My Serbian club, Partizan, have been champions for 5 years straight and probably 6 now. For us to get into the Champions League, we have to go through 3 rounds of qualifying, including the play-off. We aren't a guaranteed seed either, despite being champions. Yet the 3rd placed team in England automatically gets in. The 3rd placed team in Spain gets in. The 3rd placed team in Italy gets in. In the past, we would win our Championship, automatically be drawn randomly (against Real Madrid, Celtic, whoever), giving us a chance to actually cause some upsets. Some of our best games were when we lost 1-0 to Celtic at home, then beat them 5-4 in the return (1989). We played against English opposition, Spanish opposition, Italians, everyone. We even got to the final against Real Madrid once, in 1966. No one complained about the lack of quality teams in the ties. Fans weren't disappointed in being drawn against FC _____ from Moldova because hey, it means you can win and move on. Fans of FC _____ from Moldova were happy because they got to see Liverpool and were excited about an upset potentially. Now? The best we can hope for is to be placed in a group with huge names so we can get some TV revenue, forget winning. No way can we compete in a 6 round group mini-league. It's sucked the life out of our league because without international exposure, we can't get money. Without the money, we can't get placed in the CL anymore. Without getting placed in the CL, we don't get international exposure. So say what you will about big names, quality of football, etc, but the modern CL has financially benefitted big clubs at the expense of every club that isn't from the big 4 leagues. What I would love to see for example, is a European knockout Superleague. Here's an 8 round tournament. thats 256 clubs. There are 53 leagues in UEFA coefficient rankings, meaning 4 teams from each league. That gives us 212 clubs. What's left is 44 clubs, which we can spread to the best ranked countries in Europe. That way England could have maybe 7 clubs, Spain 7, etc, on a sliding scale/performance basis. Early rounds start off regional, then move on to random after maybe 3 rounds. What do we get? A) The strongest teams will eventually make it to the final rounds, giving some tasty match ups for the last few rounds. B) Plucky small teams can still make a serious run for the Super Cup trophy C) TV revenue can be split for the first few rounds equally, then as we move into the bigger name ties on a per-game basis. D) Fans will enjoy the possibilty of winning this very prestigious tournament E) Clubs will play a maximum of 8 games.
Champions into the European Cup, runners up and maybe third into the UEFA Cup, FA Cup winners into Cup Winners' Cup. Worked and was fun. Will never happen again as modern football is by and large ****.
Agreed. Stuff like the bosman ruling has pretty much ****ed teams like Ajax, Marseille, St Etienne, Bucharest etc over. If your team isn't from England, Italy, Spain or Germany then you are pretty much ****ed and its impossible to make yourself into a team that regularly challenges for the CL. It also means the quality of teams outside those 4 leagues bar a few exceptions is absolutely dire in comparison.
European cup would become the secondary european tournament in this day and age. Some league champions are far worse quality than the runners up in even mid level leagues like the dutch premier division. A cup winners cup would be good though and potentially have a decent set of teams competeting.
Agree to an extent. Just the champions would be boring, cos you would end up with seasons where the best teams that year might all miss out on the top competition. But I think there needs to be at least some seeding, else you could end up with Barca, Real, Milan and Bayern all in one group and Arsenal, Utd, Chelsea and Porto in another. The group stages would be exciting, but the rest of the competition would be far less so with half of the best teams definitely going out at the first hurdle.
The Champions League is called so because the champions of every league in europe go into it. Some go in at the qualifying rounds and others in the group stages. Maybe they could allow all the champions to qualify for the groupstages and then make the runners up qualify so that its basically champions and best placed losers.
All champions would be rubbish and in this day and age....predictable. Infact it could be said the old format was very predictable. How many multiple time winners, 2 in a row, 3? Compare that to the Champions League now where its become the norm to discount the holders the following year. That has alot to do with the fact the worlds best clubs are always competing and any of them can win it. Winners and runners up would be a good way to do it. With or without Cup winners ( bring back the cup winners cup by all means ). The whole idea recently in the news about scrapping the Europa League is a rubbish idea though. The likes of Atletico Madrid, Bilbao, Sporting, Udinese and co deserve a european tournament. Class football teams who are more often than not going to b in the EL rather than the CL.
