European format - Old or new?

Liverpool Football Club - General Discussion

Postby red37 » Sat Aug 06, 2005 12:04 pm

i wonder if any of you BEFORE this years competition considered the uefa champions league format to be unfair/wrong etc. in respect of the structure for seedings, amount or allocation of teams from certain nations was unbalanced (or even too many). or indeed if the whole mini-league within, framework WAS working?

obviously from a commercial standpoint the format IS successful in revenue/media coverage terms.and mssrs moores and parry would not argue otherwise, im sure.
and in hindsight they'd wish that had been the case 4 times previously...

but thats my point. hindsight/retrospect/nostalgia/memory lane....etc.
personally i have to admit, that, up until our investiture as EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS i too hankered for the days of knockout football in europe, where, albeit as champions of that country's league, you could within reason meet ANY body.at any stage, and therein lay the hidden magic? ok, im pretty certain there was a seeding structure back then although limited to the respective title holders of each league? the mists of time have blurred that memory for me, but there is the discussion point i wanted to pursue.....
i.e was it REALLY all good back then, was it, EASIER to win back then (less games etc) or did it MEAN as much back then? forget financially, im talking about things like.. prowess as a fan, walking into work with a manic grin....opening the front door at nigh on midnight after the game and screechin' out all manner of liverpool related expletives! with shirt removed/belly out/ doin a mad kind of giraffe dance up the street....goin shopping still weeks later with a manic grin....swelling with pride at every recollection of it kind of thing....

question is, is it BIGGER to win now......................YES
thats obvious.
but.. compare hindsight with foresight for a moment..already to look back 10 weeks i still cant get me head round HOW it happened, i just know im proud that it did. but....it felt like that 20-30 years ago didnt it?  and when i look forward i STILL cant see how/when/if well do it again.. i just THINK we will.
not many times in my life have i had CAUSE to be pessimistic with liverpool f.c (90's aside) and im not being now, but how many of you, with regard to how the compo is set-up REALLY believe we can win it again? (bearing in mind squad size, competitions played in, uefa/fifa red tape etc)

good old days or bright horizons?
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Postby JC_81 » Sat Aug 06, 2005 12:21 pm

Good post

Personally I think the new format is better, and I'm not just saying that because we're the champions.  Nowadays with the top 3-4 teams from the best leagues gaining entry, the competition is harder to win and IMO makes our achievement last season even better.

Fair enough you can lose the odd group game as we did and still be called European champions, but for me, the group stage sorts out the weaker teams as you have to prove yourself over 6 games and I think this is better than straight knock-out from the start.  You can't have a bad team coming through 6 group games and going all the way in the knock-out, so the group stage leaves less down to chance IMO.

I think part of the magic of the old eurpean cup wasn't to do with the format, but to do with the fact that we had less knowledge of our opponents (making it exciting) and the fact that English teams were predominantly made up of British players and the opposing teams were predominantly made up of players of that nationality (almost like international games, where national pride etc comes into it).

Nowadays football is a global game, we know our opponents and they know us due to satellite tv etc.  We have as many Spanish in our starting 11 as some of the spanish teams.  It's just the way it is now, football has changed a lot over the last 20 years.
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Postby red37 » Sat Aug 06, 2005 12:26 pm

ill have that john.
i think youve filled in nice the bits i was TRYING to get across.

looking at it again i think i DO prefer the new format..but my reason is it gives us a bigger kudos than it did all them years back..but back then hardly any bugger could get near us anyway, just imagine us like that in the current format! phew..
dreams are free...... :;):

p.s i think it was the right word "exciting" back then.....
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Postby JC_81 » Sat Aug 06, 2005 12:41 pm

Yeah I think the new format makes it almost impossible for teams to dominate the way Liverpool did back then, I doubt we'll see that again.

You're right though, we can dream...
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Postby andy_g » Sat Aug 06, 2005 1:16 pm

from the perspective of the fans i think the CL format as it is now is fantastic. we get to see our team in europe on a regular basis throughout the season, as well as seeing many great games as a neutral.

the argument that its tougher on teams because of the quanity of games doesn't hold up completely as squads are generally bigger now than in the old european cup games. a manager also knows that if his team have the game sewn up he can take off and rest 3 major players because you're not just limited to one substitution.

however the fact of bigger squad sizes also points to a problem introduced by the new format - and that is the shear amount of money involved. the old adage that success breeds success has been twisted slightly into success BUYS success. apart from the odd freak (chelsea) the teams who've regularly done well in europe are the ones forming a european elite. the more games they play and win the more money they get from prizes and TV revenue. the connection between the formation of the modern champions league and the emergence of 'superpower' clubs is a strong one. in a lot of ways its the CL that is twisting the game beyond recognition on some levels.

but this is football, and this is progress i suppose. the old romantic inside me doesn't win the argument that the old days were better - the modern champions league is an exciting and very hard to win competition.
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Postby red37 » Sat Aug 06, 2005 1:40 pm

theres another point.. ONE substitute!  imagine now!!
was it really easier to win back then though?
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Postby RAFABENITEZ » Sat Aug 06, 2005 6:46 pm

red37 wrote:i wonder if any of you BEFORE this years competition considered the uefa champions league format to be unfair/wrong etc. in respect of the structure for seedings, amount or allocation of teams from certain nations was unbalanced (or even too many). or indeed if the whole mini-league within, framework WAS working?

obviously from a commercial standpoint the format IS successful in revenue/media coverage terms.and mssrs moores and parry would not argue otherwise, im sure.
and in hindsight they'd wish that had been the case 4 times previously...

but thats my point. hindsight/retrospect/nostalgia/memory lane....etc.
personally i have to admit, that, up until our investiture as EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS i too hankered for the days of knockout football in europe, where, albeit as champions of that country's league, you could within reason meet ANY body.at any stage, and therein lay the hidden magic? ok, im pretty certain there was a seeding structure back then although limited to the respective title holders of each league? the mists of time have blurred that memory for me, but there is the discussion point i wanted to pursue.....
i.e was it REALLY all good back then, was it, EASIER to win back then (less games etc) or did it MEAN as much back then? forget financially, im talking about things like.. prowess as a fan, walking into work with a manic grin....opening the front door at nigh on midnight after the game and screechin' out all manner of liverpool related expletives! with shirt removed/belly out/ doin a mad kind of giraffe dance up the street....goin shopping still weeks later with a manic grin....swelling with pride at every recollection of it kind of thing....

question is, is it BIGGER to win now......................YES
thats obvious.
but.. compare hindsight with foresight for a moment..already to look back 10 weeks i still cant get me head round HOW it happened, i just know im proud that it did. but....it felt like that 20-30 years ago didnt it?  and when i look forward i STILL cant see how/when/if well do it again.. i just THINK we will.
not many times in my life have i had CAUSE to be pessimistic with liverpool f.c (90's aside) and im not being now, but how many of you, with regard to how the compo is set-up REALLY believe we can win it again? (bearing in mind squad size, competitions played in, uefa/fifa red tape etc)

good old days or bright horizons?

Would it not be better if a system whereby the league champions and the cup champions were only admitted?
eg.
CHELSEA , ARSENAL and LIVERPOOL
JUVE AND INTER
BARCA AND BETIS
ETC
ofcourse you will notice that some teams such as inter and betis are not as good as madrid and milan but they wouldnt have such a high chance of winning their cups as teams would compete more for them, rather than resting players.
The uefa cup would also be much harder to win.

Champions cup qualifiers - League and cup champions
eg
LEAGUE - LIVERPOOL , CUP - CHELSEA
SERIA A - MILAN , CUP - JUVE
LA LIGA - MADRID CUP- BARCA
ETC
UEFA CUP - 2ND PLACE AND THIRD
EG. MAN UTD ARSENAL, INTER UDINESE, DEPOR BETIS

Actually im gonna do this to my football manager using the editor!!!
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