The Champions (?) League - Nostalgia Alert!

[Shack Attack 0]

I''ve been having a little argument about this at work so I thought I''d see what you lot think. What do you think of the current format of Europe''s premier club competition and how does it compare to the old European Champions Cup.

My opinion is that although the overall level of skill maybe greater today the competition is nowhere near as exciting and as much of an event as it was in before it was changed to The Champions League. I think that this is due to the fact that football has become increasingly homogenised which is mainly due to so many players leaving their countries of birth to play elsewhere. The huge amounts of money that have been brought in to the game by The Champions League has clearly helped this along. In the years before The Champions League you could often tell which country a club came from just by watching them but today, with a few exceptions, most teams at the top level play a very similar style of football. Maybe it''s just nostalgia but I can remember being genuinely excited as a kid at the prospect of rushing home to watch Liverpool take on a team from Eastern Europe who would have such a unique style. Nowadays I just don''t feel that same excitement, why is that?

Part of the reason I feel is the blanket coverage football gets these days. I can remember the excitement when Barcelona played Manchester United in 1983 with Maradona in their side or seeing Platini play for Juve. It was such a rare occurence to see these great players in action that you really had to make the most of it. These days the starting X1 of Barcelona or Milan are almost as familiar to us as those of Arsenal and Manchester United.

I appreciate that it would probably never happen but I''d love to see a return to the old days. The European Champions Cup for league winners, UEFA Cup for the next three places in the league and the return of The Cup Winners Cup. Make a place in the European Cup available for the winners of the other two to increase the prestige of these tournaments and I can''t see much wrong.

Having said all that I''ll probably still tune in to Arsenal v Milan tomorrow. One great team coming towards the end of their dominance against one who are just starting out, should be fascinating.

[whoareyou? 0]

They ruined it as a spectacle the day they stopped it being a knockout competition from the first round. It''s all about money and egos and nothing to do with the best of european football.

[we8wba 0]

I Think the group games are boring and it usually turns into the big teams winning at home and the bigteams drawing away from home

the most exciting thing is really 2nd 3rd place fights in group stage

i wasnt around in the day of the straight knockout, but would like to see that bought back in

think you find lot of the games tonight will be draws then 2nd legs will be really intresting

as to styles i like watching arsenal v the like madrid, milan etc..its more exciting than watching chelsea manutd games

[BlyBlyBabes 0]

[quote user="Shack Attack"]

I''ve been having a little argument about this at work so I thought I''d see what you lot think. What do you think of the current format of Europe''s premier club competition and how does it compare to the old European Champions Cup.

My opinion is that although the overall level of skill maybe greater today the competition is nowhere near as exciting and as much of an event as it was in before it was changed to The Champions League. I think that this is due to the fact that football has become increasingly homogenised which is mainly due to so many players leaving their countries of birth to play elsewhere. The huge amounts of money that have been brought in to the game by The Champions League has clearly helped this along. In the years before The Champions League you could often tell which country a club came from just by watching them but today, with a few exceptions, most teams at the top level play a very similar style of football. Maybe it''s just nostalgia but I can remember being genuinely excited as a kid at the prospect of rushing home to watch Liverpool take on a team from Eastern Europe who would have such a unique style. Nowadays I just don''t feel that same excitement, why is that?

Part of the reason I feel is the blanket coverage football gets these days. I can remember the excitement when Barcelona played Manchester United in 1983 with Maradona in their side or seeing Platini play for Juve. It was such a rare occurence to see these great players in action that you really had to make the most of it. These days the starting X1 of Barcelona or Milan are almost as familiar to us as those of Arsenal and Manchester United.

I appreciate that it would probably never happen but I''d love to see a return to the old days. The European Champions Cup for league winners, UEFA Cup for the next three places in the league and the return of The Cup Winners Cup. Make a place in the European Cup available for the winners of the other two to increase the prestige of these tournaments and I can''t see much wrong.

Having said all that I''ll probably still tune in to Arsenal v Milan tomorrow. One great team coming towards the end of their dominance against one who are just starting out, should be fascinating.

[/quote]

Maybe because you are no longer a kid?

One rationalises and seeks a different angle perhaps?

Frankly, I think it should be straight knockout at this point with replays like the FA Cup - but that is just stargazing, one suspects. 

OTBC

 

[Warminster Yellow 0]

Spot on Shack. It all added to the glamour to be playing against a Spanish team or a team of Italians with their classy football. Now there is every propsect that there will be more Spanish in the English side than the Spanish one. Ditto French.

The game is going downhill and it all due to the Premier League and so-called Champions League and TV money. It all seems great on the surface but dig a little deeper and the rot is setting in. Let''s hope they all disappear into tely satellite land and leave the rest of us to put the package back together again.

 

OTBC

 

[YankeeCanary 0]

Shack, I think nostalgia does play a role for all of us in all facets of life. The great Real Madrid teams of the 1950''s and the, a little later, watching a game against a team with a name like Moscow Dynamo ( when the Cold War was still very much in full bloom ), this makes me think things were so much more exciting then. My perception is the reality of my background. It was exciting to me then and so it will forever remain in my memory as such. Young people today are having their memories created by today''s realities for them and, I am sure, will have similar nostalgia 30 or 40 years from now about what they are actually experiencing in 2008.

I''ll give you another example outside of football. When I first immigrated to Canada in early 1965 I was quickly drawn to the thrill of ice hockey. At that time there were only six professional teams competing. The stars of those teams were still made up of some of the legends coming out of post World War 2 years such as Gordie Howe. The new stars were Bobby Orr, Guy LeFleur  and the like. Everyone in Canada who was interested in hockey ( and that was the majority ) knew everything there was to know about all of the players. When international games were played against the Russians it was a magical experience, never to be forgotten. The National Hockey League began its expansion in 1967, evolving today to 30 teams, containing many of the top eastern European players. For anyone who experienced the magic of pre-expansion and international competition what is occurring today, for us, is a shadow of its former self and most of us refer back to the great days of the Big Six. The level of interest for those of us of that era seems to have waned relative to today''s game. Youngsters of today might listen to our memories for 15 seconds ( if they''re kind ) but it means nothing to them

The reality, however, is that things cannot ever stand still. If they do they will die. The historic ice hockey example I used could not sustain itself in today''s world. The globalization of sports and jet travel, international players, international cable communications, and other technologies that are currently envisioned but not yet a reality will all require a different approach to prepare for a future that is very different than what exists today.

 

 

[Robert N. LiM 6,303]

If it was about football, it would be just the champions, playing in a knockout from the start. It would be much better. Of course, it''s got nothing to do with football, it''s all about money, which is why I never watch it.The worst aspect of it is the predictability that it''s brought to the Champions League and the UEFA Cup. The biggest clubs are always in the CL, so the UEFA Cup has become a tedious irrelevance (it''s hard to take seriously a competition that Middlesbrough can reach the final of under Steve McClaren, after all). The year we were in Europe, we played two of the biggest clubs on the continent - in the UEFA Cup. Given that we are utterly priced out of ever dreaming of competing in the CL, there is no prospect of City ever having such a big game again. On Thursday, Spurs are playing in the UEFA Cup (is it the quarter finals?). Who''s the opposing centre forward? Rueben Sosa? Dennis Bergkamp? No. It''s Dave the Striker.Football is awash with money. And it''s trampled on all our dreams.

[Robert N. LiM 6,303]

[quote user="YankeeCanary"]

The reality, however, is that things cannot ever stand still. If they do they will die. The historic ice hockey example I used could not sustain itself in today''s world. The globalization of sports and jet travel, international players, international cable communications, and other technologies that are currently envisioned but not yet a reality will all require a different approach to prepare for a future that is very different than what exists today.

 [/quote]

In a sense, you''re right, of course, YC. But this remark on Scudamore''s 39th game by Harry Pearson in the Guardian has a lot of truth to it, and is worth chewing over "Standing still is not an option", its chief executive, Richard

Scudamore, said last week as he outlined his proposals for the dynamic

sounding 39th step. To which you may respond: "Well there''s the door,

mate. Walk through it and keep on going."

Some did say that, but

not as many as you might have thought when faced with such lunacy. I

suspect that this is because money is like sex: no man wants to appear

naive about it. It is similar to the times when some bloke down the pub

commences a lurid tale involving Balinese temple-dancers, a waterbed

and a pelican and all the men listening will grin in an "I know what

you mean" sort of way and nod their heads sagely. A lot will do the

same when somebody says: "But the Premier League is a global brand and

it cannot afford to let sentimentality stand in the way of economic

growth." When it comes to money and sex any kind of idealism is all too

easily mistaken for prudishness.

[Beaker 0]

Why armchair fans can no longer be turned on by tales of the unexpected

You probably won’t remember Jeremy Goss and there are not many reasons why you should. He was the sort of footballer for whom the phrase journeyman professional was invented. Played 188 games in midfield for Norwich City, left to join Heart of Midlothian in 1996 and, when that didn’t work out, kicked around the lower leagues with Northampton Town and Colchester United; by 1999 he was turning out for King’s Lynn.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/martin_samuel/article3399350.ece

[whoareyou? 0]

Thta article brings back some great memories. We were the talk of football for 18 months or so then. Top of the first Premier league at Xmas and 8 points clear. Going into Europe and knocking out one of the biggest names.. and all done with some style.!![:D]

Heady days, the like of which we will never see again as long as the money men run football.

[SWP = Poor Mans Ruel Fox!! 0]

Reading that brought back some lovely memories, still can send a shiver down my spine.  Can still remember being at school and running the fastest I ever had done in a cross country race because they were showing the Inter match in the hall for us to watch once we had finished!!

[HappyhammerAndy 0]

My opinion is

I agree that the games have become less exciting, even boring. I don''t think that it is because player''s join teams and play overseas. Arsenal fans, turned up in numbers, trying to create as much noise and atmosphere as in the 60''s and 70''s. The fact that they didn''t have an Englishman in the side made no difference to them and their club.

I think that some of the reasons are  because of the huge increase in the number of inferior sides that have to be allowed to enter the tournament, due to European laws, expansion of Europe, extra revenue for EUFA, and the greater opportunities for advertising and  sponsorship. They need to make the numbers up too, of course. The obvious way out, would be to have a preliminary tournament for the worse off, but all the revenues would disapear, we can''t have that now can we? 

The idea of leagues, made up of seeded teams, where everybody knows who is going to qualify for the later stages and the big clubs are kept apart, turns me off of the tournament until the knockout stage. I think that we have all become turned off by these monotonous European evenings. I might,  (empasise might), rush home to watch Mancs v Barcelona but, Mancs V Sparta Prague/ Herta Berlin etc? Ehh no, pour  me another pint please.

I think that we are luckier here, than many clubs in other countries, as regards the styles of play. Can you imagine going along to watch Bayern Munich V Spartak Moscow, what a night out that must be? At least our teams, at home, are more likely to have a go at the opposition than many on the continent.

If you''re not old enough to have witnessed European nights at say, Anfield with  games like Liverpool V Real Madrid,  20,000 supporters standing in the Kop alone, full of noise, incredible atmosphere, swaying, flags, scarves, with both teams going for a win, you missed something.. The fact that this game could have been drawn out of the hat in the first round, added to  the tournaments appeal.

I remember Jeremy Goss. Scored in Germany didn''t he?

I agree with blanket coverage being a turn off. Boring Euro nights against inferior teams, home and away, yawn! Think how bad it is though if, you''re in the EUFA cup on a thursday night, the day after the Champions League games, Who cares? We were in this last year and it was exciting for us but who else gave a monkeys?

The one that I can''t get my head around, is that you can come 4th in your own league and still win the Champions League!

[Desi Rascall 0]

its the european league,in all but name. I lost intrest in it when it was wieghted towards countries who the sponsors felt could deliver the most affluent audience. Every subsequent adjustment to the rules has seemingly been to prevent shock upsets by the minnows, 

what really irks is that by allowing the knocked out clubs back into the uefa cup,partly because the initial rounds have been stripped of any big names,partly as a financial sweetner,but mostly to deliver a box office draw for the final, they might as well call it the Consolation Cup.No wonder the early phases hardly draw any crowds.