How shyte is the Europa League ?

Absolutely agree. Complete rubbish

Utter ****

Nobody cares about winning it, well may be the crappy teams, so what is the point, if nobody needs it?

Sadly I agree.  Thursdays are a disaster as is the format.

In my opinion would be wiser to use Thursday as another day for the CL, so people would be able to see more matcves. But the current format of the CL is already much better then several years ago, when everybody played on the same day.

Europa League = The Graveyard Of The Football Coupon

Juventus game is good, better team are losing though

Get rid of the whole thing like they did with the European Cup Winners Cup, what makes it more of a chrade is teams from the Champions League dropping in when finishing 3rd in their groups, you couldn't be more disrespectful to a comp if you tried, Chelsea winning last year when they didn't even care was a joke

champions league games this week been poor too, total mismatches

Feb 20, 2014 -- 7:53PM, morpteh mackem wrote:

champions league games this week been poor too, total mismatches

Says it all when not one home team scored a goal!

Just wait til the return legs when ties are basically done and dusted.

Feb 20, 2014 -- 7:52PM, mesmerised wrote:

Get rid of the whole thing like they did with the European Cup Winners Cup, what makes it more of a chrade is teams from the Champions League dropping in when finishing 3rd in their groups, you couldn't be more disrespectful to a comp if you tried, Chelsea winning last year when they didn't even care was a joke

If they get rid of this then it will be a 64 team CL diluting that competition until its like this, besides this is the best football competition to bet on bar none

Eastenders is better then the football tonight!

Turn over to the darts, fantastic entertainment

Whats a good bet tonight then?

It's like watching Arsenal on a Thursday night...a competition full of diddy teams who never win nothin

Back Lewis and lay Wright imo

the first bunch of games but , sorry to spoil the moan, the Swansea/Napoli game is excellent so far. Both sides going for it.

^^^ 'first bunch of games was garbage...'

EUROPA LEAGUE AND CAPITAL ONE CUP SHOULD BE DISBANDED.

THE FA CUP SHOULD BE VOLUNTARY TO ENTER.

ALSO MAYBE A CASE FOR THE GROUP STAGES OF THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE TO BE DONE AWAY WITH ASWELL.

I'D ALSO LIKE TO SEE MAN UTD BANNED FROM PLAYING FOOTBALL COS THEY ARE FECKING CRAP.

Got to agree this comp is a total waste, teams that dont want to be involved really so put out 2nd strings , stadiums half full. Too win it you have to play about 50 games, I wish I had more control and would never bet on this tripe as far too many funny results, cant see it still going in 10 years imo.

6 draws 2 away wins,waste of time.It's silverware,but nobody wants trophies,just cash.

The answer is,increase the prize money for winning it and award 2 places in the cl group stages for the finalists.Soon see a change then.

it does get a lot better once down to the last 8 or so as all the teams remaining are in it to win it at that stage.

It's a crock of the purest shyte. By rights I should be fuming that Spurs just got beat by a bunch of Cossack hillbillies, but I'd rather they lost the return as well.

Feb 20, 2014 -- 11:34PM, jed.davison wrote:

It's a crock of the purest shyte. By rights I should be fuming that Spurs just got beat by a bunch of Cossack hillbillies, but I'd rather they lost the return as well.

You could have just done some research instead?

sorry cj, you've lost me.

UEFA have a lot to answer for.

I think the general standard of football is dropping everywhere...it's only the media and TV companies that tell us otherwise.

You get the odd good game but by and large it's mostly an unmemorable competition. I can't remember who won 2-3-4-5 years ago.

Sevilla vs Betis.
Porto vs Napoli.
Spurs vs Benfica.
Juve vs Fiore.
AZ vs Anzhi.
Ludogerets vs Valencia.
Lyon vs Plzen.
Basel vs Salzburg.

I'll have some of that. Told you it gets better. Seville Derby will be epic!

....maybe to give it some gravitas they should award the last 8 teams with an entry in the Champions lge qualifying for the following year.!!!!!

8s to many mate, what about last 4

yes...last 4 then.....guaranteed place in  champs lge qualifying...

..a very big incentive for everyone.

Could be for the better of football imo, altho u gota think what would it do to the fa cup

...and if you got to the last 4 it would be deserved.....lots of travelling in the early rounds and some pretty decent teams to beat in the knockout stages.

At last a win for an EPL club in Europe   and your moaning the comp is shoite ....

thursday night channel 5 ....dont knock it

egner 27 Feb 14 23:12 
yes...last 4 then.....guaranteed place in  champs lge qualifying...




The problem with that is that most sides reaching the last 4 will already be in next seasons champions league qualifying anyway.

Sevilla vs Betis.
Porto vs Napoli.
Spurs vs Benfica.
Juve vs Fiore.
AZ vs Anzhi.
Ludogerets vs Valencia.
Lyon vs Plzen.
Basel vs Salzburg

All of the sides in bold are already pretty likely to be in next years CL.

wayne rooney will be playing in the europa league next season. i'd pay £300,000 a week not to have to play in that joke competition full of minnow club sides from far reaching places.

I think the last 16 teams in the Europa should be guaranteed a place in the Champions League.

No don't kill it off. They can breathe new life into it by turning it into an open non-seeded knock out competition.

No leagues, none of that direness. And don't allow the CL teams to compete.

I'd watch that...

yes biscuit...that is a prob;lem....

..maybe you then go to the next team in line...so the 4 who have gone the farthest in the competition without qualifying for champs lge through other means get the chance to.

The CL is boring until it gets to the knock out stage. It's just a way for the big clubs to exploit the masses by bleeding us dry. The Europa League is a safety net and is also used to bleed money from put upon fans.

bang on highlander: all the European comps are carp and so is the world cup nowadays. it's all a big carve up for big business to make money.. end of.

Seeding in the WC makes it boring. All the 'top names' seem to progress one way or the other.

Lesser nations can never progress. You only have to look at the groups Wales and Scotland find themselves in to see that.

European Club competitions are equally set up to benefit about 10 clubs at most.

Who can name the next surprise winner of the C.League? Gone are the days of a Steau or a PSV, a Villa, a Hamburg or an Ajax having ANY chance whatsoever.

The Europa League seems to be a safety net for the big boys and a not very subtle way of hindering the 'Pretenders' to the top 4 by giving them 20 more games to totally balls up their league position.

There are seeds for a reason, all well and good having a CL group of death containing teams such as Barca-Bayern Munich-Arsenal-AC Milan, but what next?

Could have a Round 2 of Barcelona v AIK Stockhom or Arsenal v FC Thun. Complete mis matches, same thing applied to World Cups and every other seeded event in any other sport.

seeding = carve up. all seeding is wrong. imagine how exciting it would be if all competition was fair and equal again. what a breath of fresh air that would be. everyone equal as it should be!

The TV men want the biggest teams/players playing against each other as late as possible in the tournament. Same in all sports, tennis basketball etc etc. Not going to change at this stage. I found this round of the EL more entertaining than the CL ties, quality in CL a lot better but not as entertaining imo

Surely no one can deny that the CL, Europa League, Euro's and the World Cup are boring? t's the seeding that makes it boring. Same old clubs and the same old countries always getting to the finals and winning. It's one big yawn fest. I want to see AIK Stockholm or FC Thun getting to the semi-finals of the CL. Or maybe a country like Finland getting to the World Cup quarters. It would be brilliant for football and brilliant for fans.

An open draw like in the FA Cup is surely the best way.

The tennis is a farce. The football WC is embarrassing. It's supposed to be a world game yet if you're outside the top 10 seeds you have no chance. Even the play offs are seeded! It's a closed shop.

Look at our Euro draw! It's all one big con.

Under George Burley Scotland finished 3rd in their qualifying group behind Norway and the Dutch. The Scots were seeded to come, er, third.

Burley was sacked..

lol who cares about fair and equal when the latter stages have the strong potential for being damp squibs, if too many of the big sides go out early TV will not want to know either would sponsors, also, if there were no seeding's the clubs from the stronger leagues will eventually have their co-efficiency lowered to the point where they start to lose their 4th and 3rd spots and have it given to tin pot clubs from tin pot leagues. Yo could well end up with a group such as Copenhagen, Sociedad, Plzen and Steau Bucherest, doesn't seem exciting to me and neither would Round 2 be

I suspect you've never seen Copenhagen, Plzen or Steaua play unless it was against a 'big' team.

who cares about tv sponsorship ? I don't.. do you? seriously who cares about that?

I don't like groups in the CL they are boring.. straight KO is the way to go

THE BEST TEAMS WILL WIN IN THE END BUT THE JOURNEY WILL BE MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE EXCITING!

No but they dictate it metaphor.

In what way is the tennis a farce? So you would like Nadal  Djokovic first round and Del Potro v Murray? lol that would kill the game, we would be denied genuine quality tennis in non event finals and end up with 3-0 one sided scorelines.

I've watched and traded them teams in various match, Plzen for the first time this season.

Common sense is not prevailing here, people stuck with  notion that just wouldn't work whichever way you look at it.

mesmerised it's a damp squib now. It's the same old teams playing the same old way in a dull dreary lifeless competition.

Yes but they are still high quality exciting matches when you get Bayern-Barca or Arsenal-Milan, who wants to watch Anderlect be pummelled by Real Madrid in the Semi's

even if you disagree with the no seeding idea you must admit that having the seeding going all the way to 4th lot of seeds is ridiculous.

they should make everyone play everyone once in world cup finals and the top 16 should go through to the knock out phase.

even if they must have seeds they should only have top 8 seeds and the rest is wide open.

i don't care what argument you put up the present format is seriously booooooooooooooooring

the reason they get pummeled is because the same big teams make huge TV money from the CL every year and move increasingly further ahead year on year. They act like a cartel controlling and dividing up the big money between themselves, they would ensure that seeding isn't changed. It's going to end up like the NBA or NFL in the states the way it is going. National leagues are looking like Scotland more and more. but that is probably what the big clubs want

and even if a big club doesn't want a European Super League they may have no option if they want to remain big

lurka is right. The way the competition is set up is serving the big clubs. They get all the TV money because they get to the latter stages. They get to the latter stages because of the seeding system. They get the big money - they buy the best players - makes it easier for them to win games - which keeps them seeded - which also makes it easier for them to progress to the latter stages. They gain a huge advantage because of the system.

Tennis is boring because the semi finals of the Grand Slams nearly always contain at least 2 if not 3 of the top 4 seeds.

The whole sporting landscape is dictated by tv and therefore the neutral viewer who wants to see Barca Madrid, Brazil Spain or Fed Nadal.

That's not sport! That's contrived commercialism. Business, money, short sighted gain.

Sport should always be different from the sceptical world of greed, cheating and bias.

Sadly it's not.

so youd rather see nadal v youhzny and djockovic v isner in a semi rather than djokco v fed and rafa v muzz

If UEFA were to step in and say 'divide the money up fairly', they would just break away and form their own league, which they might do anyway. UEFA has to pander to them just to stay on board. Barca and Real basically do exactly the same thing with Spanish TV money.

In the case of tennis I don't think seeding would have made much difference the last few years. It would have been the same players winning and beating each other, just perhaps in different rounds. But finally it looks like it might change. First time since 2009 one of the top 4 didn't win a slam. They all look beatable atm.

I'd rather in all sports there was a chance given to anyone winning.

It should never be about the final a tv viewer would like to see. It's about sport being open and free with a Villa or a Forest winning the European Cup or a Wigan or a Coventry winning the FA Cup.

i don't care what argument you put up the present format is seriously booooooooooooooooring

And so is any other format that has been put forward.


the reason they get pummeled is because the same big teams make huge TV money from the CL every year and move increasingly further ahead year on year. They act like a cartel controlling and dividing up the big money between themselves, they would ensure that seeding isn't changed. It's going to end up like the NBA or NFL in the states the way it is going. National leagues are looking like Scotland more and more. but that is probably what the big clubs want


No, The big teams all mostly come from the big leagues where there is global interest every week of the season, thus attracting the big players and the big sponsors and the teams like Anderlecht and FC Copenhagen will never be on their level because they are from a small league in a small country that can't attract big players and big sponsors and therefore can't compete in the Champions League anyway, the likes of them getting to a second round or Quarter Final is not going to attract an avalanche of big time high quality players to come and play for them in a Mickey Mouse league, they want to be in reputable divisions.

Tennis is boring because the semi finals of the Grand Slams nearly always contain at least 2 if not 3 of the top 4 seeds.

Yes that's true but what's also true is they more often than not provide the highest quality matches, and if those seeds was no longer good enough they wouldn't be making the Semi's anymore anyway, there are 5 matches before that for 5 players to try and knock them out and improve their own ranking, the rankings system is weighted just right, nothing wrong with it. Maybe apart from the World Tour Finals.

Yes I agree but you're looking it from a commercial mindset and not a sporting angle.

With football, The Dutch league for example will never and I mean NEVER be able to compete with the English or Spanish league. That's madness.

Where's the hope and where are the dreams that used to permeate sport?

Wer've now got a Champions (???) League that consists of teams from 4 leagues that will consist the latter stages. There are about 40 other NATIONS that provide teams with ZERO chance of winning. 40!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

they could attract bigger players if they got a fairer share of CL TV money, they are always going to be somewhat disadvantaged coming from a smaller country but there were always surprise teams in european football, they are a rarity nowadays.

it's even gone beyond that now. We have the likes of leverkusen and schalke getting hosed at home by these elite clubs, so it is not just minnow clubs getting pummeled, it's clubs from the big leagues too and the longer it continues the worse it's going to get

i honestly believe we are witnessing the end of football as the world's dominant sport. more and more fans are getting bored with the current elite winning everything. where's the competition? it's so one sided now, so loaded in favour of the big clubs that there is nothing sporting about it. it's a big money making exercise and when the people walk away from it in droves, which they will, football will be dead.

Have a minimum six or seven players from the teams own country and that would level things out more,   it's sugar daddies too, they are not attracted to big clubs from smaller leagues/countries so the CL  fairer payment thing will only have a limited effect as they know how to make a mockery of UEFA's new financial fair play nonsense with outside bonus contracts, that they could and will don nothing about to stop them from attracting and paying the top players top dollar, then there is La Liga's unfair distribution of TV money, where the top two negotiate their own rights, and taking the bulk of the money and fighting it out between themselves every year, it goes a lot deeper than equal CL TV money, if you really think that would alter the status quo then you're wrong.

I don't agree the Europa is shyte at all.Are we saying we now only want football's elite to compete in Europe? are the champ's league games really that much better than those in the former? The comp has obviously replaced the uefa cup. Was that 'shyte' too? and the cup winner's cup, and now the league cup? perhaps every **** comp in the world should be banned apart fromt eh world cup and the camps league, the world cup, with the so called 'greats' btw - produced the worst 'exhibition of so-called football i've ever seen in my life last time it was played.
Some sides do want to win a cup of some kind. Some would be quite happy to win Europa if they never win another comp in the lives.

And looking at the sides left in it, theyre more or less some of the best teams in Europe anyway, well, kinda, cos theyre all shyte!!

I have sympathy for your view metaphor. I think there are now two types of sports fans.

Traditionally sport was competition. The biggest often the best would win more than most but in any given year or on any given day the underdog could and often did triumph or at least have a good year. Smaller teams well run with inspirational managers created inspirational stories.

Look at the first division table in the 1980s and look at the variety of different smaller teams who could challenge at the top end of the league.

For many this is what sport is about the element of surprise and genuine competition. There also seems to be an every increasing group who are happy to watch an elite team smash a smaller team to pieces and then say how great they are.

The premier league is more open than normal this year, I mean look at it?
Chelsea         60
Arsenal         59
Manchester City      57
Liverpool         56
Tottenham Hotspur     50
Manchester United     45
Everton          45
An crap teams CAN do well. I'm not sure if plucky underdogs Man U can hold onto 6th by end of the season though .

Injera     28 Feb 14 18:46 
Yes I agree but you're looking it from a commercial mindset and not a sporting angle.

With football, The Dutch league for example will never and I mean NEVER be able to compete with the English or Spanish league. That's madness.

Ajax are one of europes most successful clubs. In 1995 they won the champions league with a team of talented youngsters who came together at the same time. Nowadays nearly all of those top players would have been snapped up by the champions league superb clubs as kids. They would have never come through at Ajax. The dutch, belgium danish, portuguese league will never rival the big four however they certainly could be much more close in terms of talent and quality.

We first saw the modern phenomenon in scotland where celtic and rangers dominated. In the last decade the big two in Spain have dominated thrashing many. We now have Germany a league which has until recently been dominated by multiple teams being strolled by Bayern. The gulf not only shown domestically but also in Europe.

It isn't only the big leagues who are being dominated it is spreading to the smaller leagues. The clubs who get to the group stages from denmark or czech republic or romania have a massive advantage in their own domestic leagues.

just checking at the end of this season compare wage bills to finishing position. With the except of Utd who have the third biggest wage bill i would guess every other club will finish in virtually the same place as their wage bill.

Kevin Pullein agrees, last year NCFC finished 12th with the 20th wage bill, different on both counts this year

German teams do very well in europe and they have far fewer really big ticket players, less worldwide marketing, and AFAIK a lower ticket price?

Discuss :)

do very well.

Leverkusen 1 PSG 4
Schalke 1 R Madrid 6

Remember united tonking leverkusen this year and a few years ago absolutely battered schalke in the semis.

Bayern are one of the biggest in europe. Dortmund have had a good run in recent years the rest struggle to make any impact. Only in recent years have they had 4 places in the competition.

Indeed who'd have thought Dortmund would make the final...their team cost £30 million. Almost every Premiership club's team cost more than that.

Atletico Madrid seem to being pretty well too. Not big spenders by any means.

Man Utd are financially the 3rd/4th biggest team in the world and look how shiit they are.

At the end of the day you can have as much money as you like but you can only have 11 players on the pitch.

Whilst doing a "Nottingham Forest" would seem extremely unlikely these days, it's still possible if a few things all come together.

The problem is the majority of leagues now are becoming top heavy. The money in Champions League is so great that it gives you a huge advantage over the rest of your league.

You now have Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich pretty much in a league of their own and it shows on the pitch. The only team that really should be able to compete with them financially is under poor ownership to allow them to compete which means they can't.

In a way it's what makes the Premier League that you have a bunch of a second tier teams all on a relatively level playing field. But it's also what's destroying the teams in Europe now as all the top players will just levitate towards Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.

It also only really come about by false pretences. Chelsea and Man City shot themselves to prominence with hugely wealthy owners, without it Man Utd would have been winning the league pretty much every season. Without those owners the Premier League would probably be exactly like the other leagues.

Should add PSG might add themselves to that league too. But if they do it's under suspicious circumstances at best.

What annoys me most about modern football is the endless sycophancy towards the big clubs like Barca, RM, ManU, BM and so on. Let's take Barcelona, everyone going on and on and yes on and on some more about how utterly fantastic they are, best football team ever blah blah blah. It makes me sick. I mean seriously how much money have they spent? How much wages do they pay? Not the same as Notts Forest or Raith Rovers that's for sure. Who couldn't assemble a team of champions with that kind of money? Only an idiot could fail.

In my opinion the modern day champions do not hold a candle to the great teams of the past who were built by shrewd managers. Bill Shankly, Rinus Michels, Brian Clough, Jock Stein, Jim McLean and Alex Ferguson didn't need fortunes to build great sides. They were shrewd, great coaches who worked with what they had. Some were tactically brilliant, some were great motivators. Now we have peacocks strutting about in flash suits who inherit the best players money can buy and think themselves genius...get a grip! We could all be world beaters if we had a couple of billion to spend.

It's a very hollow victory when Barca or RM or any other giant club thrash a team who have only a small fraction of their wealth. It's like Tesco putting a corner shop out of business. It's the same level of achievement. Which is in fact no achievement at all.

On saying that, though both ac Milan (gullit era) and barca have displayed some of the most fantastic football even in actual finals, so you could say the spending was worth it.

Until we get a level playing field in terms of money spent and equal wages, football will continue to be a bit of a farce.

It's not sport if you buy the title. That's just rich people buying stuff.

Citys win hands a poisoned chalice to an another.....

....5 and 6th will get a place

Looks about 30% full in Porto, two big sides only a small crowd like that.