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Author: EFC
Date: 17-08-2005, 19:10
| I got thinking of what European football would be like now if UEFA had retained the old system of European Cups from the 90s, with a Chmapions League of 16 clubs, all champions, a Cup Winners Cup, and the old-style UEFA Cup. I wonder if such a format would be viable in today's environment. Probably not, but I thought it was interesting to see what such tournaments would look like this year.
The Champions League used to have 8 teams directly to the group stage, and the champions of nations 9-24 contesting a preliminary round, nations 9-16 seeded, all based on the most recent ranking I think. Assuming the seeded teams won in the preliminary, the 16 contenders would be:
FC Barcelona
Chelsea
Juventus
Olympique Lyon
Bayern Munich
Benfica
PSV Eindhoven
Olympiakos
Club Bruges
Glasgow Rangers
Fenerbahce
Sparta Prague
Lokomotiv Moskva
Rapid Wien
Shakhtar Donetsk
Maccabi Haifa
Of course a defending holder would almost certainly also be involved -meaning probably AC Milan (last remaining Champion club in last season's tournament) replacing Maccabi. I think it looks quite a strong tounament, especially with Milan maybe involved. It is difficult to look past the top eight seeds however for likely quarter-finalists, although maybe Lokomotiv or Club Bruges could make it through. Nowhere near the quality in today's CL perhaps, but not a weak tournament. Probably four serious contenders for the title and maybe 2 or 3 other dark horses.
Cup Winners Cup would not look so strong, as would be expected, but the 16 top seeds in the first round would be:
Real Betis
Arsenal
Internazionale
AJ Auxerre
Schalke 04
Vitoria Setubal
Willem II
Aris Thessaloniki
Germinal Beerschot
Glasgow Celtic
Galatasaray
Banik Ostrava
CSKA Moskva
Austria Wien
Dynamo Kyiv
Maccabi Tel-Aviv
Arsenal and Inter would be the big contenders, although Betis, Schalke, Auxerre, CSKA Moskva, Galatasaray, Dynamo Kyiv and Celtic (if they could avoid Slovakian debacles) are other big names and potential contenders. Again, a defending champion from alst year would probably be involved, I guess maybe Manchester United. Interesting as the tournament would be, it is easy to see that the competition does not look strong enough for modern European football and it is highly unlikely that the likes of Arsenal and Inter would want to enter a tournament with this limited number of big-name teams and so few pontential attractive fixtures. Still, it would probably produce a much stronger last eight than this year's UEFA Cup will...
Interesting that this was the system used for so many years by UEFA and I do kind of miss the old tournaments for a number of reasons, but the system does look kind of quaint next to today's inflated Champions League. |
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Author: Lio
Date: 18-08-2005, 12:19
| I persist : this system is better intertesting and egalitarian than nowadays system. |
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Author: Lunaris
Date: 18-08-2005, 14:20
| well i don't know why, but it seems i'm one of the few here who like the actual system
ok there could be some small changes, like only entering champions from top 15 in gs for sure, and letting the 2nd teams of the top 6 play qualification
and i would change the 3rd to uefa-cup rule, abandon it
but aside from this i like todays system, even uefa-cup seems to be interesting with the group stages as it helps the smaller countries (ranking from 9-20 maybe) to see more competitive matches and thus improving their game aswell as open it up for surprises, which makes it nicer to watch
the only thing i didn't like was this seasons decision of letting liverpool enter in qr1 (now they are the first team starting in qr1 to enter the group stage ..... how funny)...well with this point i might not be alone
but in the end i do like todays system (p.s: it was a good choice too, to abandon the second group stage, as it serves minor teams now better) |
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