The Game's Gone

[kurtsimonw]

10 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I hear that argument a lot, but I disagree - team that finishes 2nd in England is stronger than a team that finishes 1st in Portugal. 

It would be silly to not involve them. 

Agreed, but there's still just too many teams. 

Even if it was just top 2 from the big 4/5 nations, 1 from the middling nations, then the smaller champions in to a preliminary knockout it would be a lot better. 

It'd also give the Europa League a lot more credibility. A bit like this year, to be fair. 

[Stevo985]

I think the tournament is better now that it includes so many other teams, but it's been at the cost of the other European competitions which have disappeared (cup winners cup) or aren't valued as much (Europa League).

 

But part of what made the European Cup so hard to win was that not only did you have to be good to win the tournament that year, you had to have been good enough to win your domestic league the year before.

[Mic09]

I know one thing - this has been the best CL season ever. If I could have more of that every year, then I am all for this format.

[sne]

5 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I know one thing - this has been the best CL season ever. If I could have more of that every year, then I am all for this format.

Strongly disagree about that for loads of reasons.

Not among my top 20 favorite seasons even.

[villa89]

31 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I know one thing - this has been the best CL season ever. If I could have more of that every year, then I am all for this format.

The CL is beyond boring. The group phase is a cure for insomnia. There have been a handful of good games in the knockout stages but one swallow doesn't make a summer.

[sne]

Yeah... The game is truly gone, or it will be in a couple of years anyway.

Quote

It is the knife in the heart of league football

 Not the start of British domination without the death of domestic football

Congratulations to Liverpool, Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea for the European finals.

But congratulations, England? Hardly!

It's not the British football domination we see the start of now.

It is the death of the British, Spanish, Italian and German football.

 

English teams take all four final places in Europe's two biggest international football tournaments in 2019 but that English football dominates Europe is not even close to true. This is not a British football product. This is a result of intelligent PR geniuses, imported players and anything but British football philosophers.

"Will crush the competition"

We have four "English teams" but no English coach and only one English owner in the CL and EL finals. The coaches are from Germany, Argentinean, Italy and Spain - the owners except Tottenham's British from Russia and the United States. Players? Only nine out of 44 in the lineups from the other semifinal meetings were British.

The fans have not counted me, but I know that at least there was at least one very loud Swedish at Tottenham's return match.

So what do I want to say with this? Should British football lovers not celebrate? Yeah absolutely. Celebrate! Enjoy! Too soon the football you know is gone. Crushed and disappeared.

It's stupid to exaggerate this - but I don't actually do that either. For the threat to today's league football is real and it is here and now. "Winter is coming" and the immortal executioner who is ready to push his sword into the poor paralyzed boy who is the traditional football is called Alexander Ceferin and is Uefa's highest hen.

The New York Times has come across the development plan for the European club team football that Uefa worked out. According to the head of Spanish league football Javier Tebas, who is very critical of the plans, it is also the only finished and concrete proposal that is currently on the table.

- In practice, we have received a proposal with a concrete project developed by Uefa in full cooperation with a small group of rich and powerful European clubs to redesign the European cups after 2024 in a format that would crush domestic competition and both Sporty as the economic sustainability of the vast majority of clubs in Europe, Tebas says.

He doesn't actually exaggerate either.

24 of 32 guaranteed place

The proposal is a Champions League that turns into a league of up and down. The 24 foremost of 32 teams will be guaranteed place in next year's tournament - no matter how they place themselves at home.

FACTS

Then the Europa game can look after 2024:

Champions League:

• 32 teams divided into four groups of eight.

• All teams are guaranteed at least 14 matches, instead of today's six, every season.

• The first four from each group go to the playoffs.

• The 24 top teams are guaranteed a place even next year.

• The four worst fall out of the Europa League.

• Four teams can qualify for their seats against national league winners.

Europa League:

• 32 layers.

• The four semi-finalists qualify for the Champions League.

• The worst teams fall out to Europa League 2.

Europa League 2:

• 64 teams in four divisions with 16 teams each.

• Promotion to Europa League 1.

In practice, the system provides secure sites for Europe's most powerful teams and secure millions of years of income that will further divide the domestic leagues. The dominant teams will be even richer while the distance between the top and the middle of the leagues grows into a hell gap.

In the long run, it is difficult to see a different development than that of the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga being uninteresting and irrelevant.

Those who work hardest to make the proposal a reality are the big clubs from the Italian and Spanish leagues and the reason is that they are about to be sacked financially by the Premier League. That way, the through-commercialized British league has already split the European top football but we can hardly load them for that. The Premier League, on the contrary, has so far been regarded as the major obstacle to this development of CL because, by virtue of their lead, they actually valued their own league.

What worries me now is therefore the fact that the English law is no longer English.

Root for root it has been dug up

Root for root has been dug up from the British football rally when Russian oligarchs and US financiers developed international companies of once local associations. It is possible to think a lot about that internationalization but a consequence is that soon there will be no arguments left for national leagues.

Why should the English football clubs play in an English league when they are not English anymore? Then it becomes much more logical that even the law, just like the owners, leaders and players, become international.

The local fans do you say? They are already numbered a thousand times by the international supporter clubs. Arsenal and Chelsea get 5801 EL final tickets were for their local supporters in an arena that takes 68,700 spectators and Barcelona wants to play league games in the US to "get closer to their fans".

Should incoming football tourists fail to replace missing local supporters, just create an artificial frame. For example, Manchester City has already replaced the flags on their stands with TV screens and in the broadcasts the audience's cheers are stopped by the commentators' roaring sound wall. Everything is about creating a good TV product.

But the fans will not escape. Because will you be able to look away when Liverpool turns an impossible inferior to Barcelona? Will you be able to refrain from watching when the unlikely hero Lucas Moura takes Tottenham to the Champions League final and coach Mauricio Pochettino cries rivers of joy tears?

Aleksander Ceferin is ready with the knife and in the football world there are no unlikely heroes. No one will stop Ceferin from drilling the dagger deep into the heart of traditional football.

English, Spanish, Italian and German league football are soon dead. International football is the future. It doesn't matter what we think anymore.

https://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/fotboll/a/jdkz4L/ar-kniven-i-hjartat-pa-ligafotbollen

[villa4europe]

they've got to fix the group stage but I don't see how, the current set up is platini's model, gives the lower ranked teams the best chance for 2 games vs barca or madrid or juve and the money that comes with it and those teams get an easy game, 1 FA 1 vote, they aren't going to scrap it, as a result before xmas is a write off

agree that UEFA's biggest problem is they devalued their other competitions too much, the EL could and should be a decent tournament but they killed it and seemingly don't even want it, its their ginger step child

the biggest danger is calls for an overhaul will result in something no fans want but the money men do

[sne]

11 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

 

the biggest danger is calls for an overhaul will result in something no fans want but the money men do

 

[Mic09]

1 hour ago, villa89 said:

The CL is beyond boring. The group phase is a cure for insomnia. There have been a handful of good games in the knockout stages but one swallow doesn't make a summer.

I don't know, I watch a lot of CL football and I disagree.

Some of the games were fantastic - Napoli vs Liverpool games were very good, and it came down to a last minute 1v1 of Milik and Alisson that decided plop went through.  You had the Inter v Spurs fight for the 2nd spot, Man U group with Juve was interesting.

Let me put it this way; other than watching Villa, give me Napoli vs Atletico Madrid on a Tuesday night in the CL rather than West ham vs Southampton or Everton V Newcastle in the PL

Edited May 10, 2019 by Mic09

[Zatman]

Last year semi finals were better than this seasons for a start

[Mic09]

1 minute ago, Zatman said:

Last year semi finals were better than this seasons for a start

If you are correct then we can safely say that for the last 2 seasons we had some great football to watch.

[AXD]

5 hours ago, villa89 said:

The CL is beyond boring. The group phase is a cure for insomnia. There have been a handful of good games in the knockout stages but one swallow doesn't make a summer.

This statement is why ‘the game’s gone’. It is boring for the teams who are so good/(rich) that they know they’ll go through anyway. For teams from smaller leagues, this is something to look forward to, their supporters know their team will get beaten by barca or juve, but still love to see these games.

i can agree ‘it’s boring’ in the sense that the outcome of the group stage is predictable. But I’m pretty sure the Leicester fans enjoyed it a few years ago while Real Madrid supporters probably said ‘Leicester games are beyond boring’.

To be clear, i’m not trying to take a swing at you personally. I don’t care about FC Kopenhagen vs. Dinamo Kiev either. But to these teams and most of their respective countries, these are huge games. Choosing to neglect this would mean you’d prefer the super league with the same big teams every year. I like the possibility of surprise, like Ajax was this year. 

Edited May 10, 2019 by AXD

[Mic09]

41 minutes ago, AXD said:

This statement is why ‘the game’s gone’. It is boring for the teams who are so good/(rich) that they know they’ll go through anyway. For teams from smaller leagues, this is something to look forward to, their supporters know their team will get beaten by barca or juve, but still love to see these games.

i can agree ‘it’s boring’ in the sense that the outcome of the group stage is predictable. But I’m prettig sure the Leicester fans enjoyed it a few years ago while Real Madrid supporters probably said ‘Leicester games are beyond boring’.

 To be clear, i’m not trying to take a swing at you personality. I don’t care about FC Kopenhagen vs. Dinamo Kiev either. But to these teams and most of their respective countries, these are huge games. Choosing to neglect this would mean you’d prefer the super league with the same big teams every year. I like the possibility of surprise, like Ajax was this year. 

Exactly. If you don't want to watch Sparta Prague vs Lokomotiv, you don't have to. 

But the games at the top are very exciting. Give me Juve vs PSG all day long, football is great to watch. 

And if, one day, Villa get to the CL and play Barcelona, we will all be excited beyond belief. Barca won't give a damn. It is entirely possible neither will a Man City fan or a Bayern Munich fan, but it doesn't make the current format irrelevant. 

[villa89]

5 hours ago, villa4europe said:

they've got to fix the group stage but I don't see how

Here's an idea, have only the top team qualify for the last 8 and get rid of the last 16. Then every group game would matter and if you lost one it would really mean something. Then second and third could drop down to the Europa league to keep the whole group competitive. 

[PaulC]

7 hours ago, Mic09 said:

I hear that argument a lot, but I disagree - team that finishes 2nd in England is stronger than a team that finishes 1st in Portugal. 

It would be silly to not involve them. 

It's like the snooker "masters". They are not masters. But that's what it's called

I hate to say it but the champions league is a lot harder to win now than it was when the European Cup and it was just the league winners in it.  

[Zatman]

6 minutes ago, PaulC said:

I hate to say it but the champions league is a lot harder to win now than it was when the European Cup and it was just the league winners in it.  

Real Madrid won 4 in the last 5 years. Not even a vintage Madrid team

[sne]

4 minutes ago, PaulC said:

I hate to say it but the champions league is a lot harder to win now than it was when the European Cup and it was just the league winners in it.  

Impossible even if you are not one of the top 10 or so richest clubs in the world.

Not sure that's a good thing thou.

Only Porto 2004 and perhaps Inter 2010 are major upsets since the mid 90's

[Zatman]

2 minutes ago, sne said:

Impossible even if you are not one of the top 10 or so richest clubs in the world.

Not sure that's a good thing thou.

Only Porto 2004 and perhaps Inter 2010 are major upsets since the mid 90's

Liverpool 2005 was a huge upset 

[Mic09]

1 minute ago, sne said:

Impossible even if you are not one of the top 10 or so richest clubs in the world.

Not sure that's a good thing thou.

Only Porto 2004 and perhaps Inter 2010 are major upsets since the mid 90's

Ajax almost did it. They were 90 minutes away and slipped up in the last second. 

But I guess that is a rule for all European football. PL is won by top 4, La Liga by top 3, Bundesliga by top 2, French by PSG. 

[PaulC]

Forest winning it twice would be like Leicester winning it.