Football (Soccer) Thread

[Tamas]

I wonder if this will help the development of better National teams. Especially for England.

Unlikely.

What should be is a European Super League A, B, with promotions and relegations. Below these the national leagues. So if you stayed in one of the Super Leagues you don't play your national league next season, but if you got relegated from SL B you do play the national league to get back into it.

Would also strengthen a European identity instead of this nation state nonsense.

[Tamas]

I like the socialist / anti-capitalist spin the Guardian live commentary is attempting.  As if the People's Sport is being overtaken by Evil Capitalists, as if that has not happened 70 years ago.

[garbon]

I like the socialist / anti-capitalist spin the Guardian live commentary is attempting.  As if the People's Sport is being overtaken by Evil Capitalists, as if that has not happened 70 years ago.

[celedhring]

I wonder if this will help the development of better National teams. Especially for England.

Unlikely.

What should be is a European Super League A, B, with promotions and relegations. Below these the national leagues. So if you stayed in one of the Super Leagues you don't play your national league next season, but if you got relegated from SL B you do play the national league to get back into it.

Would also strengthen a European identity instead of this nation state nonsense.

The problem with that is you'll end up with a top division made up of teams coming from the rich leagues, which are naturally stronger, and probably nobody from east of the Elbe.

[FunkMonk]

I wonder if this will help the development of better National teams. Especially for England.

Unlikely.

What should be is a European Super League A, B, with promotions and relegations. Below these the national leagues. So if you stayed in one of the Super Leagues you don't play your national league next season, but if you got relegated from SL B you do play the national league to get back into it.

This sounds absolutely horrible. 

[Tamas]

I wonder if this will help the development of better National teams. Especially for England.

Unlikely.

What should be is a European Super League A, B, with promotions and relegations. Below these the national leagues. So if you stayed in one of the Super Leagues you don't play your national league next season, but if you got relegated from SL B you do play the national league to get back into it.

Would also strengthen a European identity instead of this nation state nonsense.

The problem with that is you'll end up with a top division made up of teams coming from the rich leagues, which are naturally stronger, and probably nobody from east of the Elbe.

Which is only different from the present on a theoretical level. Every 5 years we have an upsetof a poor team getting halfway in CL and we think its a thing.

[Duque de Bragança]

So club owners complain about having too many games to play, yet want to play more. 

The umpteenth reform of the Champions' League was bad enough as in appeasing top clubs, yet the ESL came.

Too many games against the "wrong" kind of teams. Not too many games in general.

Yeah, for the Juve that would be games vs Ajax, Lyon or Porto. 

[celedhring]

I agree that there's a lot of cringe takes though 

fergal
@fergalkiernan
·
3h
Ian Holloway has just said this Super league business is a betrayal to the memory of Prince Philip.

[celedhring]

So club owners complain about having too many games to play, yet want to play more. 

The umpteenth reform of the Champions' League was bad enough as in appeasing top clubs, yet the ESL came.

Too many games against the "wrong" kind of teams. Not too many games in general.

Yeah, for the Juve that would games vs Ajax, Lyon or Porto. 

And for us Bayern and Liverpool.

Oh wai--

[Tamas]

I wonder if this will help the development of better National teams. Especially for England.

Unlikely.

What should be is a European Super League A, B, with promotions and relegations. Below these the national leagues. So if you stayed in one of the Super Leagues you don't play your national league next season, but if you got relegated from SL B you do play the national league to get back into it.

This sounds absolutely horrible. 

It is the exact same model applied within each country individually, raised to a European level. We could still have national cup competitions to have those thrilling Liverpool vs. FC Bumfuckshire lineups

[The Larch]

More developments:

- The German clubs that were expected to participate as founders (Bayer Munich and Borussia Dortmund) have issued a joint statement refusing to take part on it.
- Two clubs that were apparently approached to be invited but refused were RB Leipzig and Porto.
- There seems to have been a certain level of bandwagon effect in some of the ESL founders, with some that are not super convinced about it but feel it's a somehow inevitable development and don't want to be left out from it. The two clubs named in this group were Man City and Chelsea.

[Duque de Bragança]

I've heard with spurs the reason Jose was sacked was opposition to the super league stuff and refusal to take the team out for training due to it?

Which doesn't sound like Mourinio but hope it's true.

I think the source of that was Chico Azul who is an Everton shitposter who, every transfer window, starts the most absurd rumours that then end up getting picked up (especially about Newcastle for some reason

I think this is just mid season fun for him.

Isn't it the other way?
The champions league reform was to meet the concerns of the clubs who did this, but since they were arguing in bad faith they've gone ahead and done it anyway (kind of like Camerons pre brexit negotiations with the EU)

Also - and I have as many issues with UEFA as the next man - but UEFA and the Champions League are at least in theory open to all of Europe. I hate the "big six" in this country and I hate the "big five" leagues dominating and getting their way. It may be the misty-eyed romantic in me, but I want a European competition with Ajax and Benfica and Dynamo Kyiv etc - and despite the controversies and how much English clubs hate playing them also for champions like Slavia Prague to be playing. If it's a European league it should be European - not the five richest/most dominant leagues and invited guests

Big Five does not exist sport-wise, it's Big 4 + PSG (Qatari-fueled). Lyon, as a well managed club could join PSG, as it used, at least until the round of 16.

[Tamas]

I agree that there's a lot of cringe takes though 

fergal
@fergalkiernan
·
3h
Ian Holloway has just said this Super league business is a betrayal to the memory of Prince Philip.

When people encounter change in their treasured little safeplaces, be it football, computer games, or whatever, it can get quite shrill. 

[FunkMonk]

I wonder if this will help the development of better National teams. Especially for England.

Unlikely.

What should be is a European Super League A, B, with promotions and relegations. Below these the national leagues. So if you stayed in one of the Super Leagues you don't play your national league next season, but if you got relegated from SL B you do play the national league to get back into it.

This sounds absolutely horrible. 

It is the exact same model applied within each country individually, raised to a European level.

Yes, that's why it's horrible.

[Duque de Bragança]

I like the socialist / anti-capitalist spin the Guardian live commentary is attempting.  As if the People's Sport is being overtaken by Evil Capitalists, as if that has not happened 70 years ago.

Definitively wrong in the case of football. It's in the '90s with the beginning of the CL and the Bosman ruling. Not that Bosman was not unfairly treated, but the way the ruling opened doors.

Pre-90s C1 means draws without seeded teams and national champion clubs only. 4th of a league playing the Champions' League?