Firstly let me say this isnt a WUM thread but a serious discussion. So please Chelsea fans do not take this as an insult. I thought you massively deserved it last night and played amazingly to get through This year the final will be between chelsea (6th in the PL) and Bayern (will come 2nd in the bundesliga). Thus, neither side will win the CL and their domestic league. In my view this kind of cheapens the achievement. Niehter chelsea or Bayern were champions last year to qualify and niether are going to be champions this year when 1 of them wins it. That means neither side can realistically claim they are the best side in europe should they win it (they have been proven to be worse than united/city and dortmound over 38 games of a league campaign). This situation contrasts with alot of times recently when the champions of europe have also won their domestic league and so must be respected as the greatest side in europe (and therefore the world). Barca won it all last year. Inter the year before. Barca before that and united before them. Full respect to chelsea or munich for winning the CL but i really dont feel like it will make them iconic sides due to their domestic failures. Instead they will go into the same bracket as liverpool when they won it. Sides who just had a cup run and couldnt get it done in the league. With this in mind I think it is a DISGRACE that chelsea will get into next seasons CL if they win it and come 5th this year. That is a joke. If us or spuds prove ourselves as better than them over 38 games then why should they get in the CL ahead of us on the back of a cup win? Makes no sense and is a rule which needs changings.
Sorry, cant agree - every single club knew the rules about qualification so every club in England knew that only 3rd place was definitely enough. Personally I have thought for a long time that Chelsea would win it. The Barca and Real hype is just that - neither have had the game this year to beat tactically sound teams when it mattered. Both Chelsea and Bayern have done an amazing job to get to the final and now its a 50/50 - winning the CL does not mean you are the best team in Europe though. Its a cup competition after all. For us it's simple - win our last 3 games and qualify (although even with 3rd we could have to play an early qualifying round - if Chelsea win it). For me the Champions of Europe should get the chance to defend their title. As much as I dislike Chelsea, if we dont qualify for the CL we only have ourselves to blame. It's on a knife edge for us - do it and we could improve next year, fail and we will see players leave and find it much harder to recruit the likes of Podolski, M'Vila and Vertoghnen. Crucial times for our club.
I think the CL winner deserves the chance to attempt to defend their CL title, however I agree with a rule change...4th should still go through. It worked fine when we did it in '05 and Everton still got into the qualifiers. I mean even the champions of the Welsh PL get the chance to qualify and they aint even the best team in Wales. By the way, has anyone actually successfully defended a CL title?
It would be a massive achievement for Chelsea because they've beaten Barcelona and will be winning their first CL. It would be the crowning career achievement for players like Lampard, Drogba, Cech and Cole. I feel like Lampard deserves it more than anyone because of his loyalty to the club, For Bayern it would be momentous because they would have once again proved their quality against the hype of Spain and England. They have the most complete team imo and deserve to be rated as highly, if not higher than Real Madrid and Barcelona. And, of course the winners should play in the competition next year. It would be ridiculous if they didn't. However, there should be 5 English teams, because one team's success in the CL has no bearing on another team's success in the Premiership. They're not related unless you talk about fitness from playing more games.
Why? That was a rubbish tournament with awful teams from poor leagues playing later rounds instead of the likes of Barca / Madrid each year. Example - Here was LIverpools run to the 1976/7 Final: Round 1 : Crusaders 0 - 7 Liverpool Round 2 : Trabzonspor 1 - 3 Liverpool Quarter-final : Saint-Ãtienne 2 -3 Liverpool Semi-Final : FC Zürich 1-6 Liverpool Great acheivement eh? That old and rubbish format is the reason clubs like Liverpool and Real won so many trophies. They played deadwood for most of the tournament up to the last stages and in some cases got to finals not having to play a single decent side. Sometimes people just use this cliche 'it should just be champions' because they have heard someone else say it and because the Tournament is called the Champions League. They rarely think hard enough or know what they are talking about. The tournament is now much better and much harder to win.
Well that wouldnt be so bad. But I still dont see why winning it should get you into it. I get why uefa do it - MONEY. But that is the wrong motivation I think. You should have to earn your way into next years CL through consistancy int he league. Thats why winning domestic cups doesnt get you into the CL after all. And nobody has retained the CL in its current format. Last side to defend the EC was Milan I think.
True. I prefer some happy medium like existed when they first expanded the competition though. Just 4 groups then quarters semis and finals. Thats 16 teams int he groups to keep it top notch. It would also mean the europa league was more meaningful and would mean there wouldnt be such a huge money gap between that and the cl
But which 16 teams? Do we exclude the smaller leagues? Or do we have 10 useless teams and 6 good ones? The current format is the perfect balance of keeping the quality high and ensuring some great games in the knockout stages and allowing some of the smaller countries to get their teams playing at the top level. I dont think the tournament could be any more perfect than it already is.
Hate, when people do this, not just about football. The 'oh it was better back in the day' bollocks. Can't help but feel that most of it is because of nostalgic reasons.
What do you think of the way the champions are now getting more byes into the CL proper now? Imo it will make for alot of 1 club leagues where 1 club has many more resources and just dominates that league for ever. That is bad.
To be honest mate I think we have had (and still have) two problems: 1, We play too attacking vs the top sides in europe. (now and in the past) 2, We dont have good enough players (not in the past but now)
I can't see how you can complain that a side which is not a champion is about to win the Champions League and then turn around and say its a disgrace that the champions of Europe would qualify ahead of the team which finished 4th in their domestic league. The winners of the Champions League deserve to be in the competition the following year, much more so than the team which finishes 4th.
Under Wenger Arsenal will never win the CL. I am sure of that. The kind of character and tactical awareness shown by both Chelsea and Munich is beyond a Wenger team. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. After trying for 14 years, it's no good saying we have to learn from it. We dont learn.
Not sure how you can be that certain. One year, it really could just go for us and the team could click and go on that run. We did reach a final once and just like that year, we could one day do something similar, with hopefully a better outcome in the final. The CL as hard as it is, its still a cup competition.
That is an argument to expand the tournament. Some smaller leagues get 1 team in it - and yes it will mean they get more resources, but in truth , even with cash, its hard for clubs from smaller leagues to attract and keep the best players in the world, so money is less of a factor. There have been several new 'entrants' to the CL over the years. Look how well APOEL did this year.
Well its because I dont believe in Wenger's ability to outsmart a coach like Mourinho, or to motivate his players enough that they will be switched on for 90 minutes. Simple as that really. Just my view.
Yes buts its bad for the smaller leagues when the same side will keep getting into the cl every year because they have 20x the money of anyone else. Their leagues wont get much tv money or gate receipts so the cl money that 1 club gets could be worth 20x their turnover. Making them basically the champions every year for eternity.
Why do we have to play a Jose team? The draw could go for us and we could avoid him and maybe even a few difficult teams. We will probably have to face a few hard teams, but Wenger has shown in that past that he can beat big teams over two legs. Never say never.
