Champions league or European Cup ?

[Khalekan]

Being devils advocate, and not being a huge fan of the CL basically cos of the cash the clubs get and we dont, it does usually produce the best side in Europe as winners. An unlucky draw, or dodgy performance aside in the knock out stages.

But that is exactly what happens when the knock out part kicks in, Roydo.

All the group stage does is delay the inevitable luck of the draw, one bad night away from an exit scenario.

In order to have it truly finding the best team in Europe it would need to be a league running through the season, teams playing each other home and away and no knock out involved.

Which I am not advocating, BTW, as that would make it a season long borefest instead of a three month one

 

[Toast]

More pointless games tonight and even more tomorrow.

Would going down to 3 English sides help with the interest ?

 

[Brendan Janus]

I want all the English sides out of all European competitions as soon as possible. If we can't win one of them, I definitely don't want any other English side winning one of them, unfortunately it has happened a fair few times !!

 

[njligernj]

Some people (mostly old school types) believe it should be only champions.

From what I've found most people generally want to watch a Euro tourney with all the best teams.

The Champions League does not have all the best teams.

Tel Aviv beat FC Santa Coloma and Maribor to get the CL group stages.

Is there a single football fan on the face of planet earth that thinks FC Santa Coloma and Maribor (or for that matter Tel Aviv) are better teams than Spurs and Everton?

Are those teams even better than mid-table Prem sides? Relegation? Championship?

I obviously want CL for Everton for many reasons but it isn't because I like the CL. The CL is silly and the idea of just gifting these no-mark teams a spot just degrades the competition for me from a pure fan perspective. Real Madrid knocking 8 past Malmo is inevitable and utterly pointless.

The FA Cup has its magic because it lets everyone in. Letting just "some" bad teams in means upsets will be far more rare (and who is resting players in the CL unless it's a game after you already qualified for next round? Ronaldo played v. Malmo for crying out loud ... did they need him? They played him. You won't find much FA Cup magic here).

Lots of ways to get more good teams in a competition it doesn't really matter HOW they do it to me ... just that they do it (which they won't).

To answer OP: I'd take a knock-out featuring all Europa and CL teams and a coefficient system that regulated numbers of entrants from each league based on success of that league in the comp with no max numbers.

 

[Minimeister]

I can't wait every year to see Arsenal v Galatasaray for the 16th time with neither team having a prayer of winning it.

 

[the golden visionary]

Straight knock out with no seedings. Only the champions with 2nd-4th plus cup winners in the secondary comp.

Its the old euro uefa cup format, but they fixed something that wasn't broke as it didn't make enough money