http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=414521&cc=5901 platini is speaking up for the little guys. however, if you look at who makes it thru the group stages it's usually the big clubs. 3 english sides in the final 8 is evidence enough.
Platini proves how much of a moron he is, time and time again. Bottom line, winning third or fourth place in the Premiership, Serie A, Bundesliga or La Liga Primera is a tougher task than winning the championship in the top leagues of Macedonia, Romania or the Czech Republic. The UEFA coefficients generally work. The Champions League is far from flawless, but Platini doesn't have a good answer. His solution would mean that the big clubs beat the smaller clubs later in the competition, rather than earlier. What does that move forward?
If Platini intends to do this, then he needs to reduce the number of seeds or do away with seeds all together, which would be compounding the stupidity (not unexpected). Otherwise forcibly making the 4th and 3rd bids from those nations play each other is just as (moreso?) unfair as having the smaller clubs play in the qualifying rounds. The best he could achieve, IMO, would be to have everyone not automatically assigned to the group stage playing in the qualifying rounds, a la early UEFA Cup style. If a Liverpool is randomly drawn against the likes of Roma or Sevilla in those stages, so be it. Otherwise forcing the draws of big club vs big club is purely a political action with no bearing on which teams are truly worthy of the later stages.
Platini and Blatter are clowns. Instead of addressing real problems in footy, such as corruption, hooliganism, or football programs in impoverished areas; they mess with systems that run smoothly. They're headline mongers.
I don't like Platini one bit... The only thing I find wrong with the CL right now is that the third place in the group stage goes to the UEFA; I'd rather they were just out of it.
Speaking of Platini... what's he doing poking his nose in here? This has nothing to do with him. Platini rejects Wenger's claims that France is responsible for Henry's injury He's an idiot.
Well one good thing would be that when we travel to away European games we might go to a few more interesting places and not the same old Italy/Spain/Germany and boring Holland (for Johan.... ) again and again
Blimey, will you stop harping on about it, you'll be going to preseason games in Colorado soon enough
'We want to add some of the other countries to the competition and to do that we have take some of the others away. I'm not sure that the fourth clubs from Spain, Italy and England are more important than the champions of Poland, the Czech Republic and Denmark Perhaps not more important, but very likely better. Isn't that what the CL is all about? Who were the champions from Poland, Czech Rep, and Denmark again?
I agree completely with Platini. The CL has bigger fish to fry than that whole racism thing. I mean who cares if fans in spain are waiving the confederate flag at matches all this stuff will sort itself out I mean look how perfect America was after the Civil War. Plus have you guys seen FK Rabotnički in action they are an unstoppable force!!!
Since we're talking about it, here's the current breakdown: Four Teams England, Italy, Spain Three Teams France, Germany, Portugal Two Teams Netherlands, Greece, Russia, Romania, Scotland, Belgium, Ukraine, Czech Republic One Team Too many to list – but the list does include Poland, Czech Republic and Denkmark – so I don't really understand Platini when he says he's "unsure" whether the fourth clubs are more important than these countries' champions, becuase they all get in – unless he's just refering to the way they play once they're in.
Cry yourself a river. I hear Colorado is very nice and having never been there i look forward to having such a good excuse as the Arse will be playing there sometime in the near future.
platini is a fool, no more needs to be said on the matter. he even backed this point further by sticking his nose into the wenger row
1: It's the Champions League 2: Smaller clubs get a hell of a lot more money by being beaten later rather than earlier
I don't necessarily have any problem with reorganizing the way the tournament flows – the better teams will still float to the top – but subtracting teams from England, Italy, Spain, or even the 3-team nations - would be a mistake. I'm actually pretty surprised that England had the lowest coefficient for last year of Spain, Italy and England.
Not surprised when you think about it. Chelsea - 2nd round Liverpool - 2nd round Man Utd - Hahahahahahahahahahaha One thing I wish they'd do tomorrow is rename it the European Cup. The Champions League is a joke of a name in so many different ways, and it feeds into the perfectly reasonable expectations of smaller members that their league's champions should play in the...Champions League. FFS, Newcastle played in the Champions League in 1998. Newcastle hasn't won the league since my grandfather was a boy. I'm for Platini's reforms because I don't think the 4th place team in England, Spain or Italy has a right to be in the Champions League over the champions of Lithuania, Finland or Romania. I don't care if they're better, they're not champions.
I think you're missing the point here. Every country's champions "get in" to the qualifying rounds, not the Champions League proper. What Platini is advocating is getting more teams from the smaller nations into the group stages rather than having most of them knocked out in the qualifying rounds. I, for one, am in favour of these changes. The Champions League is a bloated competition set up to favour the interests of the large clubs over the smaller ones and was only set up in the first place to counter the threat of a breakaway European league. The old European Cup (straight two-legged knockout from round one, champions of each nation only) used to be more exciting and much harder to win. And after all, this is meant to be a sporting competition, it's degenerated into a ring-fenced cash cow for the haves over the have-nots.
So I'm a little unclear as to what Platini is advocating then, and maybe it's because of my semi-limited knowledge of how the CL works. How many teams right now get the free pass into the group stage, and which teams have to go through qualifying? Just trying to get a clear understanding.
im in favor of the change champions league winners getting into the comp but finishing 4th in their domestic league is hardly champions i think this will make the eufa cup better too top 3 max
For the English qualifiers, for intance, the top two go into the Champions League proper and the third and fourth placed teams play in the third qualifying round (the last qualifying round before the group stages). So you have many national champions having to negotiate three rounds of qualifying before the group stages even start and in the final qualifying round the "big" nations' third and fourth qualifiers come in (this season it was ourselves and Liverpool with Valencia and AC Milan among others coming in at this stage). So if there were less entrants from the "big" nations there would be more chance for the smaller nations/teams to make a mark in the group stages. By-products could be a fairer share of money around Europe and a possible raising of standards in other smaller leagues, less concentration of players in the "big" leagues and maybe even enhanced national team competition where home-based players (in England especially) aren't forced out by players coming to play for the Champions League teams. And while we're at it, the UEFA Cup is taking on the same bloated appearnce with its even more ridiculous group stage.
OK, well I am somewhat in agreement with you then. As I said before, I wouldn't mind a reorganization of the way Champion's League games are played – i.e. if the 3rd and 4th place English, Italian, etc. teams had to play earlier in the qualifying rounds – maybe even all the qualifying rounds, and maybe if some of the outright league "champions" from smaller countries are allowed to have byes a little deeper into the qualifying rounds (i.e. if they came in at the third round, or whatever), I don't really have a big problem with that. What I don't want to see, however, is an overall shift in how many total teams from each country are allowed in.
It is a terrible idea. The champions league is supposed to be the best teams across europe, and 4 teams from the 3 best leagues helps ensure you get the best teams playing. The 3rd and 4th place teams in italy/spain/england have to play through qualifiers, and if the champions of lithuania really deserved to play on this stage, they would battle through the qualifications as well. The problem with this is you get smaller teams having to face giants in qualifying and that leaves them out in the cold. I say you split up qualifying. Let the 3rd place big team enter qualifying where they do now, 4th place begins one round earlier, and allocate 2 spots for the champions of the small leagues - and let them play in a pool together to decide who gets those.