True. I'm just arguing against the assumption that a high quality game is necessarily more fun to watch. This is also a chicken and the egg issue. Do overseas fans like La Liga, for example, because they like the football or because it simply gets televised more than other leagues?
15 out of the 16 top seeds made it through. That's exactly what is intended, it ensures that the big clubs don't slip on a banana peel and fall off the bandwagon too early. The group stages aren't about football, they're about money.
And how often did such a match up happen in the past? There have only ever been 5 finals that didn't feature a team from either England, Spain, Italy or Germany and two of those happened while English teams were banned.
Chelsea weren't part of the big 4 ten years ago. Their FA Cup success pre-Roman actually was an upset. Plus we've only had about 2 or 3 FA Cup finals which featured two big clubs going head-to-head in the past 10 years. I'm not sure I'd call that "utter dominance" I think any season where you have 3 or 4 English teams go deep into the Champions League and you also have a close title-race in England, you will see the Big 4 struggle in the FA Cup. The FA Cup becomes a distant #3 in terms of priority under such circumstances.
Since Harding and Bates went to Chelsea they have been big spenders, it wasn't a shock when they won in 1997 or 2000. Before the big 4 there was the big 5 (Spurs and Everton instead of Chelsea). The last time (before last season) that none of these 6 teams were in the Cup final was 1975. That shows what a shock last season was.
I don't dispute last year was somewhat surpising. But still... comparisons between FA cup and Champions League need to be made with caution since the former is not a top priority for anyone. I'm not that surprised when the UEFA champions lose in the Club World Cup either for much the same reason... Right now Porto are given 80/1 odds to win the 2009 Champions League. In 2004 it wouldn't have been more than about 20/1 prior to the knockout round draw. So yes, it wasn't highly likely that such a team would win in the past. But now champions of second-tier leagues have much less chance at winning. Wait another 5 years and see those odds become even longer...
Oh OK so this isn't an issue for you then. Weird but fair enough. Having come across the club world cup format, I think it is indeed an idea that deserves to be considered for the CL too. Why not let the elite not bother with any group games whatsoever. Let the minnows battle it out for say 4 places in the last 16 and give the big 12 a bye. That way we the two different groups of fans don't have to argue about it until the last 2 months of the CL season.
It's not discrimination. My system quite clearly eradicates discrimination. Also, this thread is not for whinging about poor Dutch clubs, it's about me and my undoubted genius. Still no one has made a convincing argument against the format in the original post. Feel free to do so. P.S. I have already sent Platini a draft in the mail.
i don't know if anyone could find those odds, but i think they were much higher than 20/1 . porto were huge underdogs even back then . the pattern had been already established when 4 teams from the top leagues were introduced, after that no team outside of italy, spain, england and germany had even made the semis. porto were a huge upset back then as well.
Look at the other 15 teams that reached the knockout rounds and I think you'll agree with me. No Barca, only 3 EPL teams (and Chelsea weren't that strong yet) and only 2 Italian teams.