Sam
member
Reged: 12/07/2006
Posts: 1063
Loc: North Somerset (returning to M...
|
|
Well Drury, as you know I like to follow football from far far away, necessitating late nights and a decent-ish (for reading at least) grasp of a second language. Personally I think the passion and comparatively level playing field of the Libertadores is much better. OK, the standard of football maybe isn't as high, but it's a lot more entertaining.
By the way, that Baltic champs league idea is called the Baltic League. You can read about it at UEFA's website here: http://www.uefa.com/footballeurope/news/kind=2/newsid=518532.html and view what appears to be the competition's 'official' Wikipedia website, with group tables, fixtures and results, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_League
There you go - a competition with teams you've never heard of! Don't say I never give you anything...
Sam
--------------------
More fútbol argentino than you can shake a mullet at - Hasta El Gol Siempre
|
Sam
member
Reged: 12/07/2006
Posts: 1063
Loc: North Somerset (returning to M...
|
|
I've also just found their actual full-on official website. http://www.balticleague.com/standings/2007/groups/
Group C looks a bit of a dull one. And for any fans of Scottish football, FBK Kaunas, currently top of Group A, are the other side owned by that chap who currently reigns over Hearts. Of course the Scots already knew that but some of the non-Brits on here might not have done.
To keep this vaguely on-topic... um... I like the Baltic League idea of groups with only three teams. Perhaps the Champs League could introduce this as a way of cutting down the number of mindnumbingly dull group stage matches we have to sit through each season? Or something...
Sam
--------------------
More fútbol argentino than you can shake a mullet at - Hasta El Gol Siempre
|
badgerboy
member
Reged: 26/03/2007
Posts: 727
Loc: Bucks, England
|
|
Quote:
But what i really want to know, away from this subject a little is, what do you guys really follow - do you just like CL with Real Madrid, Man U, Barca etc every year or do you follow something else, something you don't see on TV but follow with an interest?
We all want CL to be competitive, but its always the same teams every year with about one or two surprises maybe every season (qualifying for group stage, but then cannot compete on the field?). I'd prefer another tournement that is conpetivtive - forget about watching on tv, can always find something on the web to follow it - but it creates something unique, more fasinating.
Drury_fire
So why doesn't the UEFA Cup satisfy your need for such a competition?
I'm pretty unusual as a football "fan" I guess - in that I like to follow quite a wide range of football - though mostly (in terms of club football) within Europe - but probably actually watch fewer games than the average fan. I haven't had access to Sky Sports for some years for example either because I've been travelling or I've been living with a brother who can't stand football. But even if I had it there wouldn't be that many games that I'd choose to set 90 minutes aside to watch from start to finish. Give me a decent highlights package with between 10 & 15 minutes per game & I'm pretty happy.
I would put the CL at the top of my "club football" interests now - a little bit ahead of the domestic championship. I'd also put the UEFA Cup fairly high on the list as well while my interest in the various European leagues tends to fluctuate based on the teams challenging near the top. If it's the "same old faces" I pay little attention - if some "upstart" looks like challenging the established order I want to know more.
Back to the UEFA Cup. My question is a genuine one. It seems to me that this is a very open competition with less well known teams. Why doesn't this satisfy your criteria? Is it because your interest is what you term the "Eastern European teams" and not enough of them are involved at the latter stages? In any case a lot of "eastern" teams went a long way last year - Steaua, Rapid, Levski, Zenit & CSKA won it the year before...
Off topic slightly - what do you think of UEFA's idea/proposal for a 48 team group stage (12 groups of 4) with the CLQR3 losers going straight into the groups?
Sam
I'm new here but I've read a couple of times how much you dislike the CL Group Stage. But you have a big interest in South American football & seem to like the Libertadores - which has the same format. So, I assume it's the apparent predictability of the Group Stage you dislike rather than the existence of a group stage per se?
|
subhankar_mondal
member
Reged: 29/08/2006
Posts: 2003
|
|
Well,to be frank,never heard of those teams. Not that I am interested now.....
Reducing the number of teams in each group? That doesn't seem too bad,does it, at leasi in my reckoning? And that would imply that only the group winners qulaify for the next round. That could be some change good.
--------------------
Subhankar Mondal is a football writer for www.goal.com.
|
badgerboy
member
Reged: 26/03/2007
Posts: 727
Loc: Bucks, England
|
|
Quote:
And that would imply that only the group winners qulaify for the next round. That could be some change good.
Actually no. 12 groups of 4. The top 2 from each group progress to the last 32 together with the 8 teams that drop out of the Champions League groups.
This is one aspect of the UEFA Cup I strongly dislike. It makes sense - to me at least - that the CL qualifying losers go into the UEFA Cup - I would even say all of them should, with QR2 & QR1 losers falling in at an earlier stage of the UEFA Cup qualifiers. But the 3rds from the CL groups only fall into the UEFA Cup because the CL needs this to happen in order to give clubs in their competition a better chance of having something to play for on the last two matchdays.To my mind this doesn't benefit the UEFA Cup at all.
If you could somehow do away with this transfer the UEFA Cup could have a 64 team group stage with a number of teams qualifying direct for the groups - so no need for clubs from the "big leagues" to play a "qualifier" in August - which looks unavoidable under the "48 team proposal".
I'm not sure the strength in depth of a 64 team set up would be that hot - but then the UEFA Cup doesn't have that many teams in it's "top tier" that you'd be confident would beat allcomers - so not that uneven. And anyway I thought one of the main ideas of the UEFA Cup was to give more teams a guaranteed number of "European nights".
Quote:
Well,to be frank,never heard of those teams.
It doesn't really surprise me. I would assume the UEFA Cup gets roughly no coverage outside Europe. Steaua Bucharest were European Champions back in 1986 but I probably think they're more famous than they are around the world because there are so many Romanians - excited by their countries recent rise in the UEFA coefficient list - on the forum I spend most of my "forum time" on.
I don't know where drury_fire is from though - but I assume somewhere in Europe (though I'm not sure why I assume this?) - so he'd know about the UEFA Cup?
Edited by badgerboy (31/03/2007 11:58)
|
subhankar_mondal
member
Reged: 29/08/2006
Posts: 2003
|
|
Actually the UEFA Cup is telecasted live here in India and even some of the qualifiers of the Champions League too are shown!
--------------------
Subhankar Mondal is a football writer for www.goal.com.
|
badgerboy
member
Reged: 26/03/2007
Posts: 727
Loc: Bucks, England
|
|
Quote:
Actually the UEFA Cup is telecasted live here in India and even some of the qualifiers of the Champions League too are shown!
Then there's absolutely no excuse for you never having heard of the teams I mentioned 
|
druryfire
member
Reged: 20/03/2007
Posts: 351
|
|
I'll check that Baltic league website out, thanks very much.
I do prefer Uefa Cup to CL, cause the teams are more or less on a par, and you can't really predict a winner.
As for those guys who think i'm a bit of a mystery, i'm from UK, but live between UK and Thailand, so i have a general feel for most football, far and wide.
I like the premiership for quality football, but because i'm british, i can have a general feel of what each team will do, and what there expectations are, without knowing much about other leagues - minor leagues around the world, then i have an interest as i'm not too sure who will come out on top, who the playmaker is, so i have a deep interest to see the outcome
|
Sam
member
Reged: 12/07/2006
Posts: 1063
Loc: North Somerset (returning to M...
|
|
Badgerboy - I may have misread the flow of the thread here, but I THINK Sub's 'never heard of those teams' was directed at my Baltic League post rather than your UEFA Cup one...
Quote:
Sam
I'm new here but I've read a couple of times how much you dislike the CL Group Stage. But you have a big interest in South American football & seem to like the Libertadores - which has the same format. So, I assume it's the apparent predictability of the Group Stage you dislike rather than the existence of a group stage per se?
And yes, that's exactly right, you've got it in one. Too many of the Champs League group stages are meaningless and dull, whereas the Libertadores group games I watch never seem to be (granted this may be because River have stumbled through the group stage in each of the last few seasons and had to win right up until their last match!)...
Sam
--------------------
More fútbol argentino than you can shake a mullet at - Hasta El Gol Siempre
|
badgerboy
member
Reged: 26/03/2007
Posts: 727
Loc: Bucks, England
|
|
Sam
Yes, it looks like you're absolutely right. This - clicking on the person you're replying to three posts back is a new one on me! Sorry for the misunderstanding, Sub.
As for the Group Stage. I like it despite being frustrated that it's so unbalanced that a lot of groups are effectively over by Matchday 4. I suppose I think of it as necessary to give at least some mid-ranking clubs the chance of some decent fixtures against the really big clubs. I suppose the Libertadores has the advantage (at least in terms of competitiveness) of (a) having to cope only with teams from 11 countries and (b) the fact that the best clubs from presumably the best leagues (Argentina & Brazil) are constantly losing players to Europe & hence having to rebuild.
I don't know the best solution for the CL. I spend a lot of time on another forum where we discuss formats a lot. I think it will stay at 32 teams in 8 groups of 4 but I wouldn't mind UEFA trying 36 teams in 6 groups of 6.
More teams perhaps doesn't make sense when you start by saying the competition lacks strength in depth. But I'd counterbalance this by (a) abolishing the 4 country maximum with one of the extra spots going to a club from the country that provides the CL winner & the other to the team that wins the UEFA Cup (or another team from their country if they've already qualified) and (b) even though there are more teams there will also be more strength in depth within the particular groups.
In addition - and to ensure teams have something to play for in all matches - I would abolish the last 16 draw. Instead the teams qualifying for the last 16 would be ranked in order - with the qualifier with the best record playing the qualifier with the worst. There would also be have to be an extra play-off round between the 3rd placed teams & the two best 4ths to decide the last 4 teams in the last 16. Hopefully the chance of progressing from 4th would also give most teams at the bottom of the groups some hope into the later fixtures.
Of course this adds back in the fixtures that were lost when the Second Group Stage was abolished & that wont be a popular idea with everyone.
|
subhankar_mondal
member
Reged: 29/08/2006
Posts: 2003
|
|
Quote:
Quote:
Actually the UEFA Cup is telecasted live here in India and even some of the qualifiers of the Champions League too are shown!
Then there's absolutely no excuse for you never having heard of the teams I mentioned
When I said that the UEFA Cup is telecasted LIVE here in India,I didn't mean that all the matches in each of the rounds are telecasted. Only a chosen few,maybe 3 or 4 per round,is shown here and most of the matches involve teams from England,Spain,Italy and Germany.
--------------------
Subhankar Mondal is a football writer for www.goal.com.
|
lazyyzal05
member
Reged: 04/04/2007
Posts: 3
|
|
I completly agree with what Platini is doing, the only reason G-14 are complaining is because the risk of losing money. The only way for these smaller clubs to compete at the highest level is bringing in money. It may take five or six seasons before they build there squads up to actually challenge the Valencia's and Chelsea's but in the long run it makes Europe more competitive.
|
subhankar_mondal
member
Reged: 29/08/2006
Posts: 2003
|
|
But when you bring in these financially weaker and consequently resourse-wise depleted sides into Europe's top-tier competition,you actually endanger spiralling down the quality of football that's played in the Champions League. I know that Sam is a huge fan of reviving the oldknockout system from the very start but that would too lessen the quality.
--------------------
Subhankar Mondal is a football writer for www.goal.com.
|
Sam
member
Reged: 12/07/2006
Posts: 1063
Loc: North Somerset (returning to M...
|
|
I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of making it knockout from the start - it would just get rid of the group stage, which at the moment bores me. I'm a big fan of a little more diversity, though.
Incidentally, another angle on this has ocurred to me after watching the 'policing' attempted by Italian and Spanish police over the last couple of nights. If these countries can't keep their stadia secure (or free of racism, not an issue in the United or Spurs games of course) in a proper fashion, do they actually DESERVE to have four teams in the competition? The threat of a cut-down or even a ban might go some way to making them safer stadia to visit...
Sam
--------------------
More fútbol argentino than you can shake a mullet at - Hasta El Gol Siempre
|
adriansfc
member
Reged: 22/04/2007
Posts: 30
Loc: London/Southampton
|
|
This sounds like an attempt to offer some small revival to the UEFA cup, which was always going to suffer from the "Champion's" League expansion, and the ridiculous decision to allow those eliminated from the Champion's League to go into the lesser competition.
The Champion's League should still really be for the Champion's of each nation, but it is impossible to return to that now. Limiting it to three entrants rather than four will only mean a less entertaining competition now. The way the qualfying has developed means the fourth place team is not only capable of competing in the Champion's League, but often capable of winning it.
|
das
member
Reged: 19/05/2007
Posts: 53
|
|
every team who wins their league has the right to play in the champions league proper. scrap the preliminaries and just make bigger or more groups to compensate. this can only be fair
|
GrahamBrack
member
Reged: 22/07/2007
Posts: 3
|
|
Can we agree on a couple of points, even if we disagree on the solutions to them?
1. The European fixture lists have become too extended and cluttered, running for ten months of the year and three days in the middle of each European competition week.
This has a knock-on effect on national leagues (if a UEFA qualifier plays a CL qualifier at the weekend, one may have to play twice in 3 days). Personally, I think a minimum step should be to remove the 8 teams who currently finish third in the CL groups from the UEFA cup. That would allow us to get rid of the silly 5-team groups.
2. Every country's champions ought to play at some stage in the Champions League by right.
If we don't agree on those two (and there may be good arguments against) then we're having a group of different discussions and we can't expect to agree on possible remedies.
|
badgerboy
member
Reged: 26/03/2007
Posts: 727
Loc: Bucks, England
|
|
Quote:
Personally, I think a minimum step should be to remove the 8 teams who currently finish third in the CL groups from the UEFA cup. That would allow us to get rid of the silly 5-team groups.
2. Every country's champions ought to play at some stage in the Champions League by right.
I believe UEFA are planning to do away with the 5 team groups - but not the transfer of teams from the CL (unfortunately). The last proposals I heard were for 12 groups of 4 at the group stage. One aspect of this proposal I also like was that losers in CLQR3 would automatically end up in the UEFA Cup groups rather than risk elimination in an intermediate KO round. Thus a tangible reward of a certain number of European fixtures for a reasonable number of domestic champions. I'm not sure how any changes to the CL qualifying system will affect this though.
Of course I suspect this is actually going to add to the fixture list rather than reduce it as each team will now play six group matches rather than 4 - and I can't see a way that many clubs can get direct access to the groups - so the KO round will still be necessary too.
Although I know some players play too much football as an avid follower of the European game I don't mind the idea of more matches at all!
On your second point - if you're including "qualifiers" then I agree with you. I totally disagree with Das's point that every "Champion" should have a right to enter the CL groups.
Equality worked in the past with a straight KO because we lived in a different era when: (a) going to Luxembourg & winning 14-0 was still somehow "exotic" and "special" rather than an irritating fixture few people would see the point in watching & (b) it was pre-Bosman (& pre-the fall of the Iron Curtain too) when most of the top clubs in their countries kept their best players & probably 26 of the 32 Champions then entering had a genuine chance of competing with the biggest clubs every once in a while (at least on a given day).
Sorry, but whatever some people might think - the Champions of a country like Armenia - that can barely manage to form an eight team top division - do not deserve "equality" with the Champions of the likes of Spain & England. The fact that they have the opportunity - all be it small - to achieve this aim through the qualifiers is fantastic. I'm quietly cheering for the minnows of Kazakhstan this year - a country with a decent competitive league (at least at "minnow" level).
By the way I should note to new contributors that this "Big Issue" topic is a few months out of date. I couldn't resist replying though...
Edited by badgerboy (22/07/2007 14:58)
|
djomen
member
Reged: 02/08/2007
Posts: 6
|
|
Hello everyone, I'm first time here.
Now the format of CL is fair to all of the coutries in Europe. Because all championships are represented in qualify round of CL starting from first round. That's why all European countries have theoretical possibility to see their clubs in Group Stage or even in play-off.
Yes, some winners of domestic championships have to overcome more qualify rounds then second, third teams from best european leags. But this situation is not so unfair because it depends on ranking in UEFA list. And position of each country in this list depends on results of its clubs in CL. The more clubs from certain country win their matches in CL, the more points in UEFA rank this country has. Countries with most points in this list (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France) have more representatives in CL and their clubs join CL at later stages.
The most represented those who play the best - its quite fair.
|
scbuochscc
member
Reged: 12/02/2007
Posts: 7
|
|
Quote:
Personally, I feel all the European competitions were devalued when they allowed non-champions into the European cup. To then call it the contrived 'champions league' (which technically should have an apostrophe somewhere in there) further devalues a once great competition. Champions League? Where are the champions? Liverpool was far from it when they won. Get back to what it should be and stop pandering to the financial side of it. I agree with the direction Platini is going. The likelihood of his succeeding is sadly small.
In this quote, it is stated that the champions from all over Europe should play in the champions league or it would not be called the 'UEFA Champions League'. However the clubs from the countries England, Spain, Italy and Germany and France have the majority of places in the champions league. With clubs ranking 1-4 in (England, Spain and Italy) and 1-3 in (Germany and France), means half the places for the champions league are already taken between five countries. So the 'UEFA Champions League' should be called something else because the teams from 2nd to 4th also participate in. So consequently the champions league with the league winners from countries like Ireland or Croatia and Finland would not be the same as the champions league without 3rd and 4th placed Liverpool and arsenal or Valencia and Seville. So through argument that the champions league should just be for the league winner from all over Europe would make level of football lower and cause big clubs like Liverpool arsenal Valencia Seville and other top clubs to miss out in expense of clubs like Zagreb Zurich Elfsborg and other small clubs to be in the finest tournament in Europe.
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
[Re: 
Edit
Reply
Quote
