Not Saints related (not yet anyway...) but does anybody else share the opinion that the Champions League has turned rather dull these last few years. I find myself having very little interest in what happens during the group stage and then I watch the knockout stages with anticipation only for the same end result to happen time and time again. In my opinion the competition has lost it's charm and that's largely down to the predictability of it all. In the Group Stage; you've got your big teams who never seem to fail to reach the knock out stages, your medium teams who always speak of hope but never get anywhere (apart from dropping into the Europa League, which is probably more exciting and unpredictable). And then you've got your small obscure teams, that nobody's ever heard of. Sometimes they get a result against larger sides but often to no avail as they nearly always crash out early. Then on we go to the knockout stage; 'Europe's elite'. We always ask who's going to make the final? Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, one of the Milan teams? No, it's Barcelona v An English side - guaranteed. The English side talk the talk - 'it's our year' etc etc and the media hype them up. But after a few ticka-tacka passes and the likes of Messi, David Villa and Xavi attacking one of the goals no end, there's only ever one winner. And then we go on to the next year and we start the whole process all over again... boring!
yes its dull - too many games - all so these clubs can get richer. the only way to make it interesting for me is to remove group stages, go back to knockout all the way and enter southampton as a wildcard.
Agreed, I have lost all interest in the competition this year. Personally, it should be a knock out from the start but obviously its never going to happen because of all the sponsorship and for small teams who end up drawing big teams in the group stage so get bigger gate receipts.
I hope Messi and co are all still playing when we give them a footballing lesson in a couple of years
ah yes - and put it back to CHAMPIONS. - not the 4th placed team from a league. lets have the elite playing each other home and away, loser going into the 400game europa league(thats another story for another post). And maybe in 6 or7 years southampton wont need to be a wildcard - well i can dream
There are some mouthwatering games on tonight. How to choose between Man Utd vs Otelul Galati, Trabsonspor vs CSKA Moscow, or Ajax vs Dinamo Zagreb? Personally i'd rather watch Derby vs Cardiff.
As said above and as I have said many times (grumpy old man before my time maybe) Champions League has been boring since it became 'The not' really champions League. Should return to be only the champions. The other point raised above is very notable. It is boring knowing the last 8 will comprise of at least 2 (but normally 3) of English and Spanish sides with Bayern making the 7th spot and someone else making the last of the 8. Boring boring boring. Even if Saints finished 2nd, 3rd or 4th I would feel the same even though it would be nice to play in the CL. Would much prefer the CL to be champions only and EUFA to return to being the next best rather than the 'not good enoughs'
I prefer watching the Europa League and if we got into any European competition I would love it to be the Europa League. Teams we could beat, even now I reckon we could beat a few, look at Birmingham. And some of the places you will go abroad to watch your team, you would never of thought've going. You get a few fairly big clubs, the likes of Porto last year etc. It would be cheaper on the match tickets too!
The downside of playing in Europa League is playing matches on Thursdays and Sundays which disruptive to league campaign
The group stages are almost universally dull, but there's a little intrigue this year. After four matches, a group featuring Porto, Shakhtar and Zenit -- two of the twelve best teams in Europe plus the twenty-third best by UEFA's arcane rankings -- find themselves staring up the table at a club from Cyprus that had never before won a game in the group stage (and only ever made it there once).
To give a brief answer to the question: Has the Champions League become dull? I've never felt it to be anything but dull. To me it should be as it was before money, and the greedy lust for it, took over football: A straight knock-out competition involving the CHAMPIONS of each European country.
It's been dull for years for me. I will sometimes watch the knock-out matches on ITV (mainly just to drool over Barcelona when they're on, but partly also because there is often actually something really riding on those game), but I haven't watched more than about 15 minutes of a group game for at least 3 years now. It's basically just the same group of teams, every single year. I swear an English side gets drawn against Porto and/or Marseille each year. Allowing three or four sides from each of the big european football nations into the competiton each season means that the big sides can afford a bit of an iffy domestic season and still usually qualify to the following season's Champions League. And whilst the entrants from the smaller nations may change each year, they are just not strong enough to compete and invariably fail to get out of their groups. If the big boys want their own money-making play thing, well let them have it. I don't really care. But to get me interested again, change is badly required. And it can start by having a maximum of two entrants per country (ideally just the Champions however).
Well indeed. Besides, are Saints in the Champions League..? No..! Then why the **** would you want to watch it for..?
Pointless teams like Saints moaning though. It would need to be the 'top 6' moaning. If we put this post cross boards the replies would be: 'If you were in it you wouldn't be complaining and you wouldn't say it was boring' That would be a very brave chairman who was in the Champions League/UEFA elite that would make that stand. Dare I say even foolish considering the financial aspect that his/her club has. I can't ever see it returning to Champions only though unless viewing figures diminish and there is no sign of that!!!
I'm quite the opposite. if it is Barcelona I won't watch it. 100 passes to go across midfield, to the byline, back to midfield, to the edge of the box, back to midfield is more boring than West Ham and Peterborough to me. I only watch Man U because you know they will play great attacking football without the zillion pointless passes. ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK not ATTACK, ermm no lets go back then ATTACK, errm no LETS go back. I'll concede though that if Barcelona played like Man Utd they would score 8,9,10 goals a game and this is what they should do 60 shots a game with 8,9,10 goals rather than 10 shots with 4,5 goals surrounded by 70% of pointles sideways and backward passing.
