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Go Fourth into the Group Stage

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KO times staggered as of next season - 5.55pm and 8pm. Doesn't really bother us. They make them foreign types have the early leg coz they make more money off ads over here or something, and 5.55 is fine for telly.
 
Woland said:
KO times staggered as of next season - 5.55pm and 8pm. Doesn't really bother us. They make them foreign types have the early leg coz they make more money off ads over here or something, and 5.55 is fine for telly.
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Handy for all the OOTers to catch the last flight home.😉
 
There's only been one six o'clock game here ever, a couple of seasons ago. I suppose it's easier in Europe coz 6 is 7.
 
5:55 kick offs means I can finish work early and not being so smashed I can’t remember half the game.
 
Woland said:
KO times staggered as of next season - 5.55pm and 8pm. Doesn't really bother us. They make them foreign types have the early leg coz they make more money off ads over here or something, and 5.55 is fine for telly.
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I HATE 20.00 !! That's 04.00 over here FFS. More camping out on the sofa because the wife won't let me wake her up at 07.00 when the match ends and I've finished bashing away on forums !
 
Frogfish said:
I HATE 20.00 !! That's 04.00 over here FFS. More camping out on the sofa because the wife won't let me wake her up at 07.00 when the match ends and I've finished bashing the bishop!
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Yup, when I was a lot younger I used to like doing that after a particularly good win ... come to think of it, excuses were not needed
 
This just means more of the same really and in the slightly longer run I think the Champions League will steadily lose the fans interest. Is my guess.

You can only endure to watch the same teams lock horns so much, and we're going to see even more 4th in Spain against 3rd in Italy matches and it'll all potentially be more like an European Top League than anything else. If that is what you want then great because that is what it's going to be.

I guess this is one of several reasons why I reckon International football could perhaps get even more attention/fans in the future as it has somehow moved in the opposite direction with more teams able to qualify meaning the likes of Iceland, Albania etc. are all of sudden within a chance of qualifying creating a bit of diversity to it all. ChL will be the opposite as teams from the lesser nations (Scandinavia/Benelux etc.) will all find it even more difficult to qualify than it is today and you'll mainly watch the rich kids have a go at each other with no room left for surprises. Guess that's also part of the plan actually.

Could be the formats downfall, a part of me surely hopes so even though nights like the one in 2005 obv are wonderful.
 
Yeah, I think the interest in the group stage games will go down, but the knock out stages will continue with the same interest as today.
 
Kay Age El said:
This just means more of the same really and in the slightly longer run I think the Champions League will steadily lose the fans interest. Is my guess.

You can only endure to watch the same teams lock horns so much, and we're going to see even more 4th in Spain against 3rd in Italy matches and it'll all potentially be more like an European Top League than anything else. If that is what you want then great because that is what it's going to be.

I guess this is one of several reasons why I reckon International football could perhaps get even more attention/fans in the future as it has somehow moved in the opposite direction with more teams able to qualify meaning the likes of Iceland, Albania etc. are all of sudden within a chance of qualifying creating a bit of diversity to it all. ChL will be the opposite as teams from the lesser nations (Scandinavia/Benelux etc.) will all find it even more difficult to qualify than it is today and you'll mainly watch the rich kids have a go at each other with no room left for surprises. Guess that's also part of the plan actually.

Could be the formats downfall, a part of me surely hopes so even though nights like the one in 2005 obv are wonderful.
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Well that's basically what you've got in the PL .... and interest in the PL certainly isn't on the wane, to the contrary in fact. People (esp. neutrals) just want to watch the best players and the best teams go head to head.
 
I'd like this to be honest. Means you don't have to pick between so many games, as a neutral... what's the issue?
 
Woland said:
I'd like this to be honest. Means you don't have to pick between so many games, as a neutral... what's the issue?
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We don't like change. Your pre-existing brain condition will mean that you will certainly struggle more than most to cope with this disgraceful development.
 
The 5.55pm kick offs will be a pain in the arse for most people. A lot of people don't finish work until 5pm or 5.30 so it give them very little time to get to the ground unless they live quite close by. Also the match traffic combined with rush hour traffic will be a pain for anyone who travels through the area or is going to the match. The local residents will be even more pissed off as getting home will be a major headache and then you might find that someone has their car in your parking spot.
The buses also get diverted from by the ground for an hour or two before kick off so again the local residents coming home from work get screwed. Uefa really are a gang of cunts
 
Frogfish said:
Well that's basically what you've got in the PL .... and interest in the PL certainly isn't on the wane, to the contrary in fact. People (esp. neutrals) just want to watch the best players and the best teams go head to head.
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Why stop there, then?

I mean why not just create a league with Real, Barcelona, City, Bayern, United, PSG and Juve and get it over with? Where is the thin red line between creating an attractive, competitive competition and a dull repetitive one?

I don't know where it is myself exactly but I truly believe it has been crossed and now even more so by the looks of it.

There's no or at the very least only extremely little room left for any teams outside the top 4 leagues to make it as it is and now it'll just become even more difficult. No Swans, Foxes, Terriers etc. to make upsets, just the same old teams playing the same old teams for the same old trophies, without any local history to boot either (one of the reasons I believe domestic leagues are on the up whereas Europe seems on the down. To me it seems like ChL wants to be another bread and butter tournament for the best teams but as that's already there domestically it's just more of the same really and as such we're entering Carabao Cup territory.

I may be wrong of course and this new format will take the ChL to new heights, I just don't see it, I think it'll turn fans more and more immune towards the re-runs of the same blockbuster games week-in, week-out. We'll see.
 
Woland said:
Same old teams? It's our first go for ages.
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Yeah, and UEFA hate that as we've got one of the best brands in the game, why they'll do whatever they can to secure we are in it next year as well. Hence these new rules to go by.

I guess it'll soon be top 6 from England seeing as the league has become so competitive and we'd want Arsenal and Spurs in it too.

Again, please share your thoughts on where you think this should be heading? Do you want a league with the best teams from each of the top countries, you could even handpick them so we never again have to lose out. I guess a European League of some sorts could be interesting but then you should scrap the domestic ones. It's either one or the other as I see it, you can't run two almost identical tournaments, unless of course you'd accept one of them turns into a Carabao.
 
Kay Age El said:
Yeah, and UEFA hate that as we've got one of the best brands in the game, why they'll do whatever they can to secure we are in it next year as well. Hence these new rules to go by.

I guess it'll soon be top 6 from England seeing as the league has become so competitive and we'd want Arsenal and Spurs in it too.

Again, please share your thoughts on where you think this should be heading? Do you want a league with the best teams from each of the top countries, you could even handpick them so we never again have to lose out. I guess a European League of some sorts could be interesting but then you should scrap the domestic ones. It's either one or the other as I see it, you can't run two almost identical tournaments, unless of course you'd accept one of them turns into a Carabao.
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You don't sound patronizing at all claiming they need to expand the England quota to get Spurs in as we have cemented our place for the years to come based on our first CL in ages. 😀
 
Fabio said:
Leicester got the quarters last year like
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A team from the most expensive league in the world made into the quarters indeed. And your point being?

I am not saying there won't be diversity within the top 4 countries, but they'd mostly be from the top 4 countries and that's my main criticism. The more you guarantee the biggest clubs to enter the less chance you give everyone else to enter the tournament.

The strategy from UEFA is probably to make a 20 team SuperPremierWonder League without any hiccups in form of lesser followed teams from smaller leagues and countries because let's face it, that's not where the money is.

Personally I think that could be rather entertaining, you know one week we play Juve away the other PSG at home, but then you'd have to change the domestic setting. You can't have to major leagues competing like that - unless all of the big clubs had two teams like.

Maybe I am not seeing the bigger picture here and maybe it's inevitably the way we're heading whether I like or not, but I guess for me, the international tournaments like the Euros and World cups as well as the domestic ones, are certainly looking the more appealing compared to this constantly tweaked ChL format with one overall purpose in mind, Barcelona vs Real week-in, week-out.
 
Chris bascombe (I know) wrote an article on this recently, showing how much the gap had widened between a select few sides & the rest even in Europe, which raised some similar points.

Long term we're almost certainly looking at some kind of European superleague imo, with all the logistical headaches ignored in favour of wheelbarrows full of cash.
 
Yeah, you're not gonna get Red Star Belgrade or Steaua Bucharest winning anything any time soon. But how could that possibly be helped? They'd just get smashed off the park by one of the usual suspects as soon as they met them. Should it be on the bigger FAs to spread a bit more money around smaller UEFA countries? At least enough to develop better academies in the smaller league?
 
Woland said:
Yeah, you're not gonna get Red Star Belgrade or Steaua Bucharest winning anything any time soon. But how could that possibly be helped? They'd just get smashed off the park by one of the usual suspects as soon as they met them. Should it be on the bigger FAs to spread a bit more money around smaller UEFA countries? At least enough to develop better academies in the smaller league?
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Well yeah, the solution to the problem is the same on national & European level, spread the wealth & do it in a fair distribution so the smaller sides get bolstered every season to gradually, if not level the playing field, make it possible for the smaller clubs to cause upsets more often & benefit from some portion of the other clubs financial successes.
 
Woland said:
Yeah, you're not gonna get Red Star Belgrade or Steaua Bucharest winning anything any time soon. But how could that possibly be helped? They'd just get smashed off the park by one of the usual suspects as soon as they met them. Should it be on the bigger FAs to spread a bit more money around smaller UEFA countries? At least enough to develop better academies in the smaller league?
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I don't have the formula and the gulf in wealth between clubs and countries are just ever-expanding making it even more difficult, but I do like your line of thinking there.

And I think it's pivotal that the major clubs/UEFA start to acknowledge that they could end up ruining their own brand by over-exposure and that they'd actually thrive from playing the Steaua's and Basel's more frequently than they face each other.

Internationally we could've gone down this route as well, cutting down the numbers and increasing the amount of blockbusters so instead of 32 teams only invite ten (Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina, England, Spain, France and such) and then let them play each other twice during the tournament. They haven't and I think that's a wise choice.

I know money is not an issue (almost) here as you can't just buy a team, but maybe that's the lesson to be learned, that we have to look in to the economical fair play side of things, and perhaps introduce salary caps etc. Could easily be an European cap too.
 
FoxForceFive said:
Well yeah, the solution to the problem is the same on national & European level, spread the wealth & do it in a fair distribution so the smaller sides get bolstered every season to gradually, if not level the playing field, make it possible for the smaller clubs to cause upsets more often & benefit from some portion of the other clubs financial successes.
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I am not sure if this is a viable example, as Norwegian football never was stinking rich as i.e. PL and La Liga. So the total turnover is small.

However throughout the nintees Rosenborg started to qualify for CL every year. And as a sole Scandinavian team in CL they also took the Whole media pot for Scandinavia. This lead to them being a superpower a la Barca or Bayern, to a lesser scale of course. They had unlimited funds compared to the rest. They sold shit players (players who worked well in their system and hence looked good but flopped outside the system) for huge Money, and could raid other teams for their best players and so they Distributed quite a bit of cash in Norway as well. Kvarme and the former Nottingham Captain Hjelde being two examples.

With this wealth they of course kept on winning the League in Norway year by year, and also improved in Europe to the extent that Real Madrid, Juve, Dortmund and Milan among others travelled to Norway and expected to get beat (and also got beat).

But what happened around them was that other Norwegian sides started to improve. Several teams improved so much that they started to qualify for Europe themselves. Brann met Liverpool after beating PSV Eindhoven along the way and gradually the stadiums started to fill up, teams earned Money and Television started to pay big money to broadcast the Norwegian League. There were more and more games on, evening summaries, New and improved stadiums and rich investors.

The Clubs however didn't cope with the increased Income. They threw away the money on silly wages, stadiums they couldn't afford and other idiotic Investments casting no return. After some years it was just too much footie on the telly, and people got fed so much football wherever they turned around that they got tired I Guess. The games wasn't sepctacular enough maybe. I don't know. A football Club like Rosenborg had a 70 people administration with people working within sales, media, merchandise, sponsoring etc etc. It was not sutainable when the interest dropped. Rosenborg golden generation faded away and the New team was not good enough. Others tried to win that throne but htey were neither good enough and needed investors to pay their deficits year by year. Clubs were thrown out of their stadiums, or they had to sell it to the city council so they could get rid of debt.

I forgot where I am going with all this shit, but I think I meant to say that not spreading the wealth (I am all for spreading the TV money etc) equally might be to the best of the League, as the top teams will raise the bar for the other teams. The weaker teams will have to stretch themselves, keep on being innovative, be smarter, to win, and there is always a hope and dream that you can do it. And by having something to stretch for you will be better yourself. I mean, I do believe that the other Norwegian teams were better than ever in the period Rosenborg was at their best, however they never won the League as Rosenborg were just too good. So if you ask a fan of another team today if he wants Rosenborg to be that good again they will say "Hell No" even if the cosnequence were that their own team were better than ever. And another interesting find is that wealth and money is not neccesarily used well by clubs.
 
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