I agree with this. Entertainment is in the eyes of the beholders. How can you knock the super bore when 80 million folks tune in to watch 4 hours of commercials. As far as the domestic league comment: The MLS is getting there in terms of a building a base where people can earn a living year around and past playing. The difference from 10 years ago is remarkable and it will be so in another 10 years.
Sorry, I had misunderstood your intentions. Feel free to start another one in USA Men, and I won't move it this time.
It's the Champions League by a mile. - It has all the best players. Great players can miss the World Cup through injury, through playing for a poor country or even international retirement. In the Champions League, all the great players play. Some good ones will miss out, but the great ones are there. There are also less poor teams in the Champions League. There will be a few average ones from the smaller leagues, but no downright poor ones. - Most World Cup matches are dull. The World Cup is played at the end of the season, when the players are tired. Moreover, it is always played in the full heat of summer. This, coupled with being tired already, leads to slow, unenergetic, sloppy, downright poor football. For example, in 15 knock out stage games at the last World Cup, there wer only 26 goals scored. Even worse, in 2002 it was just 25. Under high pressure, defensive football is rife and it leads to a poor spectacle. - The Champions League is bloody brilliant in comparison. All of the best games I have seen (as a neutral) have been Champions League. Even in just the past few years we have seen Depor 4-0 AC Milan, Monaco 4 - 2 Madrid, Arsenal 1 - 2 Chelsea, Chelsea 4 -2 Barcelona, Liverpool 3-3 Milan, Chelsea 1 -2 Barcelona, Inter 1 - 5 Arsenal, Man United 7 - 1 Roma, Man United 3 - 2 AC Milan, Liverpool 4 - 2 Arsenal , etc. Nightime football under the floodlights, with perfectly in sync teams, with the best players and the best fans leads to the best football. - All this stuff about more passion at the world cup is rubbish. You are people who have never been to both types of matches. I went to Germany, but only saw the England vs Ecuador game. You cannot convince me that that crowd was more passionate than Newcastle vs Feynoord in the Champions Leauge in 2002. I was also at the Chelsea vs Arsenal match in 2004, which was far more passionate than any international match I have ever been too. This whole thing about more passion keeps being bundled about, with evidence only to the contrary. Simply not true in the slightest. It is compared to club football. I've read a few of the England players autobiography's, and they all say that they feel rusty with the national team because they are not familiar. There are no other sport equivilants to the Champions League then? Heiniken Cup (Rugby), Champions League handball, Euroleague Basketball, etc.
An this is just proves why the Champions League at times gets more hype than it should, and the World cup by some is under-rated...............you really think a Weak CL team can put up a battle against the 2006 T&T World Cup team(viewed as a weak team from a weak CONCACAF reigon by many before the WC started) and then who went toe-to-toe with Germany and toe-to-toe with England and almost won? How about the US...going toe-to-toe with Italy????? some People just dont get it, as the maginitude and importance of an event gets bigger so does the level of play. You think players who wait 4 years to get a shot at the World Cup are gonna play poorer football, than an event that happens every year...............
And i bet if England had "0" clubs making it into the Champions League instead of 3 or 4 year after year and England would win the World Cup more.................you would not like the Champions League and like the World Cup more.
I think T&T would have a struggle vs. Aab Aalborg. I'll still go with the WC though. I'll take the top 5 or 6 National teams or the top 5 or 6 European club teams. I'll say team like the US, Nigeria, Turkey, Paraguay would beat the UEFA Cup Champions.
Yes No. It depends on the teams participating in said event. Of course they wouldn't play poorer on purpose. You have to take other factors into account. Such as the fact that lots of players have come off a long hard season and are maybe tired. The biggest factor of course is always going to be that they just don't get a lot of games together in the National team, compared to pre season and every day training they get with their clubs. Lots of international managers have said as much.
I understand your arguments, but for me the national team is just way more important than clubs. Champions League is really nice, but it is more the daily work, while the world cup is something special to me. To be honest I like the UC most of the times more than the CL, because it's alwas the same teams playing and winning in the CL. The most exciting part for me in all european cups is the UEFA coefficient by the way.
1) So how about a first timer Australia going toe-to-toe with Italy???? 2) you relize a person over his career will probally be more comfortable and familiar with his country's NT players and then playing together in a World Cup than say if he is with a Champion League team for 1 season.
I was slightly suspicious given your name but I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt. Thanks for proving that my intial suspicions were correct. Hopefully you are capable of comprehending this post.
Austrailia played well, Italy didn't. Both would get beat by a top CL team. So a national team manager who gets to see his players around 10 times a year, can acheive more than a club manager who has them for 300 days.....yeeaah, you keep telling yourself that.
When i watched the Ghana vs Cz Republic WC game in 2006 i found that football and excitment equal to the Champions league Final last year and Ghana and Cz Republic were not even top 16 of best teams in the World Cup.
Lol...what does that prove. I dont recall Russia playing any Champions League teams on his way to the semis. You'll have to send me some links.
I've already said in my first post that I think the WC is bigger and more exciting than the CL. The main reason stressed by myself and others is firstly, it only comes around every 4 years. Secondly, fans across entire countries get involved (not just specific club supporters). That doesn't mean the teams are of a higher quality than the world's top club teams.
On Saturday, I went to see my local team play. None of the players had any talent, there was only 300 people there and it was a meaningless end of season game. It was 3-3 and was extremely entertaining.
Nobody is really arguing quality of the players or teams were talking about the quality of football on the feild for instance, Manchester United and Chelsea have 5X as much quality players as Chezh Republic and Ghana.....but as for the final product on the feild, the Ghana vs Cz republic game had equal football quality as the Champions League Final last year........and thats not even counting the Brazil vs France quaterfinal game. And as far as team quality, i also have a hard time believing a weaker CL team like Aalborg would beat a 2006 T&T team or Australia team that had players playing at much higher levels of football daily than what Aalborg usually play at.
The trouble is you dont seem to be able to grasp the fact that entertaining doesn't always mean those teams must be better. For example two mediocre teams attack each other from start to finish, It's end to end and finishes 4-3. The passing looked crisp, and there were some good moves from both sides. What you probably haven't noticed is that both midfields and defence gave each other far too much space and didn't close down well. Is it any less entertaining...no. On the other side, two top teams who have played each other many times over a season, hassle each other all over the pitch, both defences and midfields compress the play. There are moments of great skill from both teams but its sporadic. It not an entertaining game and finishes 1-1. Does that make those teams rubbish...no.
The point you made in your earlier posts, were that you felt the level of play in the world cup was a notch up from club football. Then mentioned numerous teams and matches from the 2006 WC, and how entertaining they were as evidence of quality (which simply isn't the case, explained in my previous post). You also mentioned not being terribly excited about last years CL final, and that not being a great game. Which I presume was to prove your point about lack of quality (again not the case, see last post).
I was using it in context to the World Cup(in comparison), outside the World Cup matches the Champions League Final was better and more exciting than most games you would see.
Again, the Champions League has the better teams. While countries like Brazil, Spain, and Italy stack up pretty well against any club in the world, man for man, I think any team that makes the Champions League knockout stages could wipe the floor with them. That said, every national team has the same handicap, so the World Cup is still a very competitive and entertaining tournament. Not being completely in synch doesn't hurt so much when the other team isn't either. Seeing entire nations get behind their teams makes the World Cup much more exciting, even if the quality of the teams is inferior. From the armchair manager's perspective (one that many neutrals may identify with), I think the World Cup is also more interesting in some ways. It's always fun to see how national team coaches work with their teams' strengths and weaknesses, which are always more pronounced than with any club. In club football, if you're weak at one position, you can always buy a player. National teams are stuck with the players they have, which often leads to more diverse and more creative tactical solutions, some of which will work brilliantly and others of which will fail just as spectacularly.