ASAIR, people were complaining about the # of games involved with using that old CL format. I don't hear many complaints about the length of the CL when there is only 1 group stage. But I could be wrong. In any event, its not relevant. Having a group-stage with 32 clubs is great when you have 7-8 leagues in Europe that have at least one contender that could win it all. That was the case 5, 10 or 20 years ago, but not anymore obviously. I don't see any resemblance between that group "D" and any of the imaginary groups I listed. Please explain how those highly unpredictable and deep groups I listed compares to a group that was effectively decided after Matchday 1 if not after the draw was made?
You're right. It all comes down to money. That's the only argument that could be made for the current format. [FWIW, in my proposal the smaller teams wouldn't be kicked out of Europe after 2 matches. They'd go to the UEFA Cup]
Oh dear. I see that the genius of Viola Star escapes the common herd yet again. Sigh, I shall not fret, for brilliant minds must overcome adversity on the way to immortality in the pages of history. cthomer5000, you wax lyrical about 'a level playing field', yet fail to grasp that a 'level playing field' is an anachronism; a concept so ancient and out-of-date in modern day football that Milan are looking to buy it in the January transfer window. LOL. So, how was the trip to Mars? Allow me to be David. Here's my slingshot: UEFA already use coefficients to give England, Spain and Italy an unfair advantage and my construction lessens that advantage a great deal. UEFA already use league placings to give Spain, Italy and England an unfair advantage and my idea lessens that advantage a great deal. You do realize that the second placed team in Italy don't have to go through qualifying rounds yet the champions of Belgium do? You do understand that by the very virtue of being IN the competition the fourth-placed Serie A side has already 'totally disregarded the fairness of the sport'? What I have done with my marvellous mental synthesis (surely the finest creation since the Sydney Opera House) is return the Champions League to the champions. The higher you finish in your domestic league, the more home games you get. Simple. Yes. Luck of the draw. Of course it's the bloody point. We're not 'finding those teams'; we know who they are already. To summarise and illustrate further the depth of my bold, brave ingenuity and cement my legacy as a dauntless pioneer, here are the points of improvement: 1.Champions are given priority. 2.One-off knock-out ties means more attacking and excitement. 3.Tiny clubs can look forward to glamour ties against Europe's elite in R2. 4. My competition would be unpredictable. Shocks and upsets are inevitable. 6.The group stage offers more excitement as those matches are virtual knock-out ties also. 7.The draw for rich, big, avaricious, corporate-whore clubs is made considerably more difficult. P.S. No one has exposed any flaws in my design nor made any convincing argument as to why it would not be a vast improvement on the current model. And you never will. Because I'm the king.
Boca, you have to explain how you got to those 16 teams in the first place. Explain more about your methods. Otherwise, you're just cheating.
The round of 32 would be straight-knockout to produce 16 teams. In the example, I just took this year's 16 remaining CL clubs for simplicity. And no clubs from the same country can be drawn in the same group. Other than that, it's random. This proposal is vastly different from yours so I know you’re not going to like it. It’s not meant to level the playing field or to give champions of second and third-tier leagues a better chance to go deep in the competition. In fact, its more brutal on those teams than the current set-up. It's meant merely to increase the proportion of competitive matches.
While I realise full well that the interests of match going fans are completely irrelevant these days, let me assure you that I personally get much more pleasure out of the UEFA cup than out of the CL. I as a small club fan don't want the CL group stage.
Why are UEFA and Platini not doing anything to change this situation ? They are just sitting on their hands and are being weak and cowardly.
People were whingeing about it before for the fact that it was predictable. Before that people were whingeing that they wanted to see less of the minnows and more of the big teams. People moan no matter what. There are only 10 leagues that have ever won the EC/CL (another 3 providing runners up). So the idea that 5 years ago (or in fact any time in history) there were 7/8 leagues who had a genuine chance of winning the CL is ludicrous. These golden days never existed. That was the group that was almost universally deemed to be the most evenly balanced of all the groups. It was also the one in which the "weakest" team, Atletico who were ranked 27th in the seedings, qualified and the 10th strongest (PSV) finished bottom. So how was that group so predictable then?
PSV didn't manage to get out of the group stage last season either and this season are rubbish even in the Dutch league. You did not seriously think PSV was ever going to be a contender in the CL ahead of this season did you. Those days are over as the financial gap continues to widen. PSV haven't increased their budget in years and as a direct result have fallen behind. You could create a serious CL contending team out of the players they lost over the past five years mind.
Like i said before, Dutch teams don't do well because they can't play high quality football like the other countries, countries like Scotland and Portugal don't have much money but they do ok, the Dutch teams are just not good enough to compete, simple as.
No, but last season they went reasonably deep into the UEFA Cup and were respectable in the CL. I expected them to be potential qualifiers from that evenly balanced group.
But, it seems you have toitally missed the fact that ANY TEAM NO MATTER WHAT LEVEL THEY START AT HAVE THE SAME NUMBER OF HOME GAMES AS THEY DO ROAD GAMES. That way, if they lose it is not because they had artificially been discriminated against but because they're not good enough. Your slingshot had missed and put your mother's eye out instead.
lol really? Anyway... what matters is that an evenly matched game, group or competition will more often than not be more entertaining than an uneven one. Sometimes when two English mid-table teams meet you get a 4-nil result, but that's the exception to the rule. How can you say that when a Portuguese club played a tiny French club in the CL final 5 years ago? If you think that could happen today, you're kidding yourself...
Just like every other club that's not rich in the CL scheme of things PSV have been consistently bled dry over the past couple of years, losing key players every single year. How some people can think this has no effect on these clubs is beyond me. The irony being that the players PSV once built on now largely waste away on rich clubs benches. Another sad fact about the modern football that people like you seem so fond of.
I think the format is ok but definitely needs improving. My main gripe is that the top 3 leagues send way too many teams into the tournament. IMO England, Italy and Spain getting 4 teams each in the CL is wrong. 16 teams out of 32 for 50% sure these leagues are strong but 4 teams? 50% of a supposedly european wide tournament? thats ridiculous. sometimes you end up with 3 english teams in the last 4 (last two seasons) or 3 from italy (2002-2003) or Spain (i.e. 1999-2000) its just plain boring its not exciting imo seeing teams from the same country play each other so often in a European tournament like we have seen alot of recently. back in the 1950s when Real Madrid took on Atletico madrid and Barcelona in epic ECC semi finals it was more exciting because only 2 teams came from spain (league winners/runner up and the CL winner which was real madrid in those times) everyone else had 1 team so when these spanish classicos happened in the CL it was absolutely epic. now its getting quite redundant every year it seems we get a Arsenal v Liverpool , or Inter vs Milan, etc this isnt the EPL this is the Uefa champions league i.e. European cup. However, I recognize that the dominance of these 3 leagues cant be overlooked. most casual football fans generally support one of the european giants from spain italy or england and are interested in seeing more of Arsenal vs Liverpool and Juventus vs Barceloan then more games like Sparta Praha vs Dynamo Kiev. I think there should be 2 teams from the top 3 leagues in uefa coefficients, and then the rest get 1 team... something liek that either way reduce the amoutn of England/spain/italy its making the CL way too predictable.
group stage is boring, im glad Sporting is finally in the knockout rounds but I dont expect it to last very long
The problem is that your system would only compound the issues around competition that we have now. Without the group stage where it is small clubs would have even less cash to keep hold of their best players, and the big teams who could qualify for the new group stage would just get even richer. There's been no big change in the last 5 years. Last season the FA Cup had 3 non-Premiership teams in the semis and was won by Portsmouth, people would have said before hand that it never could have happened before. The problem was that while an occasional shock is interesting most people don't want to watch Barnsely v. Cardiff City in a semi-final.
Apples and oranges. The big 4 don't care about the FA Cup anywhere near as much as they care about the Champions League. Add to that the two entirely different formats of the two competitions. Even after winning their group, Porto are 80/1 to win the CL.
They would if Barnsley v Cardiff was more entertaining than the billionth Real v Juve match. And that's not even considering Barnsley and Cardiff fans but we all know people like that are irrelevant in modern football.
People don't like watching bad football, its why nobody outside of Holland likes your football, the quality is low as shown in the champions league.
Yet the big 4 have utterly dominated the FA Cup in the last 10 years. Upsets can still happen, but even in the old school European Cup there were almost no big shock winners. Porto are at those odds because they have basically no top level players. The Porto that won the CL had already won the UEFA Cup. So you're saying it's not more interesting then, because not that many people did watch it? For TV purposes it is natural that more people want to watch Real v. Juve than do Barnsley v. Cardiff.
Dutch people prefer their domestic league to the CL as viewing figures prove. Your opinion is completely irrelevant to them Zippy.
People generally want to see an entertaining game of football. I'm pretty confident that the majority would prefer a 4-4 game with extra time and a penalty shoot-out at Barnsley v Cardiff than a tedious 0-0 at Real v Juve.
But you don't know that before the game starts do you. And clearly lower league football is not automatically more interesting or exciting. Otherwise the rights to the Conference would be worth more than those of the Premiership.