“The CL is boring...”

sonofbunk

sonofbunk

Well-Known Member
I will hold my hands up and say this has been an argument of mine for a few years now. But, bloody hell the KO stages have been good this year!

Although it would have been nice to see Real not make the final.

The excitement of these games probably brings closer the inevitability of a breakaway league.
 
It's been better this season in terms of exciting games in the latter stages.

The Group stages these days are still a chronic waste of time however.
 
It’s been fantastic this year. Frankly, most of the arguments against it being a boring competition didn’t stack up and were mostly based on nostalgia.
 
Its been bloody great, goal fest in some games and not the boring predictable stuff from before.
Roma v Barca was an epic 2nd leg.
 
The first legs of QF in the CL were pure boring and ‘no point’ in watching the second legs accordingly to the big mouths on here. Luckily nobody listens to them because they are always wrong.
 
Keyser_Soze said:
It was refreshing to see Liverpool and Roma in the semis. two teams we wouldn't have expected.

best semi final tie I can remember as well.

Liverpool rarely let you down in the CL in terms of entertainment.
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Enough is enough though. Liverpool toiled tonight.
 
Business_Bear said:
It's been better this season in terms of exciting games in the latter stages.

The Group stages these days are still a chronic waste of time however.
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Yeah, this has been the best year for ages for whatever reasons.

The groups are still really marketable though so I can’t see them going soon.
 
It's been nice to see different teams like Liverpool and Roma get so far, rather than many of the usual suspects, but let's not get carried away. We'll never see a tournament like 03-04 again. That was a cracker.
 
Keyser_Soze said:
It was refreshing to see Liverpool and Roma in the semis. two teams we wouldn't have expected.

best semi final tie I can remember as well.

Liverpool rarely let you down in the CL in terms of entertainment.
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I thought last night’s tie was much more exciting
 
Qualifying and group stages are utter shyte and utterly pointless, same teams every year into the knockout stage, they need us peasants though to make up the numbers and maintain the interest across Europe and further.
 
Once it gets to the group stages it is good, but the group stages are a shambles. It could potentially get very boring in the next few years due to the closed shop mentality of allowing 4 automatic places to all the biggest leagues.
 
The 1/4s were also compelling viewing.
Real vs Juve 2nd leg was a great watch, Roma Barca ditto and of course the Liverpool City games. Even the Bayern and Sevilla games were interesting.

Seems like every club has ditched defensive fitba this season and it has done wonders for the competition.
 
Rangersmandownunder said:
Qualifying and group stages are utter shyte and utterly pointless, same teams every year into the knockout stage, they need us peasants though to make up the numbers and maintain the interest across Europe and further.
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‘Same teams every year into the knockout stage’

While the ‘big guns’ are always there this isn’t actually true generally. Last 3 years for example (non-repeat teams bolded - total 22/48):

2017/18 - Juventus, Spurs, Man City, Basel, Porto, Liverpool, Sevilla, Man Utd, Real Madrid, PSG, Shakhtar, Roma, Chelsea, Barca, Bayern, Besiktas

2016/17 - Benfica, Dortmund, Man City, Monaco, Porto, Juventus, PSG, Barca, Bayern, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Napoli, Leverkusen, Atletico Madrid, Sevilla, Leicester

2015/16 - PSG, Chelsea, Dynamo Kiev, Man City, Gent, Wolfsburg, Roma, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Barca, PSV, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Bayern, Zenit, Benfica

Most do fall at that hurdle but you do get the likes of Monaco last year and Liverpool this year making it deep into the tournament without having had much of a recent pedigree.
 
Eric_Cartman said:
If form is taken into account the final should be about 7-6.

That being said it'll probably end up 1-0 after a shite game and a Ronaldo penalty to win.
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no chance , neither can defend have feeling liverpool will win it but miss out top 4 and then the english have 5 in tournament next year again .
derbyloyal said:
How strange that it only starts to get interesting once it becomes an unseeded knockout competition. Same with the UEFA Cup. Before Sky invented football in 1992 were all European tournaments like this?
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think you mean when we helped create the champions league :D
 
It absolutely is boring as it is the same teams every year. Football has been ruined by money and we will never be able to return to the way in which Continental tournaments should be structured, with the league winners of every country playing and them only. Hence making it the ‘Champions League’. Meaning that the winner of this tournament could actually call their self the best club in Europe, when in actual fact they may not even best in their own country.
 
DivRFC said:
It absolutely is boring as it is the same teams every year. Football has been ruined by money and we will never be able to return to the way in which Continental tournaments should be structured, with the league winners of every country playing and them only. Hence making it the ‘Champions League’. Meaning that the winner of this tournament could actually call their self the best club in Europe, when in actual fact they may not even best in their own country.
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The same teams awra time! Is this just a knee jerk claim by those who hate the CL?

There is a post further up showing it’s not the same teams all the time. I’ve posted dozens of times the actual stats on the old EC against the CL in the same time scale and the CL comes out on top every time over differing sides winning it, differing countries and how many times it was retained. I can’t be arsed posting them all again.

You also highlight the thing about teams not being champions when winning the CL. The anomaly with the old EC was that when a team were champions of their country, it was a year later they played in the EC. A recent classic example of this is Leicester City.

The season they were champions and with it the best in England, they didn’t play in Europe at all. The season they did play in the CL as the champions of England they were no better than a mid table side in England.

This sort of thing is not new and you had the other strange anomaly in the old EC whereby Nottm Forest have only been champions of England once in their history but have been champions of Europe twice.

There are a good few things wrong with the CL but most of that comes from the money involved in a few countries domestic leagues, and it is still the best test ever of who is the best in Europe.

Liverpool could be champions of Europe this season playing a total of 15 games against good sides.

Liverpool won back to back EC’s in 1977 and 1978 playing a total of 16 games altogether and some of them were against very weak sides.

For me despite its faults the CL is the best competition in football ever.
 
aghalee_hero said:
Good let them piss off and form a league, it becomes even more of a closed shop next year. Just let the rest of us plebs get on with it.
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I'm genuinely not trying to be argumentative but this is where Scottish football was 10 years ago with is and the great unwashed. The similarity is we both wanted England. Within the Scottish game we held all the aces and we somehow managed to end up being all out with those gloating basturts wherethey are. We are now still here trying to climb a mountain that's peak is only the base camp.
I would nowadays let the 5 leagues fck off too. I generally, but not totally, hate the CL. It's unfair, Biased and now behaves like an upper class. UEFA is unfit for purpose for It's paying members and action is required.
 
The knockout phase has been outstanding, especially the semi finals.

I really hope Liverpool go and win it now. They deserve it.
 
The old European Cup was a far more entertaining format. You will never see the likes of Steua Bucharest coming out of nowhere and winning on a mix of luck, talent and form.

Your smaller teams from Belgium, Portugal and the like will never hold the same fear they used to hold, because all the big money clubs are safe in the knowledge that they have bought enough quality to overcome any 'shock defeats' over 6 matches.

Tedious.
 
The problem is it only gets interesting when you get to the knockout stages, and even then it's not right as by that time any chance of a major upset is almost completely gone as the chances of one of the lesser lights getting that far is remote. I loved the old European Cup, Cup-Winners Cup and UEFA Cup but hardly ever watch the modern equivalents till we get to this stage.
 
I was one who had become bored of the CL, especially the group stages, however the knock out stages this season have been superb.
 
Some of the games are good but the competition on the whole is generally boring imo. Same big mega money teams getting the easiest route to the knockout stages every year. It’s a competition primarily for making money for the same clubs and big corporate sponsors.
 
The knock out stages - particularly the semis - have been exciting precisely because they are knock out rounds. When the tournament was the European Cup it was much, much more exciting than after it became the Champions (sometimes) League. Problem for the big clubs was that they didn't make as much money from the knock out tournament as they could from the league format.
 
Yeah it’s been great this year. Liverpool are the most exciting team in the world right now, you genuinely have no idea how a games going to end up when they play.
 
Its been a bit better this season but the group stages are becoming too easy for the big teams. They should have a 3 teams max from the same country .
I think it will open up a bit in a few years when Messi and Ronaldo move on.
 
Topps said:
Some of the games are good but the competition on the whole is generally boring imo. Same big mega money teams getting the easiest route to the knockout stages every year. It’s a competition primarily for making money for the same clubs and big corporate sponsors.
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Real Madrid have made the final coming through a Group with both Spurs and B Dortmund in it, they have then beaten PSG, Juventus and Bayern Munich to reach the Final.

How in the name of feck is that “easy”.

And as for going back to the days Steaua Bucharest won the EC, they weren’t just lucky in the draw, ( they played Kuysi Lahti from Finland in the QF ffs) they also got lucky that Everton were banned from taking part as I have no doubts whatsoever that Everton team were far better than that Steaua team.
 
The semi finals were ludicrous. Like school football...every attack looked like a goal, error strewn, bad goalkeeping etc.

High quality, tense, and dramatic games should see goals at a premium.

These were exciting, and amusing, but not to be mistaken for proper football.
 
I can see why they’re making it hard for shite like celt*c to get in.

As soon as the group stages ended and the big boys started playing, it’s been superb.
 
DivRFC said:
It absolutely is boring as it is the same teams every year. Football has been ruined by money and we will never be able to return to the way in which Continental tournaments should be structured, with the league winners of every country playing and them only. Hence making it the ‘Champions League’. Meaning that the winner of this tournament could actually call their self the best club in Europe, when in actual fact they may not even best in their own country.
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Two issues with that: beating the champion from a small country is easier than beating the 2nd best team from Spain, etc. I don't see how replacing most of the best teams in Europe with far inferior teams who are champions of smaller leagues gets you closer to finding out who is the best team in Europe. You'd be excluding teams like Man City, clearly the best team in England this year, but letting in Chelsea, who clearly aren't. That hardly seems like a change that gets us closer to finding out who's the best team in Europe this season.


Then there's the fact that qualification is based on the previous season, so unless the same teams were winning their respective leagues every year, you'd still have 2nd, 3rd, 4th placed teams (in their current season) in the latter stages of the competition. Except instead of the 3rd placed team in England it might be the 3rd placed team in Switzerland, who won their league the year prior and then lost their best players in the summer.

You don't eliminate the possibility of a team winning the European Cup while finishing miles off the pace in their league. So your last sentence would remain true, and was true under the old European Cup format.
 
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sonofbunk said:
I will hold my hands up and say this has been an argument of mine for a few years now. But, bloody hell the KO stages have been good this year!

Although it would have been nice to see Real not make the final.

The excitement of these games probably brings closer the inevitability of a breakaway league.
Click to expand...
Liverpool have taken everyone by surprise. Much credit to Roma too. They didn't stop believing they could win, and they kept playing right to the end.
 
It’s boring as it is more or less usually the same teams in the final stages every year. It is also not a competition of champions. And before anyone asks, yes the champions of Slovenia do have more of a right to be in it than Liverpool. It should be an invitational tournament. That’s what they want anyway. The big five should just eff-off and have their own competition and give the European Cup back for the rest of us to compete for
 
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I long for the day that I’m getting excited about the group stage draw. Then when it’s made look at what time I can get off and plan a trip. Seeing the glow of the floodlights in a crisp Glasgow night. Getting to the turnstiles and walking up the stairs and looking on the park and the big starry ball is looking resplendent on the center circle in its proper Glasgow home. A team of stars warming and the opponents too.

Till that happens the CL is crap.
 
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