First let me say well done to Chelsea for winning the Europa Cup. Having said that, there are some commentators going over the top about the "unique" nature of the record of holding both the Champions league and the Europa trophies at the same time. The new winners of the CL will be either Dortmund or Bayern later this month. But at the risk of being accused of sour grapes, let's for a moment think at how this "unique" achievement can be acheived. The champions league winners have to get into (shall we say - be dumped into?) the Europa the following year. Which means the CL winners either finishing 5th or 6th in their own league the following year or finishing outside the top 2 in their group in their CL groups. Which self respecting CL winning club would like to do that? Chelsea created a unique unwanted achievement of being the only CL winners being dumped into the Europa after the group stages. They managed to gloss over that unprecedented failure by winning that cup. But please let's not go over the top and pretend that all big clubs will want to do the same....
Sour grapes?! Seriously though, back to back euro titles is a massive achievement regardless of how we ended up in it,
Sure. 2 back to back CL trophies. Winning the CL and then the Europa the next year is a record NO Club will ever want. A consolation may be
Absolute rubbish. I'd rather we get knocked out in the groups and then win the E.L then get through the group and just get knocked out in the next round. I can say that having experienced both. Fair play you won the league but I bet say Arsenal wouldn't mind our European record of the last 12 months.
Rafa's good at this, realises he's no chance of winning the league so targets a cup. Just like he always did the CL with Liverpool. As a fan it's up to you how that sits I suppose. Fair play to him pulling it off though, I wish we'd made more of an effort last year. Even though we were pursuing the league I feel we simply didn't try in the europa league.
To be fair to Chelsea it is a unique achievement - they're the only CL holders to ever drop into the lower competition and will probably be the only ones to do so for a very long time in the future, and as we found out last season winning the EL isn't all that easy. Just like Wigan could next year end up being the first team (I think) to hold the FA Cup and Championship titles at the same time. It may not be as great as winning back to back FA Cups or the Double etc, but it's still worthy of note. To my mind it's similar to Arsenal's 'invincibles' or Preston North End winning all four English league divisions. It's something to remember for the fans and makes a bit of history for the club, but no one in their right mind would rather win back to back CL and EL titles ahead of two CL titles, just like any Arsenal fan would probably prefer to have won the title in both 04 and 05 rather than just winning one title unbeaten in 04, and any Preston fan would trade their lower division titles for first division titles at the drop of a hat.
Bitter? I wouldn't begrudge the chavs for a bit of consolation. They have had it tough this season and Rafa managed to turn the tables on his "fans".
Hahaha... Imagine the scene. When the chavs are playing in the group stages of the CL, we have the manager telling his players in the dressing room " Hey, we might get knocked out of the CL in the KO rounds. So let's finish third, get into the Europa and win that great trophy"...
Obviously it is based on hindisght but had we got through the group we'd never have gone on and won it (no team has ever defended the C.L let alone with the likes of Bayern and Barca around). Therefore on hindsight getting knocked out means we've picked up a trophy and the only european cup we haven't won. We've created history and will be back in the C.L next year. Job done. Would I swap our season for yours? Probably not but still a great climax rather than the damp squib you had.
Damp squib? Where were you last weekend for ****'s sake? Other than that, yeah it is truly **** to have clinched the league in April.
I remember a lot of people saying the same thing about Chelsea last year By your logic it would also be better to turn around at the start of a PL season and say "Well, we probably won't win the league for the next couple of years, let's get relegated so we can win the Championship and pick up a trophy!" Oh, and if you think our season climax was a damp squib, you probably didn't see our 20th league title parade
finishing 5th or 6th won't make a different since the holders qualify at the expense of the lowest place CL qualifier in the league (eg, Chelsea were in it this despite finishing sixth and Tottenham finishing fourth). Nor is it finishing outside the top two in the CL. If you finish bottom of the group then you are out of Europe, third place gets a second chance in EL. If your going to have a pop at someone, gets your facts straight first
OP has achieved what was set out for in this thread then!!! Great night for us, fact, as rafa would say.
Did you know that ALL clubs except French Arse have changed there manager (as from end of season) since French arse have won silverware. Some have changed there manager lots of times since then Fakct
