Alex99
Rehab's Pete Doherty
- Joined
- May 30, 2009
- Messages
- 15,908
The Champions League format is harder to win than the old European Cup format, but the old format was harder to qualify for, due to it being purely for domestic champions. It is just pure nostalgia that makes people say that it was harder (and probably some disdain for the "Champions" League including non-champions).Yes and no. In its early iterations, you’d see the Champions of Poland beat the Champions of France in the home leg, then lose away. Madrid would lose or draw away, then win at home. They simply were not weak teams and easy fixtures. It was a different world.
It’s the removal of those teams (along with societal/travel/technology factors) that’s seen them get worse. Those matches you mention were far more competitive than yours suggesting. Not all, but many.
UEFA has pandered to cash and handed it to the wealthy, as it always does. This next turn is going to bake that in further. They’ve removed two legged ties. It’s all now a procession to the final 16 and it’s getting worse. We’re 20 years removed from the last shock winner. It’s boring as feck. But we get it fed to us and the masses chug it down.
The knockout era European Cup was exciting from the first round, or course the best teams won more games, but they weren’t handed an almost guaranteed Quarter Final place.
I’m probably arguing for spectacle rather than against difficulty now, I guess the truth is somewhere between our respective views.
You talk about how competitive some of the old fixtures were as if modern fixtures aren't competitive, and about how the modern format is "a procession to the final 16" as if the final 16 didn't used to be literally the first or second round in the old format.
In the final iteration of the European Cup, Marseille beat Union Luxembourg 10-0 on aggregate, Benfica beat Hamrun Spartans 10-0, Red Star Belgrade beat Portadown 8-0, and Sampdoria beat Rosenborg 7-1 to reach the final 16. This trend continues pretty much every single season, right back to the first ever European Cup (where the first round was the final 16) with Real Madrid beating Servette 7-0, Rapid Wien beating PSV 6-2, Voros Lobogo beating Anderlecht 10-4, and Hibernian beating Rot-Weiss Essen 5-1 to reach the quarter-finals.
You still get freak results in the knockout stage now, but they're generally much rarer.
There were simply too many shit teams compared to good teams in the old format for it to be a harder competition to win, and while the lack of seeding might have occasionally matched up two heavyweights in an early round, it also meant that some of the dross was progressing further than they should have been because their early ties were against equally as poor teams. Bar an unlucky draw, the best teams generally found themselves with two (or even one) eminently winnable ties before they were in the quarter-finals, which is about as close to handing them a spot as you can get.
In the modern format, that dross has to go through multiple qualifying rounds to even reach the group stage. The group stage then requires a degree of consistency from the teams to progress, as even the worst sides are now generally champions of middling footballing nations, and not pub-level teams from tiny nations. You have to play six games to reach the last 16 (going up to eight or ten in the new format, depending on position), with the last 16 very much being the realm of the very best teams.
For the record, they've not done away with two legged ties in the new format because they'll still be there in the knockout rounds. What they have done is created an odd four home, four away, against eight different teams league stage, with half of those games coming against teams you'd typically find in the highest two pots. I don't think it's a good format, and I agree that it's a cash grab from UEFA, but that doesn't mean it's an easier format.
You don't even understand your own point: "We’re 20 years removed from the last shock winner."
Yes, because the competition is now much harder to win. You play more games against more, good sides, so it requires far fewer big results for a "shock win".
The truth is not between our respective views. The modern format is harder to win, and you've just acknowledged yourself that what you are actually arguing for is spectacle. That's a more subjective point, but I can at least see the argument for the older format being more exciting, as knockout football generally is.