Don't feel sorry for the spuds at all. 4th shouldn't be good enough to quality for the "champions" league anyway. Neither should 3rd or probably 2nd in truth. If the spuds couldn't even finish above us then they deserve nothing. If Platini and co genuinely cared about the integrity of the game they wouldn't be trying to expand this competition to a point where it has become a second league. They say one thing and do the opposite.
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I don't get the enmity for the name of the competition. It's called the Champions League because the winners become the Champions of Europe surely. If it was as you say it should be, it should be called the League Champions League.
It replace the Euro Cup so that's a convenient rather than accurate way of looking at it. We moan about Arsenal winning the 4th place cup all the time but if this silly Euro comp didn't exist in its silly form where basically everyone gets in maybe we would have focused on domestic cups and actually winning the league instead. It's a disruptive foreign league that runs smack in the middle of our season. And most of the games are atrocious, anything but champion levels of football on display. All so people who are already filthy rich can get even richer. I view the tournament in much the same way at the European Union - unnecessary and unrepresentative. At least the money should go back to the various leagues rather than into the pockets of a few clubs who are already financially ahead of the rest. This is more like a corporate thing than sport, monopoly instead of competition.
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And calling it the European Cup is slightly inaccurate when you can win er, other, European cups in the same season. The reason for the eventual expansion to 32 teams happened (and this didn't come in to play for 92/93 when it started) I think was so that it has a direct competitionn with the World Cup.
As for whether we'd focus on the league solely, or indeed the cups is debatable. Sometimes I think we forget the gravy train we have as the domestic competition and in recent years we'll get more money from that than what we do from the Champions League.
I don't see the point in arguing about the quality of matches (even though I would say you're wrong) but would the quality of those games really be any better if it went back to the 'old' format?
No, but there would be less games to endure and less impact on our domestic season. It's just money replacing excellence again, isn't it? Another way to scalp the fans. We've even had to cut the amount of teams in our leagues and play less games to accommodate this shit. The whole group stage thing is shit, it's even seeded to favour the big clubs. We know who's getting through and then it becomes a knockout comp anyway so why bother with all that boring shit beforehand? It's just for the money.
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