How many CLs will be won by a club outside of England/Spain/Italy in the next 15 years?

Both her and my point is that the superclubs are more super now than 5 years ago. Do you really deny that?? Pick the top 8 teams from the last 16 of the 2004 CL and compare with the top 8 from this year's last 16. Huge difference!! The top 8 today are much deeper and better, making it nearly impossible for an outsider to win unless they get a very very lucky draw.

For further illustration, notice that neither Porto or Monaco needed a lucky draw to reach the final in 2004. You could argue that meeting each other was lucky, but they also did get through some superclubs before that.

 

So Barça, ManU, Chelsea, Liverpool and Inter aren't stronger now than 5 years ago??? Come on... Even Real Madrid is better now than 5 years ago.

Only Bayern, Milan and Juve are worse.

 

I know I shouldn't debate this with an RM fan but I would hold for at least 3/4rds of the 2003-2004 season Real Madrid were better than they were this season, at least played better football. Arsenal are worse than they were five years ago when they went unbeaten. I conceed the other five but Chelsea were not a superclub five years ago. And that makes it about even really: my point being Barca, Man Utd and Chelsea NOW are not better or at least greatly better than Milan, Juve and Real Madrid were THEN. Of course even with the superclubs there are things called form and bad patches, these things will tend to rotate, perhaps Real Madrid will be better than Barca in three years time. However there is no reason to hold that Chelsea, Barca and Man U are more invincible except to other superclubs than all those big teams five years ago.

I'm not saying another Porto 2004 will happen, just that it could.

 

Concerning Real Madrid this year. Let's make something clear. We have had the worst season concerning injuries ever. We lost from the very beginning to Van Nistelrooy, Diarra and De la Red for the whole season. Apart from them, we have had injured most of the season to Sneijder, Pepe and Robben. Most players have had repetitive injuries. I mean, 6 very important players and a real biblical plague the whole season. It really is important, it wasn't any small thing.

Despite of this, we have been very close to beat Barça again and win the title. The best Barça ever, the super dream team could have been beaten for a really poor and injured Real Madrid again. Had we beaten them at home the 2-6 day we would have been champions. Real Madrid is very hard to knock out despite all the misfortunes and crook presidents. We fight like no one else.

 

Yet you were comprehensively beaten every time you played a club of a similiar stature... Liverpool, Juventus, Barcelona...

 

Disagree. Those 2009 squads are significantly stronger and deeper than those 2004 ones you list. Madrid finished 4th in La Liga that season! The fact that a non-super club could win La Liga regularily 5 years ago also points to the vast difference in these 5 years.

You weren't that close, mate. Barca had 3 competitions to focus on so yeah, they dropped some points in the league mid-season due to fatigue and the need to rest key players. That made the race look closer than it was. But looking at the season as a whole, they were far superior to Madrid from start to finish and head-to-head.

 

Denying that Real Madrid is crap for its budget is absurd. Also pathetic in many ways for many years. I take every (respectful) criticism. We are the first unhappy ones. Still it is good news that the richest don't always win. Barça has been marvelous this year and some past years, no question about that, but they are a political institution, not a sports club. They are a shame for sports. Ajax 95' was great too, for instance.

 

Trust me, dude, we were very close and they were scared to death. I have Barça friends. They fear and respect us more than what you may think.

 

Yes. But that was only until they collapsed at the end.

I'll also add that Benitez's Valencia were certainly considered a top-club at the time; I mean they made two CL finals ffs under Cuper. The SuperDepor of that era were much stronger than any present Spanish side not called Barca or RM; finished in the top three five seasons running and made the CL QFs 3 times in 4 years. Villareal, Valencia, Atletico, etc have not close to that since.

IMO generally there has been a detoiration of the quality of European Football over the past five years; I certainly don't see how Man Utd 2008 were better than Real Madrid 2002 or even Bayern Munich 2001.

 

Why do you think so? There is always some that are up and others down, but I don't see that the overall quality is worse. In fact I celebrate the decline of the Italian teams because indeed they played ugly and boring football. I enjoy most ChL games in general now a days. ManU plays quite nice to see. Arsenal too. And Barcelona is amazing and has pushed Real Madrid to sign a coach and surely players which can offer beautiful offensive football too.

Depor and Valencia have sunk financially. Valencia will have to sell its stars this summer and probably will sink even more. But English teams have risen a lot instead. It is balanced. And Depor and Valencia didn't play very beautiful either.

 

depor played great football imo, i used to love watching them 1999-2004ish

 

While I don't deny that Barca, Man Utd and (when they want to) Chelsea play very good football but imo the amount of actually competitive teams has gone down drasticallly - Depor and Valencia being two prime examples. Perhaps I'm just bored, I'm just not really looking forward to the CL - having only six semi finalists in the past 3 years tends to that; especially when 4* of them come from the same country - from a league I despise greatly. Also the group stages have increasingly become exercises in killing the lessers, while it always like that to an extent look at the tables from the 99-00 and see that was quite different; AC Milan finished bottom of their group. Personally I'm looking forward more to the World Cup than CL 09/10.

I agree though the demise of the Italian teams in the good - but in saying that in the CL they (other than AC Milan) never made the impact they did in the 90s, except of course for one particular year.

* (As an example of how uncompetitive its becoming: Last 5 years: 8 different semi-finalists: Liverpool (3x), Man Utd (3x), Chelsea (4x), Arsenal (2x), Barcelona (3x), AC Milan (3x), Villareal and PSV once. Previous 5 years: 14 different semi-finalists: Real Madrid (3x), Bayern Munchen (2x), Valencia (2x), Barcelona (2x), Manchester United, Bayer Leverkusen, Leeds United, AS Monaco, FC Porto, RC Deportivo, Chelsea, Juventus, AC Milan, Internazionale all once. And people were complaining them - I'm sure Johann was - about how boring it was becoming.)

 

Wait, are you by any chance Irish and don't have much sympathy for the brits?

You data presented are interesting but all it says is that it has become a less open competition, more restricted to the richest clubs, but it doesn't mean that the quality is worse.

In any case, I believe it is a no-return way unless they intentionally do something about it, as Platini is trying to by forcing to use national players to every team, which might return things to past times with more equality.

 

The Quality of the best teams is just as good as before... but there are less of those type of teams. I'm sorry if I didn't make it clearer, that was my original point/opinion.

Otherwise, agree. Though I would prefer a 25 man squad limit from the start of the season (with a few changes possible during the January window).

 

Oh btw I have no problem with England. Actually that comment would shock anyone who knew me personally. I dislike the EPL mostly as I'm exposed to it alot and can't stand any of the big four Irish 'fans' (though Liverpool and Arsenal are less unbearable than the other two).

 

I guess this was said before in this thread, sorry if so, but I believe it would be good if something was done to stop this superiority of a restricted minority.

Since Bosman ruling and the EU enlargement which open the doors to signing every good player from all over Europe, and the internet and television booms which brought immense audiences and money to European soccer worldwide focusing on the teams and leagues with more audiences (Spain, England and Italy), the budget difference has become inmense.

Competing with the big fish, which on top of it have millionaire owners who risk their own capital (such as Forentino Pérez admitted to do with Figo for instance), has become impossible. And at the end it indeed will be boring and bring a loss of interest for many people and countries, mostly European. Asians, Africans or Americans don't have their local team losing every year, they mostly follow a big European one. I was amazed to see how this last final was lived worldwide. In Africa people feel the colors of European teams as passionately as we do. This incident where a ManU fan killed some Barça fans intentionally after losing the final shocked me.

It can be not only refreshing but necessary to see more countries and smaller teams with options to win and reaching finals. I believe that something will be done, such as the Platini's idea to force to play with 5 national players. If it was 8 still the big ones would surely win, but we would definetely would see more variety.

 

I don't understand your argument anymore. I'm saying the gap between the superclubs and second-tier clubs have widened. The fact that you point-out Valencia's and Depor's success 5+ years ago strengthens my argument. And there are more examples to add from the big 3 leagues like Leeds, Parma and Lazio.

Nevertheless its a bit silly to start a sentence with "If we won that game that we ended up losing by 4 goals then...". Nevermind the fact that Madrid would still be in second place even had they won against Barca with a tougher schedule to play. Barca would probably still be champions.

The statement isn't alot better than saying "If we had won in Anfield instead of losing by 4 goals, we'd be European champions right now."

 

Why is it silly? Were you following our league and watching all matches of Real Madrid and Barcelona? Because we had won around 16 games in a row, had reduced the difference from 12 points to only 4, every journalist, even the most reputated ones said that Real Madrid could perfectly win, Barcelona had been playing bad those previous weeks and they were on the verge of a crisis, journalists and people were saying they were entering a crisis and might lose everything, they were playing the three competitions and more tired than us, absolutely everyone in Spain thought we could win the league, and when we started scoring first the 1-0 we all thought it was done. Everyone. We were playing better than them until they scored two lucky goals in a row and we kept trying to attack and win as we always do, and it was easier for them with our open defense. We were only one point behind and we were winning every game easily. You are talking too much. The Liverpool games have nothing to do with it, don't say stupid things all the time to try to hurt.

You surely have no idea of how many matches and points has Barcelona won in the past years thanks to the referees and the basque-catalan mafia they are in the Spanish Federation. Just think of the Chelsea scandalous robbery and you'll get close to it. Be careful when you defend Barcelona and attack Real Madrid because you can be very wrong.

 

Just like you could get hit by a meteor today.

 

Oh Please. People said the same thing in 2003 as well.

 

I am willing to bet my house and my entire life's savings on there not being a single club outside the top four biggest leagues in next year's CL semis.

 

lol @ your bias. "We were winning every game easily" get serious, you were very lucky many times (Getafe and Atl. Madrid to name a couple). It was Barca that was winning every game easily as evidenced by their +70 goal differential despite fielding reserve sides for their final 3 games and playing in 3 competitions all season.

But yes, if it weren't got those six "lucky" goals Barca got at the Bernabeu I admit that things would have got very interesting.

 

I am no EPL-fan. But, to me this CL dominance by the about 8 super clubs is less about money and more about economics, tradition, infrastructure, etc.

There is absolutely no doubt that an owner of, say, Shakhtar Donetsk, one of the richest men in Eastern Europe, Akhmetov, can splurge $300M on acquisitions, just as Roman can for Chelski. But it is not enough. Consider this, should the next pele ever entertain a question of whether to join Chelsea or Shakhtar, with everything else being equal, which one would he choose? Any guesses?

Shakhtar is rich and have as good an infrastructure as Chelsea. But they have neither the traditions nor economy of Chelsea. Oh, and Shakhtar Donetsk is not a sexy choice as well. What do you do when you're stuck in Donetsk on a lonely February night?

So, as a result, with similar capabilities, Shakhtar will only get second-rate players and Chelsea - the cream of the crop.

 

I doubt the foreign players actually live in the Ukraine during the off-season. But point taken...

 

It helps to have that status in football. That said, let's not forget where Chelsea themselves were before the big money stepped in. Feyenoord has more tradition, history and culture than they do. As do Ajax. I'm pretty convinced that if these Dutch clubs were to get their own Abramovic, and unlike Citeh would get in management with half a brain, they'd be competing for CL honours in no time. I guess that for Shakhtar it's somewhat different because their domestic league has less status and history even that the Dutch mickey mouse league. The Premiership gets televised globally, which immediately puts every club in said league in a privileged position. Overall I'm convinced that footballers would pick Shaktar over Chelsea if the former regularly qualified for the CL and paid them significantly more by the way. The vast majority of footballers think only about their bank account, not about the weather or the number of trendy bars around.