2024-25 Season - Discussion Thread

[YayNJ]

Originally Posted by yiguiri2002

Is it really fair if Arsenal can't be in the UCL but the champion of Albania is?

Yes, because they aren't champions.

It's a tragedy how we've ended up in this mess, and now clubs, supporters, money men all feel entitled to the big prizes for ever decreasing performances.

It all needs setting on fire.

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by YayNJ

Yes, because they aren't champions.

Exactly.

If you limited the Champions League to clubs that had actually won something, you'd have a lot more big clubs in the Europa League, and you'd have TWO compelling competitions instead of just one.

People would still watch the Champions League.....but a lot more people would also watch the Europa League. And because of this, the financial gap between the two competitions would shrink significantly.

Look back at the 80's/90's.....winning the UEFA Cup was almost as big a deal as winning the Champions League.

Imagine if this year's Europa League Final had been Barcelona-Liverpool instead of Man United-Spurs!

[Blake050]

Originally Posted by mfw13

Exactly.

If you limited the Champions League to clubs that had actually won something, you'd have a lot more big clubs in the Europa League, and you'd have TWO compelling competitions instead of just one.

People would still watch the Champions League.....but a lot more people would also watch the Europa League. And because of this, the financial gap between the two competitions would shrink significantly.

Look back at the 80's/90's.....winning the UEFA Cup was almost as big a deal as winning the Champions League.

Imagine if this year's Europa League Final had been Barcelona-Liverpool instead of Man United-Spurs!

You make a strong argument. I support this idea.

[YayNJ]

I genuinely feel sorry for people that didn't get to experience football in the 80's and 90's

.. then sadly, the game changed forever and was no longer for the people, just bank balances.

[mfw13]

It's just idiotic and short-sighted thinking on the part of UEFA (not exactly a shock).

Imagine if the biggest names in next year's Europa League were Arsenal, Man City, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Internazionale, Juventus, and Dortmund......as opposed to Aston Villa and AS Roma.

You'd probably get TV rights money roughly equal to that for the Champions League!

And that would eliminate the huge financial gap between teams that make the Champions League and those that do not.

[YayNJ]

I still get goosebumps whenever I see this..

[yiguiri2002]

Originally Posted by YayNJ

Yes, because they aren't champions.

It's a tragedy how we've ended up in this mess, and now clubs, supporters, money men all feel entitled to the big prizes for ever decreasing performances.

It all needs setting on fire.

It's completely outdated and would create a tournament that is not as interesting.

32 teams is way too much if you are only putting 5 teams from the best 5 leagues. Only 3 of the quarter finalists would have been in the tournament.

[YayNJ]

outdated?

you've confused greed with progress.

Teams finishing 2rd, 3rd, 4th or 5th shouldn't be anywhere near the Champions League. The points difference between 5th and 1st could be 15-20 points, with 4th and 5th being closer to below mid-table spots than being champions, points wise.

What we have now are 'big' clubs being rewarded for mediocrity. It's a joke.

I appologise to mfw13 now, but on what planet should Newcastle be in the Champions League next season? They finished 18 points behind Liverpool, the Champions. 18 points!

[Gin&Juice]

I think the current format is intended to maintain interest in the domestic leagues through the end of the season as much as it is about the field for the Champions League. Adds meaning to late season games that would otherwise be irrelevant.

[YayNJ]

nobody had any issues 'maintaining interest' in the domestic leagues until the last 20-30 years when it became more about commercialisation than actual sporting merit.

if people need gimmicks and increasingly low bars to get into Europe since they started messing with everything.. what does that prove?

it's awful for the game, a game that has been ruined by people chasing money and tourism, over the love of the sport.

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by Gin&Juice

I think the current format is intended to maintain interest in the domestic leagues through the end of the season as much as it is about the field for the Champions League. Adds meaning to late season games that would otherwise be irrelevant.

If the Europa League had more big clubs in it, and the Champions League fewer, wouldn't interest in qualifying for the Europa League create just as much interest in the domestic leagues at the end of the season as trying to qualify for the current Champions League?

Right now, the reason Champions League > Europa League is because of the format, which places all the 2nd-4th place clubs in the Champions League and makes the financial difference between qualifying for the Champions League and the Europa League so huge.

But if all those 2nd-4th place clubs were placed in the Europa League instead, then the TV rights money would be more balanced, and the Europa League would be on par with the Champions League.

And the end of the season race for European spots would still be just as exciting.

[mfw13]

On another note, I'll state that it's shocking how badly La Liga (and Serie A) have botched their US TV rights deals.

The EPL is getting $450 million a year from NBC for their US TV rights.....La Liga and Serie A are getting a fraction of that.

La Liga, despite having the two most famous players in soccer for ten years (Messi and CR7), and two of the most famous clubs, never signed a deal with a major TV network. Even now, with two of the most exciting young players in soccer (Mbappe and Yamal), their US TV presence is non-existent. They're on streaming (ESPN+), but matches are rarely shown on live TV by ABC/ESPN/ESPN2.

And Serie A, despite having some terrific rivalries (Milan derby, Rome derby, Milan/Juve, Inter/Juve), and regional clubs with terrific history (Napoli, Fiorentina, etc.) is buried on Paramount+, with CBS rarely, if ever, showing any matches on live TV.

And that's why the EPL has become so financially dominant in Europe.....

EPL = $450 million/year
La Liga = $175 million/year
Serie A ~ $50-60 million/year

[YayNJ]

The Italian League and it's clubs can only really blame themselves if we have to be honest - terribly run clubs, corruption all over the place and of course the shadow of match fixing that plagues the Italian clubs like the plague.

It *could* have been the big league, but they blew it. In the mid-90's Italian football was 'cool' as hell outside of Italy.. from the players, to the kits.

If this picture doesn't give you tingles in inappropriate places, you're not a football fan IMO

[kellmuff]

lets be honest, a competition with only 1 team from La Liga, Premier League, etc was never going to continue. There's nothing wrong with bringing all the top sides from across Europe into a club competition. Stop being a nostalgia merchant.

There are too many teams in it though. And the new format is horrific.

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by YayNJ

The Italian League and it's clubs can only really blame themselves if we have to be honest - terribly run clubs, corruption all over the place and of course the shadow of match fixing that plagues the Italian clubs like the plague.

It *could* have been the big league, but they blew it. In the mid-90's Italian football was 'cool' as hell outside of Italy.. from the players, to the kits.

If this picture doesn't give you tingles in inappropriate places, you're not a football fan IMO

I have two match-worn Batistuta Fiorentina shirts from that era!

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by kellmuff

lets be honest, a competition with only 1 team from La Liga, Premier League, etc was never going to continue. There's nothing wrong with bringing all the top sides from across Europe into a club competition. Stop being a nostalgia merchant.

If it's league champions AND cup winners, you've got two clubs per league, not one.

And the idea is to balance out the level of competition between the Champions League and the Europa League so that the latter becomes an equally attractive TV property and the financial gulf between qualifying for the Champions League and qualifying for the Europa League shrinks.

[YayNJ]

The numbers need to be reduced because it's creating leagues within leagues - and it favours the money backed / state owned clubs.

Sure there's freak years, like Leicester.. but it's just a small group of clubs getting richer and richer, while scores of other clubs fall by the wayside each year. The gulf between the Premier League and the Championship has never been bigger.

The likes of Bournemouth and Brentford (and Brighton) will fall away - the model they have just isn't sustainable long term. There's only so long you can get by by selling your top players every single year.

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by YayNJ

The numbers need to be reduced because it's creating leagues within leagues - and it favours the money backed / state owned clubs.

Sure there's freak years, like Leicester.. but it's just a small group of clubs getting richer and richer, while scores of other clubs fall by the wayside each year. The gulf between the Premier League and the Championship has never been bigger.

The likes of Bournemouth and Brentford (and Brighton) will fall away - the model they have just isn't sustainable long term. There's only so long you can get by by selling your top players every single year.

The mid-table clubs may fall away a bit, but as Man United and Spurs showed this year (and Everton for much of the past decade), you can be pretty bad and avoid relegation, since the three teams coming up from the Championship are generally going to be worse than you.

And I'm not sure what else can be done that isn't already been done (i.e. parachute payments) to bring the gap between the EPL and the Championship.

[YayNJ]

Parachute payments aren’t really about bridging gaps, it’s to ensure relegated clubs don’t go bust and that they can afford their Premier League level wage bill. It can be abused though - Norwich pretty much had a model in which they would go all out for promotion, happily get relegated and barely spend a single penny and then repeat. That caught up to them eventually.

One thing that does need improvement is even stricter rules regarding the “big” clubs stealing kids and youth players from the lower leagues.

[yiguiri2002]

Originally Posted by YayNJ

outdated?

you've confused greed with progress.

Teams finishing 2rd, 3rd, 4th or 5th shouldn't be anywhere near the Champions League. The points difference between 5th and 1st could be 15-20 points, with 4th and 5th being closer to below mid-table spots than being champions, points wise.

What we have now are 'big' clubs being rewarded for mediocrity. It's a joke.

I appologise to mfw13 now, but on what planet should Newcastle be in the Champions League next season? They finished 18 points behind Liverpool, the Champions. 18 points!

The outdated part is having 32 teams and including some just because they were champions in a smaller league. I'm all for a 12-16 team Champions League with just champions.

Originally Posted by mfw13

If it's league champions AND cup winners, you've got two clubs per league, not one.

And the idea is to balance out the level of competition between the Champions League and the Europa League so that the latter becomes an equally attractive TV property and the financial gulf between qualifying for the Champions League and qualifying for the Europa League shrinks.

Even with that, it wouldn't cut it. Assuming that's the breakdown for the Top 5 leagues, you'll have:

England: Liverpool and Crystal Palace
Italy: Napoli and Bologna
Spain: Barcelona and Real Madrid
France: PSG and Marseille/Reims

Then add PSV, Sporting and Union Saint-Gilloise. Do you really want to add 21 spots to other champions across Europe?

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by yiguiri2002

Even with that, it wouldn't cut it. Assuming that's the breakdown for the Top 5 leagues, you'll have:

England: Liverpool and Crystal Palace
Italy: Napoli and Bologna
Spain: Barcelona
France: PSG
Germany: Bayern Munich and VFB Stuttgart

Then add PSV, Sporting and Union Saint-Gilloise. Do you really want to add 21 spots to other champions across Europe?

That's fine by me.

Also note that this year is a bit unusual in that all the Cup winners were either small clubs or big clubs doing the double. Last year would have included Man United and Juventus as cup winners instead of Crystal Palace and Bologna.

[yiguiri2002]

Originally Posted by mfw13

That's fine by me.

Also note that this year is a bit unusual in that all the Cup winners were either small clubs or big clubs doing the double. Last year would have included Man United and Juventus as cup winners instead of Crystal Palace and Bologna.

Are you saying the current list is fine or adding 21 other teams to that is fine?

I think if these changes were made, teams would care more about domestic cups so I do expect a few more of the big teams to make it.

[bjho852]

I personally am all for making UCL domestic top-tier league champions only, but do have reservations for domestic cup winners participating, if not outright rejecting the idea. Big or small clubs (or even 2nd-tier league clubs) winning them, domestic knockout cups are almost always luck of the draw, not season-long grinding like the leagues. If domestic cup winners are going to be in UCL, make them go through qualifiers at the very least, instead of letting them outright join.

[bjho852]

Sad to see Simone Inzaghi leave Inter. He did well enough with who he had.

[CiaranGQ]

Originally Posted by bjho852

Sad to see Simone Inzaghi leave Inter. He did well enough with who he had.

Tarnished any legacy with his off-field focus in the final months in chasing oil money which ultimately led to not winning Serie A when in the driving seat and the humiliation in Munich last Saturday.

His cinematic Al Hilal welcome, released days after the Munich nightmare, and the dealings with Al Hilal through to the very eve of the Champions League final, personifies him.