagreb Group G: Chelsea, Porto, Dynamo Kiev, Maccabi Tel-Aviv Group H: Zenit Saint Petersburg, Valencia, Lyon, Gent Ah 32 teams and how many won their league championships? Crap tournament that highlights everything wrong with modern football, like previous seasons I won't be watching any of it If that's your main complaint, it the competition were more along the lines of HJK Helsinki vs Dundalk or Hibernians vs Stjarnan you would be more inclined to watch? Because I expect that you'd be in the minority. It's a fair point. But that's the problem imo. The original European cup was the winners of each league competing against each other. That's the ultimate test. Not only did you have to be good enough to win your league one year, you had to be good enough to beat all the other league winners the year after. That's what made it so hard. I can't be arsed to work it out, but I'd love to know how many of the "Champions League" winners wouldn't have even qualified for the competition under the previous format. So I understand your point. The way they do it now captures what more people want to see. But that's every thing wrong with football. It's all about money. If they seeded the FA Cup so that all the big teams met in the latter rounds it would be for the same reason, because more people will watch it then. But I'd **** hate it if they did that. And if this Utopian way of doing things were adopted, who would it benefit? Unless I've misunderstood, you don't actually seem to want to watch (for example) the Slovakian champions play the Welsh champions. Or even a possible quarter final (based on the UEFA coefficients) - the Belgian champions against the Swiss champions, so it doesn't seem to benefit those who would support this change. The bigger teams wouldn't want it, the smaller teams wouldn't want it, the supporters of all those teams wouldn't want it, the players wouldn't want it, the neutral wouldn't want it... So apart from "well, that was how it used to be", there doesn't seem to be any compelling argument to go back to how it was. Incidentally, the FA Cup is seeded so that all the big teams meet in the latter rounds. That's why we're joining in the third round, after eight rounds of fixtures have already been played. More rounds had already taken place by the time we joined the competition last year than we ended up playing in to get to the Final. I'd rather watch that than Arsenal vs Olympiakos for the 10th year in a row. You could argue that those smaller teams would become more competitive as a result. If the goal was to play in the champions league then the good players would be more inclined to move further afield to broaden their chances, rather than being contained in the top 4 sides in England, Spain, Germany and Italy. They're only shit these days because I have no recollection of the European cup apart from it's current format. Hell, I enjoy the current format a lot more than most of the people in this thread seem to! It just seems like the old way was a much purer form of competition. it's not like the competition isn't dominated by the same nations now that it was before. It was Spain, England, Germany and Italy who won the competition most in the old days, and it's still that way now. But back then nations like Scotland, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Romania etc got the odd victory. Because their teams were more competitive. Can you see any of those nations providing a winner these days (obviously not Yugoslavia!)? I dunno, maybe you're right. But to me the answer of "more people want to see it" doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing. I'm sure there's an argument that more people want to see a permanent European Super League. That doesn't mean it's the best thing to do. More people might want to see a Premier LEague with no relegation to ensure it's always the best 20 teams in the country in there, but it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ismail-villa Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 So is the Champions League only on BT Sport? Not even on ITV? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BleedClaretAndBlue Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 Any winner that wasn't the reigning champion of their league should have an asterisk next to their name in the records. Wouldnt it be easier to have it next to the names of the reigning champions. So is the Champions League only on BT Sport? Not even on ITV? Not sure, they had the highlights of the last round of preliminaries midweek. Hopefully they will do so every week when it starts but wouldnt be surprised if they dont Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrinityRoadSteps Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 I believe there will be a certain amount of free to air games shown on BT. Pretty sure they won't be the big games people want to see though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 Man Utd game the other night was shown free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted August 28, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted August 28, 2015 I think watching the games live is only possible on BT. The other channels have highlights I believe. But like others have said, BT are making a number of the games free to air. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarewsEyebrowDesigner Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 I'm hoping Madrid and Chelsea play at some stage and Madrid go through thanks to a very controversial goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 Group A: Paris St-Germain, Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, Malmo Group B: PSV Eindhoven, Man Utd, CSKA Moscow, Wolfsburg Group C: Benfica, Atletico Madrid, Galatasaray, Astana, Group D: Juventus, Man City, Sevilla, Borussia Monchengladbach Group E: Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen, Roma, BATE Borisov Group F: Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Olympiakos, Dinamo Zagreb Group G: Chelsea, Porto, Dynamo Kiev, Maccabi Tel-Aviv Group H: Zenit Saint Petersburg, Valencia, Lyon, Gent Ah 32 teams and how many won their league championships? Crap tournament that highlights everything wrong with modern football, like previous seasons I won't be watching any of it If that's your main complaint, it the competition were more along the lines of HJK Helsinki vs Dundalk or Hibernians vs Stjarnan you would be more inclined to watch? Because I expect that you'd be in the minority. It's a fair point. But that's the problem imo. The original European cup was the winners of each league competing against each other. That's the ultimate test. Not only did you have to be good enough to win your league one year, you had to be good enough to beat all the other league winners the year after. That's what made it so hard. I can't be arsed to work it out, but I'd love to know how many of the "Champions League" winners wouldn't have even qualified for the competition under the previous format. So I understand your point. The way they do it now captures what more people want to see. But that's every thing wrong with football. It's all about money. If they seeded the FA Cup so that all the big teams met in the latter rounds it would be for the same reason, because more people will watch it then. But I'd **** hate it if they did that. I'd also argue that the original format would see greater competition. You'd no longer get all the good players isolated in the top 4 teams in the premier league. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 Champions League is a closed shop now. Gone are the days a Red Star Belgrade, Steaua Bucharest or even an Ajax could win it. Its weakened many of the leagues across Europe. If a team like Barcelona travel to the Romanian ot Bulgarian champions now, its purely a matter of how many they will win by. Back in the old format, it was a real trip into the unknown and a difficult tie. Maybe I'm an old romantic but we won the European Cup the proper way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 You could argue that those smaller teams would become more competitive as a result. If the goal was to play in the champions league then the good players would be more inclined to move further afield to broaden their chances, rather than being contained in the top 4 sides in England, Spain, Germany and Italy (1) I have no recollection of the European cup apart from it's current format. Hell, I enjoy the current format a lot more than most of the people in this thread seem to! It just seems like the old way was a much purer form of competition. it's not like the competition isn't dominated by the same nations now that it was before. It was Spain, England, Germany and Italy who won the competition most in the old days, and it's still that way now. But back then nations like Scotland, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Romania etc got the odd victory. Because their teams were more competitive. Can you see any of those nations providing a winner these days (obviously not Yugoslavia!)? (2) I dunno, maybe you're right. But to me the answer of "more people want to see it" doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing. I'm sure there's an argument that more people want to see a permanent European Super League. That doesn't mean it's the best thing to do. More people might want to see a Premier LEague with no relegation to ensure it's always the best 20 teams in the country in there, but it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. (3) 1) That's not how it works. Players want to play in the Champions League because it means they are playing for the clubs with the the most money and the biggest exposure. Take away the popular teams, mass interest drops off, the money involved decreases and the appeal drops for the players. So the players then go to wherever the money is instead. Which would probably be to whichever enterprising organisation worked out that there's a lot of money to be made by giving the masses the competition that they want rather than the one that they don't. Take Real Madrid, Roma and Man Utd out, it doesn't mean that Schweinsteiger, Danilo and Dzeko are suddenly going to sign for Molde just because they won their league and are in a competition that people aren't really watching anymore. It would basically turn into a much more long-winded version of the World Club Championships, where the lesser sides piss around for most of the competition before the champions of Europe and South America play each other in the final. And nobody has bothered to watch any of it until April, when the sides that they're interested in start to play each other. 2) Not really. But then if we'd been having this conversation in 2003, when teams from Germany, Spain, England and Italy had won the last eight tournaments I'd probably have said the same. Then Porto won it. 3) At no point have I said that it is the right thing. I couldn't give much of a toss about it in whichever format it is unless Villa start being good enough to play in it and I've watched probably no more than three or four Champions League games over the last couple of years. I'd probably watch around the same if it were the format that you propose. I just disagree that removing the majority of the teams that most of the people watching want to see is going to magically make it a super competitive competition where Partizan Belgrade or Cluj are suddenly much better teams and winning European Cups for Serbia or Romania. All it means is that they'll beat the champions of Malta and Ireland who no longer have to go through a qualifying round (with around the same amount of interest as if they were playing in the qualifying round) and get hammered by Juventus or Bayern in the third round rather than the group stages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 (edited) Champions League is a closed shop now. Gone are the days a Red Star Belgrade, Steaua Bucharest or even an Ajax could win it. Its weakened many of the leagues across Europe. (1) If a team like Barcelona travel to the Romanian ot Bulgarian champions now, its purely a matter of how many they will win by. Back in the old format, it was a real trip into the unknown and a difficult tie. (2) 1) No it hasn't. Villa finished 17th last season, and if we wanted to sign any player from Steaua, Red Star or probably even Ajax we could. As could most of the Premier League. We've not played in the European Cup in a generation, so if it's the Champions League that is weakening the leagues, why can pretty much any Premier League team sign more or less who they want from most of the other leagues in the world? Ligue 1 is still pretty strong, yet some of the best players in the league last season signed for Villa, Swansea and West Ham. How's the Champions League to blame for this weakening of the league? 2) Again, very little to do with the Champions League and far more to do with the fact that at the time you couldn't just stick a Bet365 live stream on and watch pretty much any team from any of the major leagues across Europe. It was a trip into the unknown because it was unknown. Now it's not, because that 'team like Barcelona' have watched every match that the champions of Bulgaria played this season in preparation for it. Edited August 28, 2015 by ml1dch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted August 29, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted August 29, 2015 To be fair my argument wasn't really that the competition would be more completive (although I think it would give smaller clubs a better chance to win it, just like smaller teams have a better chance of wining the FA or League cup as opposed to the premier league). My argument was that it would be a more elite achievement because it would be a lot harder to win, in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted August 29, 2015 Share Posted August 29, 2015 its a ridiculous closed shop, the last 5 seasons semi finals have been Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich plus an other since 2000 only PSV and Porto from outside the big 5 leagues have made the semi finals. Its disgusting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted August 29, 2015 Share Posted August 29, 2015 I think it's a bit greedy and unrealistic to expect more than 5 nations in Europe to be supplying teams into the semi finals of the Champions League. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 The Europa league is dead easy to fix. 1) CL place for the winner -- done 2) CL clubs can fook right off, when they get knocked out in the group stage -- ??? Screw PL clubs and their disdain for this competition. Chance at winning something and some adventure vs same ol' crap different year in the league. I'll never forgive O'Neill for chucking it against CSKA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 The Europa league is dead easy to fix. 1) CL place for the winner -- done 2) CL clubs can fook right off, when they get knocked out in the group stage -- ??? Screw PL clubs and their disdain for this competition. Chance at winning something and some adventure vs same ol' crap different year in the league. I'll never forgive O'Neill for chucking it against CSKA. well No.1 already happens do agree with No.2 though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 As for fixing the CL... easy Straight knock out competition from the off... 2 legs, expand it to 64 teams. Only seed league winners, everyone else gets fed to the sharks. knock knock.... wake up fool, there be $$ at play, now get back to watching those advertisements Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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