European competitions

[Red Zone]

All 16 teams that make the last 16 of the Champions League from the top 5 leagues so no Ajax romance story this year. UEFA must be jizzin themselves with excitement whilst the rest of us are bored sh1tless with the predictability.

Roll on the Super League so they can all p1ss off and leave the rest of us to maybe get a bit of a chance to play European football as it should be played

[The_Moog]

All 16 teams that make the last 16 of the Champions League from the top 5 leagues so no Ajax romance story this year. UEFA must be jizzin themselves with excitement whilst the rest of us are bored sh1tless with the predictability.

Roll on the Super League so they can all p1ss off and leave the rest of us to maybe get a bit of a chance to play European football as it should be played

In effect this is the European Super League - took them a while to rig things to get to this point but it’s here, now.

All they have to do is find a way to shoehorn in more of the big clubs fae the top 5 leagues that missed out like Man U this year.

I’m sure they’ll find a way.

Like EPL I don’t watch it. Absolutely zero interest. I don’t really understand why folk watch loads of fitba involving teams they don’t support but there you go.

I’ve not had Sky Sports for years, absolutely fuuck all chance i’ll ever have Premier Sports with their Sevco v Stranraer pish.

I’ve got BT sport but that goes in the new year when I dump the utterly inept BT as my broadband provider.

I doubt I’ll ever subscribe to any of them again. I doubt even less I’ll miss them in the slightest...

[StandfreeFM]

In effect this is the European Super League - took them a while to rig things to get to this point but it’s here, now.

All they have to do is find a way to shoehorn in more of the big clubs fae the top 5 leagues that missed out like Man U this year.

I’m sure they’ll find a way.

Like EPL I don’t watch it. Absolutely zero interest. I don’t really understand why folk watch loads of fitba involving teams they don’t support but there you go.

I’ve not had Sky Sports for years, absolutely fuuck all chance i’ll ever have Premier Sports with their Sevco v Stranraer pish.

I’ve got BT sport but that goes in the new year when I dump the utterly inept BT as my broadband provider.

I doubt I’ll ever subscribe to any of them again. I doubt even less I’ll miss them in the slightest...

Agreed. Fu(k the Champions League. Anyone that watches even 1 game is basically a hun

[Aldo1983]

Due to the results earlier, good chance Scotland will get two super duper champions league places. Fantastic for Scottish football*



*Huns and Tims

[Red Zone]

Due to the results earlier, good chance Scotland will get two super duper champions league places. Fantastic for Scottish football*



*Huns and Tims

We actually dropped out of the top 15 (where we need to be to get five teams in Europe) last night but I agree it looks likely we will end the year in the top 15. It is two points for a win and one for a draw in each game of the knock out rounds so basically for the teams currently in 13th to 17th place we are 4 points behind Denmark (one team left), 3 behind the Czech Republic (no teams left), 1 behind Cyprus (1 team left) and 4 points ahead of Greece (1 team left)

[rico94]

Cheers

At the end of the day European football was f@cked when losers started to prosper. Second in the league getting into the champions league, then third and fourths. It led to issues in other tournaments

Then the champions league drop outs going into the UEFA cup came into being making it harder for the teams that qualified via their own leagues

The champions league led to the scrapping of the CWC because the cup winners of nations were usually in the top three or four so rarely went into it. The CWC was a fine tournament. Not because we won it. Because you got the likes of Bayern, Milan, Ajax, Real Madrid, Juventus in it. it was packed with Euro heavyweights that hadn't won their league. It also threw up plenty of shock winners. Ourselves obviously but there were also Magdeburg, Dinamo Tblisi, Slovan Bratislava, Mechelen, Real Zaragoza. It was the most romantic of the three. Sadly missed

But what im getting at is that UEFA didn't bat an eyelid while carrying out these changes. So they wont give a f@ck at making a closed shop or this only certain teams bullsh@t. European fitbas f@cked beyond fixing and nothing will surprise me.

All we can hope for is the w@nker money ball teams to f@ck off and leave the rest of Europe behind to start afresh

Untill then I wouldn't care if we qualified again because teams like Aberdeen are not supposed to do well in Europe. That's why we play four rounds before the groups

I agree with you there pac,it was better with the 3 European trophies,it became a farce when the 2nd, 3rd and 4th teams got into the “Champions League “ and they scrapped the cup winners cup.

Uefa are only interested in making the big clubs richer,I know some don’t like to believe it but football is all about money now.

All of the sponsors have no interest in clubs like us getting to the later stages of tournaments,they want the same teams playing each other again and again.

[Pacman1903]

I agree with you there pac,it was better with the 3 European trophies,it became a farce when the 2nd, 3rd and 4th teams got into the “Champions League “ and they scrapped the cup winners cup.

Uefa are only interested in making the big clubs richer,I know some don’t like to believe it but football is all about money now.

All of the sponsors have no interest in clubs like us getting to the later stages of tournaments,they want the same teams playing each other again and again.

European trophies are not designed for Aberdeen or scottish clubs. UEFA are @rseholes and have royally f@cked up the set up. The death of the ECWC was the end. Fantastic tournament where magic could happen. As we know

Everyone should read this book. A Tournament Frozen in Time: The Wonderful Randomness of the European Cup Winners Cup by Steven Scragg. For football romantics. If you dinna miss the ECWC after reading it the you are a gimp. One of the best books ive read.

Gothenburg..... Magic

3rd tier Newport County in the quarter final......magic

Real Madrid reserves(Castilla) qualifying...... Magic

A Carl Jeiss Jena v Dinamo Tbilisi european final....... Magic

Only one team won it more than twice as it was so random..... Magic

Lobo Carasco the only player to have three medals as it was so random....... Magic


European fitba is pish* and on the whole is boring at the upper echelons. The Europa is definitely a better more interesting tournament than the Chump League




*Coming fae a boy who was at Wolves v Besiktas in the fairs cup last night

[BogBrush1903]

Everyone should read this book. A Tournament Frozen in Time: The Wonderful Randomness of the European Cup Winners Cup by Steven Scragg. For football romantics. If you dinna miss the ECWC after reading it the you are a gimp. One of the best books ive read.

I'll read this Pac, never judge a book by its cover but I do like it. Dinamo Tbilisi v Carl Zeiss Jena was the lowest crowd ever to attend a European final, something around 3,000. Perversely, I find something magical in that, although it was due in part to the ideological separation in Europe and restrictions on travel for those in Eastern European, or behind the Iron Curtain as was the euphemism of the day.

The finals now are all about creating drama before a ball is kicked and slickly run by corporate suits. It's become boring and tiring. The watcher finds it hard to differentiate one final from another as they all look the same.

To play devil's advocate, would a run by Atlanta not be more romantic than run by the horrible Ajax?

I do enjoy the Europa League though, up until the latter stages and have been to Feynoord v YBB and F91 Dudelange v APOEL in the last month.

@Pacman Have you read Europe United: 1 football fan. 1 crazy season. 55 UEFA nations yet?

[donsdaft]

Playing in Europe is the only decent thing left, we'll have to invent our own tournament though.

Knock out, home and away,Wednesday night football (dates taken from 2020)

1st Round - 5th and 12th August

2nd Round - 19th and 26th August

3rd Round - 9th and 23rd September

4th Round - 7th and 21st October

5th Round - 4th and 18th November

Quarter Finals - 10th and 24th March

Semi Finals - 7th and 21st April

Final - 12th May




Check my arithmetic but that's 256 clubs in the tournament.

No bloody seeding and if International games get in the way, f'uck them.
If the bigger teams are weakened by being missing some of their players then even better.

[deedon]

Draw coming up for the Champions League. Only 16 teams in it, but no two teams from the same country can be drawn against each other. WTF not?