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U don't think think Liverpool fans need to scamper to defend their record in European competition be it past or present format
They have won it under both regulations and also runners up under both formats I think everyone agrees the competition is now different but you can't compare the game as it is now to how it was then Seems like it's going round in circles this thread |
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didnt Citeh have 90+ mins at Anfield to score an away goal? Liverpool scored their away goal and Citeh were just poor last week. Its a fair rule, both sides get the chance to score away, Citeh blew it. As did Barca.
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teams can't work out that 0-0 is a decent result for the home team, imo better to lose 2-1 away than draw 0-0 and be vulnerable to the away goal rule and need 2 minimum.
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I have to laugh at some of the "absolute certainty" with which some comments are made regarding this thread.
This is a beauty. [b]Today's CL has better players, better teams, and a longer format all resulting in nobody dominating the CL for 26 years. The above assumes with absolute certainty that Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Muller and Johann Cruyff couldn't play. That John Robertson, Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness couldn't play. That George Best, Bobby Charlton and Denis law couldn't play. That Alfredo di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas and John Charles couldn't play. As for nobody dominating the competition that is the closest to the truth. Now three clubs totally dominate the competition and they of course are Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Why do you think it was set up in the first place? It was so that these dominant clubs could dominate! lmao. |
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You say the champions of Poland or Belgium were stronger , how many winners of the European cup were from either of these two countries.... that's right none
Where did i say Polish or Belgian teams won the European Cup? I said the champions of Poland and Belgium could beat the champions of Spain. Just looking at the records i see 3 times the champions of Spain in the late 60s/70s were knocked out by the Belgian champions . There were also defeats against the champions of Austria and Bulgaria. In spite of this you seem to be saying the 3rd or 4th placed teams in Spain would have made the tournament stronger than having those champions in it. People have the idea that Real and Barca have always been these super clubs full of world class players, but this is a product of modern football. Back in the day it was very difficult to get foreign players for political reasons. You had mostly had to make do with the best players from your own country. And mid 60s to mid 80s Spain simply did not produce anymore world class players than Belgium or Poland did. Real and Barca had a lot of journeyman type players known more for fouling than skill. People laugh that Nottingham Forest 'only had to beat Grasshoppers in the quarter final' but Grasshoppers were there because they knocked out Real Madrid the round before. Ajax,Bayern and Liverpool dominated because they were the best teams of their day. There was not some brilliant 3rd placed Spanish or Italian side that would have stopped them. |
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Make that 6 , Milan , Madrid, Chelsea, Bayern, Barcelona, Inter ... further back just a few years we have had porto , United, Dortmund etc . Its hardly the domination you imply with 9 clubs winning it in the last 20 years
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Anyone can beat anyone , so what ? You state that these polish teams were better than their modern day counterparts- what evidence is there? The only reason the champions of Spain lost to polish teams is because in the modern format these polish teams would have not even been good enough to qualify and had the opportunity to play the bigger hitters in knockout football where anything can happen.. simply winning the odd game doesn't prove anything. Wigan beat Man city in the FA cup , so what?
I've never said Real and Barca have always had world class players, I said the modern champions league has more quality teams in it which it has. Wolf, Polish/Belgian etc clubs were way stronger than they are today. Because they had the best players from their countries in their teams. And in that era Poland were a better national side than Spain or Italy. The poles had players like Denya,Boniek,Lato.... I can't even remember who played for Spain back then. It was simply harder to win the Belgian or Polish league than it was to finish 4th in Spain or England. Bruges or Widzew Lodz beating Real Madrid or Liverpool was nothing like Wigan beating Man City! They were often simply better teams. Under any fair qualifying system they would have been in as they were among the Top 10 sides in Europe. If it was based on results they would be in automatically.There would hardly have been any justification for giving 4 places to Spain when even their champions usually couldn't hack it for 20 years. Of course nowadays the top 50 or so Polish players will all be playing abroad which is why their teams are no good (also Poland doesn't seem to produce top players so much) Imagine if all the top Belgian players were at Belgian clubs. Would Anderlecht or Bruges be useless with DeBruyne,Hazard and so on ? In all honesty i do prefer the current format myself, though i could think of ways to improve it. |
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[b]Today's CL has better players, better teams, and a longer format all resulting in nobody dominating the CL for 26 years.
The above assumes with absolute certainty that Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Muller and Johann Cruyff couldn't play. That John Robertson, Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness couldn't play. That George Best, Bobby Charlton and Denis law couldn't play. That Alfredo di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas and John Charles couldn't play. No it doesn't assume that unless you're a bit simple. Back then the best players in Europe were largely made up of Europeans, now they're made up of the best from around the world, for example, one of the greatest ever Pele never played club football over here, unthinkable today that as soon as top South American comes good he wouldn't come to Europe, they all do. Also said, "The answer is that some of those players probably could have gotten into day's elite sides but as a team, it's unlikely that those European Cup winners such as Celtic, Ajax or AC Milan would be winning Champions Leagues if they were sides in the competition today." so to say that the above "assumes with absolute certainty that Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Muller and Johann Cruyff couldn't play." is obviously BOLLOX. As for nobody dominating the competition that is the closest to the truth. Now three clubs totally dominate the competition and they of course are Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich. "totally dominate" ? my record books show Munich have won it once in the last 17 years and Barca have won it once in the last 7 years, that's not domination, it's Madrid who only recently done what nobody could do for a quarter of a century. The main point was that in it's current format it has been much harder to win as the list of previous continuous winners posted above shows. |
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The current format is crap. LEague stage total waste of time in any competitive sense, just a money making exercise.
There is little interest from neutrals until the knockout rounds, which incidentally was the format used for the European Cup in years gone by of course. |
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What do you know about "back then"?
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It's harder to win nowadays because the standard of the top teams is much better. Before, you'd have the best teams made up largely from one country and national teams on paper would still be better than the best club sides, now they are made up from the best players from largely the best countries for the likes of Bayern, Barca, Real.
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