UEFA Champions League - is it still exciting you?

[RMCF]

Having watched the 2 nights 'action' from the start of this season's CL all I can say is its reaffirming my suspicion that the competition is dying as TV entertainment.

Nearly all of the games were pretty dire, yet the 'big' teams still won as expected, even by playing awful.

I did welcome UEFAs decision to try to introduce more champions into it this season, but most of these teams look like they belong in the Europa League at best. And thats not forgeting how average a lot of the 'big' teams look.

So many people I have spoken to about this weeks action agree that the competition doesn't start until early March next year, and all this nonsense provides no real shocks and is just a chance to bring in some TV money. But the fans will soon tire of watching rubbish. You already see empty stadiums in nearly every game.

I now find the national leagues more entertaining.

PS I hope you all don't think I'm only slagging of the CL as Madrid have got knocked out in the last 16 for 5 years running I watched their game v Zurich, and for a 7 goal game it was very average entertainment.

[lee12]

Yeah it's not been great has it... The only suprising result for me was Rangers picking up a draw. The group stage seems to have become a formality for the biggest teams, it's just too predictable to get excited about. The Arsenal tie wasn't bad but can't say it was edge of the seat stuff or bestowed by skill. And how the ref didn't spot the handball I'll never know...

[Officer M168]

Get rid of seeding & include champions only!

[sdb123]

It's the same every season....I only really enjoy it when the group stages are out of the way.

[Coffin]

Originally Posted by RMCF

Nearly all of the games were pretty dire, yet the 'big' teams still won as expected, even by playing awful.

Err..the first round of games are rarely exciting.

I love the CL!

[Nik555]

Originally Posted by Officer M168

Get rid of seeding & include champions only!

Like it used to be. Dont know why they call it Champions League

Nik

[dazza74]

Doesn't do much for me until you get to the knockout stages. I don't know what the alternative is though either. It's not practical really to cut the amount of groups down to 4 with 8 teams in each because how would the clubs fit in all the extra games. If you do away with the seeding you could end up with nobody wanting to watch the later stage games if to many big clubs get knocked out. How many teams can make it the quarter and semi's of the world cup if they get the luck of the draw.

Does make me wonder though whether once you get outside the English, French, German, Italian, Spanish & Portugese leagues whether the teams do have enough quality to claim a place in this tournament. Has anyone outside of these nations ever made it to the semi's in the champions league for example.

We could surely argue with the competitiveness of our league that a top 6 qualification from the EPL wouldn't be unreasonable I feel currently.

[BlackCountryBob]

Originally Posted by dazza74

Does make me wonder though whether once you get outside the English, French, German, Italian, Spanish & Portugese leagues whether the teams do have enough quality to claim a place in this tournament. Has anyone outside of these nations ever made it to the semi's in the champions league for example.

Ajax, PSV, Red Star Belgrade, Dynamo Kyev and Panathaikos have all made the semis since 1992 but the problem is that once these teams start to do well (much the same for smaller teams in big leagues like Sevilla, Villareal and Bayer Leverkusen) then the traditional power clubs step in and buy their best players leaving them back where they started.

The groups are really little more than an earner, a guaranteed income for the big clubs. That said, there are sometimes some good matches but it seems that the English clubs in particular have been able to in the past few years transfer the premier league skill of winning with an understrength team while not playing well, such is the gulf in class (read wealth) between the best in England and Spain and the rest of Europe.

[DJACID]

i still love it,
but for me it gets even more exciting once the teams are into knockout stage.....

[JohnG]

Something I've noticed about the matches involving English teams playing at home is that the atmosphere was none existent compared to the ones at foreign grounds. The Chelsea game sounded like a training session to me and the Everton game wasn't much better. I couldn't watch the Chelsea game due to the lack of atmospherel, compare that to the game at Besiktas and the difference was startling.

[dazza74]

Originally Posted by JohnG

Something I've noticed about the matches involving English teams playing at home is that the atmosphere was none existent compared to the ones at foreign grounds. The Chelsea game sounded like a training session to me and the Everton game wasn't much better. I couldn't watch the Chelsea game due to the lack of atmospherel, compare that to the game at Besiktas and the difference was startling.

Not sure whether they still do it but Arsenal season tickets used to include the champions league games as well. Always thought this was a great idea as your guaranteeing attendance to these games. I think you also get the FA cup games just not the carling cup.

[** Verve **]

Keep the group stages, do away with the seeding altogether so that it is a completely random draw.

Yeah you might get some groups full of so-called smaller teams, but imagine a group with 4 top teams in. You can't say it wouldn't be exciting if there was a group containing Liverpool, Man Utd, Barca and Real Madrid

[sdb123]

Originally Posted by JohnG

Something I've noticed about the matches involving English teams playing at home is that the atmosphere was none existent compared to the ones at foreign grounds. The Chelsea game sounded like a training session to me and the Everton game wasn't much better. I couldn't watch the Chelsea game due to the lack of atmospherel, compare that to the game at Besiktas and the difference was startling.

Any atmosphere is non-existant compared to that in top-flight Turkish football.

[JohnG]

Originally Posted by sdb123

Any atmosphere is non-existant compared to that in top-flight Turkish football.

True, but it was a much better atmosphere from the home fans in the Arsenal game as well, I think our home matches in Europe are just boring crowd wise these days - unless it's some kind of grudge match or a top team. The only real singing I heard at Everton was from the away fans, you wouldn't have got that in Athens!

[Officer M168]

Only seed the champions & winner from last tournament then !
So the Champions can't be together in the 1st round. But you can be put with a nation of the same.
Or 1st do a 2 leg knock out until there are enough teams to fill 4 leagues of 4 then play each other home and away. the winners of the 4 leagues play each other in a round robin to find the two finalist ?