We all know the champions league is a much tougher competition to win since the implementation of group stages in 1991-92. In the format of the old EC the champions of Spain, England, Italy were given essentially a bye to the quarters/semifinals, and therefore those winners were omitted for the purpose of this exercise. Champions league winners (since group stage implementation in 1991-92) Real Madrid 3 Barcelona 3 Milan 3 Manchester United 2 Liverpool 1 Juventus 1 Internazionale 1 Bayern Munich 1 Dortmund 1 Ajax 1 Marseille 1 Porto 1
What's even more telling, Barcelona and Manchester United have made it to the final 3 times in the last 5 years!
I also think it's important to note how the English League was affected by the European competition ban in the early late 80s. UEFA Country Ranking for England 1991 - 21st 1992 - 13th 1993 - 9th 1994 - 8th 1995 - 5th 1996 - 7th 1997 - 7th 1998 - 6th 1999 - 6th 2000 - 5th 2001 - 3rd Remember that the ranking is a moving average of the last 5 years. So the MA process means that the ban has an effect greater than 5 years. It takes a long time to regain all the spots that a top 4 league would normally get. Source: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method1/crank1982.html So in 1982 England had the second best league. Then move forward through time. The ban was 1985-1990.
Which meant only 1 English team in the competition until about 1997. Though I'm not sure that really matters in terms of championships by team or by country. If Man United couldn't win the CL from 1992-1997, I doubt the England #2 would've fared much better.
Just saying: Liverpool won it in 2005 after finishing 4th in the 2003/04 EPL to qualify. (They finished 5th in the EPL that year they won the CL. I remember an odd controversy involving rivals Everton who finished ahead of them in 4th where it was unclear whether Liverpool should qualify for the 2005/06 CL instead of or in addition to the 4 other EPL teams who finished ahead of them.)
Unless I'm missing something here, this Barca team is the only team in history (or since the 50s) that has been the undisputed best football team for 3 consecutive years 2008-2011.
Barcelona 4 Real Madrid 3 Milan 3 Manchester United 2 Liverpool 1 Juventus 1 Internazionale 1 Bayern Munich 1 Dortmund 1 Ajax 1 Marseille 1 Porto 1
I was discussing this with someone. In an objective manner, we wanted to determine the clubs that were the undisputed best football teams for at least 3 consecutive years. These are the rules we came up with: 1. must have won their league for at least 3 consecutive years. You can't be considered the best in Europe if you can't even win your own league! Needless to say, this is THE MOST important rule. 2. must have won the Champions League at least twice during the same 3-year period. 3. must have reached at least the semifinals of the CL, if you didn't win it that year. The Champions League is a cup competition, a crapshoot if you will, the winner isn't always the best team. Hence the leniency here. As far as I can tell Barcelona is the only team in the history of football to ever have accomplished this!
Sure you can. There's actually a competition for it called the European Cup/Champions League. If you win that you're officially the best team in Europe. So, yeah... BTW. I love how all your points so perfectly fit Barcelona's situation.
What about Bayern Munchen in the 1970s? Now, they do not have the three domestic titles and three CC titles in the same seasons: Bundesliga 1972-1974, Champions Cup 1974-1976. They do have an excuse - they shared the league with Borussia Moenchengladbach, who were CC runner-up in 1977 and 4-time Bundesliga winners in the 1970s What Bayern had that impresses me is they did have 7 (SEVEN) 1974 World Champions on their roster: Uli Hoeness, Gerd Muller, Sepp Maier, Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck, Franz Beckenbauer, Jupp Kapellmann, Paul Breitner
With David Villa having joined before the World Cup kicked off, Barcelona had 8 (EIGHT) 2010 World Champions on their roster: Sergio Busquets, Víctor Valdés, David Villa, Gerard Piqué, Carles Puyol, Pedro Rodríguez, Andrés Iniesta, Xavi Hernández... ... 7 (SEVEN) of which started in the final against Holland (only Valdés missed out).
It is very impressive, with one little caveat: in 1974 WC allowed only 22-man rosters. In 2010, 23-man rosters were used (I do not know if that is enough of a difference). But, yes, Barcelona's roster looks VERY impressive.
Makes no difference. Piqué, Puyol, Busquets, Xavi and Villa played in all seven matches. Iniesta only missed one while Pedro sat out two. Valdés didn't play in any games but he was one of three goalkeepers, and three goalkeepers was also the norm in '74 squads. Raúl Albiol was the only player that didn't play in any games in South Africa so we can ignore him and call it a 22-man squad.
Sorry, but i beg to disagree. That is a myth. The old EC wasn't that easy. Besides, only the national champions were there. Here's the list of some quarter-finalists in the 37 years of the old format: * Real Madrid - 19x * Bayern - 12x * Ajax - 9x * Anderlecht - 8x * Milan - 8x * Liverpool - 8x * Juventus - 7x * Barcelona - 5x * Manchester Utd. - 5x * Arsenal - 1x And here's another list of the same quarter-finalists in the 19 editions of the current format: * Manchester Utd. - 12x * Barcelona - 10x * Bayern - 10x * Real Madrid - 9x * Milan - 8x * Juventus - 7x * Arsenal - 6x * Liverpool - 5x * Ajax - 4x * Anderlecht - 1x If my data is correct (i hope), in the old format you have Real Madrid with 51,3%, Bayern 32%, Ajax 24% and Milan, Liverpool, Anderlecht with 21%, counting all-time presences in the quarter-finals. Nowadays you have Manchester Utd with 63%, Barcelona and Bayern 52%, Real Madrid 47% and Milan 42%. There's an obvious difference, there are more clubs above 40% nowadays. Off that list, only Real Madrid, Ajax and Anderlecht are quite far of the old numbers. All the others are closing by, equalled or (already) surpassed their own record. So, in my opinion, having group stages doesn't necessary means the present CL is a "tougher competition". More games with second placed teams don't define a more difficult competition. The present format has already 12 different winners in 19 editions (only 2 out of the big-five leagues) where in the old format you had 21 winners, but with champions of Belgium, Scotland, Romania (great teams, always). The difference today is about money. It is far more difficult to have great teams across Europe every season, because 5 leagues are paying much more money than all the other European leagues together. The best players are converged there.
That's at least partly (if not fully) due to the time-span being shorter. As time passes, it becomes more and more difficult for the teams on the top of those lists to maintain their high percentages. Just ask Juventus and Milan who would've been at about 50% if you made the same ranking 4-5 years ago.
Those clubs would always made quarter-finals if it wasn't for the scandal. Juventus did not recover yet, Milan did. How can you said that, if i just proved the main clubs of the 5 big-leagues are surpassing or equalling now their own all-time perfomance in the previous format? It has nothing to do with number of editions being different, the problem is that the CL is protecting the big 5 leagues rather that being about the champions themselves. Manchester United and Barcelona had already two times more presences now in the quarter-finals than in the previous format. How do you explain that? Besides, there are always unseeded teams in the group stages. The big-5 leagues have the money, so they have the players. Simple as that. The ideia of the previous format being easy is a myth.
Milan indeed have done well for themselves which is y they have reached to the top of their group now, cant say the same for when they face barcelona but thats a different story
Well if you see the past records of players you will find that their performance earlier was high as compared to what it is now, i'm not saying that they are playing bad.
i somewhat agree CL protecting the big 5 leagues but in the older format it was never that way small leagues had the chance too