Champions League Final.

Who do you want to see win? How do you think the game will pan out?

It's going to be interesting with Liverpool's attacking force and their ability to let in goals contrasted to Real Madrid´s knowledge in the competition and by their standards, lower form this season.

I am looking forward to watching it on the 26th!

It'd be good to see Liverpool win it but I think they'll have their work cut out to do so, unless they get a blistering start.

 

Real Madrid have shown they are vulnerable - against Spurs, Juventus and also Bayern, however they always get better when it comes to the final. Both sides have the ability to really hurt each other, it's just who is up for it on the night. I would fancy Liverpool over two legs but in a one off on a neutral ground I'm not sure. However the last team to beat Real in a European cup final were Liverpool. The heart says Liverpool but the head is not sure - Klopp does not have a good record in finals. Also Real are better at defending a lead (game management) than Liverpool are.

 

He's lost his last 4 or 5 if I remember rightly.

 

All the hype and expectation means its going to be 0-0 or a dour 1-0!

 

I always go for the English team - but would make an exception if it were Arsenal. So come on you scousers.

 

I would make an exception if it were Chelsea, Man.Utd or several others. Why should I support a team of millionaires such as Man.City (although I like Guardiola) against a team such as FC. Basel ? Can you describe Man.City or Chelsea as English teams ? Their owners are not English, their managers are not, and most of their players aren't - in fact, Chelsea have no connection to the actual borough of Chelsea, never have done. They will always be the second team in Fulham

 

Any team that plays on English soil is more English than one that does not.

 

I'm sorry Leo, we'll have to agree to differ on that one. I would support a club based on what I know about the club, their fans, owners, my own personal connections etc.etc. Their location is irrelevant to me as, I suspect, it is irrelevant to them. I am not a fan of the Premier League - it's influence on the rest of the World of football is not a positive one. Why should I then celebrate having 5 teams from the one league in the knock out stages of a European competition ? Are the present set up of Watford owners, players, coaches etc. in Watford because they love the town, or have any connection to it ?

 

Not really - most live in London I think !

 

You are not taking into account the history of our top clubs plus dont you get more points each year on the number places into Europe so the better our EPL clubs do the higher chance we have of getting into a Europe

 

As you will have guessed Brian I am not really a fan of the champions league. The old system of European cup, Cup Winners Cup and Eufa Cup was a much better one. The fact is that the 'Champions' League is not made up of champions but rather leads to a financial monopoly of the big leagues - clubs from outside of those big leagues - once great clubs such as Celtic, Ajax Amsterdam, Anderlecht, Benfica etc. will never again really make an impression. If the end result is that by the knockout stages you have 4 English clubs, 4 Spanish ones and the rest made up from Italy, Germany and possibly France then a great deal of international interest has been lost. How a great club like Ajax Amsterdam can now have less than 6% of the turnover of Man.City is one of the tragedies of modern football. The Champions League has, in turn, devalued the league title in many countries (no longer necessary to win it), devalued the domestic cup competitions, and turned the Europa League into the 'losers' cup. What it has given us is endless group matches and a totally predictable line up by the quarter final stage. I know that the old days of clubs like Red Star Belgrade and Steuea Bucharest getting to finals was 'bad' for business but it had the same sort of magic then that the FA. Cup did.

 

I was not commenting on the rights and wrongs of the Premiership nor the Champions League.
The question was a simple one - who do I want to win? My answer equally simple was "an English club"
I am not at all surprised that Cologne who does not like nation states etc etc is not an advocate of patriotism and that is fair enough.
I am - I like being English and want to see a club that plays its football in England do well in competition.

 

Liverpool. I'm not biased... I don't care who beats Real Madrid.

 

I agree with everything you said But im a Watford fan 1ST then England GB Europe (mainly golf ) .I understand that you would like to keep business out of sport ,but thats not possible with football anymore .The way the CL is set up still gives the likes of Celtic Ajax Benfica etc can still win it its just the bigger clubs have the better players, set up, because they have the backing .The big clubs have been trying to set up a super Euro league that will be maybe just the same 16 every year and that will devalue the Leagues of every country plus the way things stand Watford could still play in Europe one day and so can any club in this country there is always hope .

 

The problem is that millionaires do not invest in the smaller leagues. Ajax Amsterdam may have a great tradition but they are playing their club football at places like Willem Tilburg (no disrespect here - great atmosphere), Breda, Groningen and so on. There was talk a while back about combining the Dutch and Belgian leagues at the top level - and regular games against Anderlecht, Bruges and Standard Liege could be an attraction. Although it could strain the Ajax-Anderlecht fan friendship ! In Germany they have the so called 51%+ ruling which means that the club must own a majority of the shares and this works against millionaire investment. If you ask the question 'who owns Bayern Munich' you just get a blank stare - the club owns Bayern (and this means it's 100,000+ members). The same thing is true in Spanish football where Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao are all fan owned. The Spanish government is working on ways of making fan ownership easier - which may be why the Pozzo's left. There is no inevitability about the spread of predatory capitalism in football, it can be reversed.

 

You might like the idea of money coming out of football or Government funding clubs for the benefit of there tax payers But would that help Watford ? With the likes of China and now India wanting to put money into football your ideas are possible but i dont think it will happen this century

 

I don't know that my ideas would help Watford that much. We are a small town club, like Swindon or Ipswich, but have a larger catchment area than those clubs. The idea of fan ownership obviously favours the big town clubs - we can never have 100,000 members like Bayern, Barcelona or Benfica. The Chinese and the Indians may want to put money into football - and they will first look to England, because English football is much more open to this, and is much less rigid in vetting the suitability of new owners. Germany is not attractive because of it's rigid club ownership laws (there are a few exceptions such as RB Leipzig and VFL Wolfsburg - who always had a corporate background). Spain is moving in the direction of fan ownership, Italy is known more for crumbling old stadiums and fan violence, which leaves only England and France. I have nothing against government money being used for football - it happens in other countries. It just depends upon how football is seen - is a football club a cultural asset to a town or city, in the same way that a theatre may be ? In Germany football is seen in this way - which is why you get free zonal public transport to matches if you have a ticket. Watford is better known than eg. Hemel Hempstead precisely because of it's football club, and so I see no problem in tax payers money being used to these ends.

 

Im sure there are some lxxxn fans that live in Watford or Herts that would love a 5% rise in there local taxes to pay for us to stay in the EPL. LMAO We have been very lucky that our owners are football people (they have been in football for over 25 years) They know that the best thing for the club is only good for them.they could have sold the name of the stands but no we have the EJ and GT stand which makes us proud of them . They try and keep the fan base happy without putting the club at risk. .Your ideas are great if you are a big cite club but we are not so we would lose out Im sure there are small town German clubs that could never complete in the top league just because they are a small town and they are not allowed to sell there club

 

What is the difference between patriotism and nationalism Leo ? One is a pretty word the other isn't. A man can have hundreds of different focuses of loyalty - ranging from belonging to an area, town, social class, religious belonging,political orientation.....you could go on and on. Why should the nation state (which is something arbitrary) have priority over the others. After Watford I have 3 other clubs - Ajax Amsterdam, Taunton Town and Liverpool - can you find any common thread between those ? I doubt it - it is all personal, or based on places I have lived. Over and above that - I would definitely support Standard Liege against Chelsea. Because Liege is a very Socialist city (so are their fans) and Chelsea have a high percentage of dodgy right wing ones - apart from which as a 'Commie' I am likely to support the poorer club Seriously I have never understood why I should support one (or a group) of individuals who I have never met, based on their nationality alone. But I will be supporting Liverpool for different reasons to yourself - because I was a Liverpool fan as a boy, and stood on the Kop for a couple of years in the 70s, and because Shanks stood for everything I believed in both in football and in life.

 

I have no idea about the difference between the two. Provided there is no aggression to others involved I don't even care. I am patriotic and love my nation. It is where I was born, grew up , was educated, pay my taxes, raised my children and so on.
I too have multiple levels of loyalty - what is wrong with that? They don't conflict. I have many clubs I sort of "support" - not like Watford but for example Portsmouth because my Dad grew up there and coincidentally it is now my nearest big city. I have even "adopted" clubs from other countries Scotland and Wales - but since I was about 10 and knew about Real Madrid they have been my Spanish side. However England is more important to who I am than some foreign club I have never even been to a match so I will always choose an English club to support faced with a non English one.
I am not into political ideologies so could not give a fig about a socialist club over a non socialist one - if I even cared what that meant.
Unlike many I do not see rich people as any sort of enemy and am not jealous of them. Good luck to people who become rich. Many of them are lovely people and help and support others. There are as many nice - and as many nasty rich as poor people so choosing to support a poor person over a rich one purely for that reason makes no sense to me at all.
All people are equal for me - and that includes rich people.