Jonathan David

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

2 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

I guess I want… more of that? I don’t know, it’s not a major complaint, just think it’s silly to have all these scheduled losses, but I do want to see these smaller clubs get a shot. I guess at the end of the day if you are Graz or Zagreb or whoever, you play for the fee and for the small chance that you pull off incredible upsets.

Not sure what the solution would be.

This is more of a shot to me than a straight knockout where they might draw a big team, get some revenue and then get promptly booted. 

Shuffling them down to the lower cups gives them more "fair" competion maybe .   Greece got itself a trophy in the Conference League but Ajax was the last non-top 5 league team to make the finals in the Europa League (2017).

[Kent]

Probably the solution would be to further limit how many teams from the big leagues make it to Champions League, and increase the number coming from smaller leagues. Not likely to happen though, because it would limit the money, plus it would also limit the number of teams that have a realistic chance of winning it all. Like instead of let's say 16 teams having a chance of winning it out of the 36 teams that made it, there would only be 12 or something.

[InglewoodJack]

14 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

Ajax was the last non-top 5 league team to make the finals in the Europa League (2017).

May have been another non top league club that made the finals since then, but they’re probably too small/irrelevant to remember. Trying to think of the name.
 

I kid- I guess the only solution to what I’m talking about is to basically accidentally recreate Europa league, again, so hopefully they tweak where they have to this year and continue to improve. I do like the 36 team format as a concept, and it seems to mostly be working well.

[Unnamed Trialist]

4 hours ago, Kent said:

It's almost as if VAR isn't able to provide the perfection that people think it should. I haven't seen the play in question, but VAR should only be used for black and white calls in my opinion, because soccer rules are full of grey areas that VAR can't definitively make the correct call on.

Take a look. It's mind boggling, and I'm no Atlético fan and was going with Lille. Probably the worst call I've seen in months. 

[ahmedou]

Jonathan David 🇨🇦 vs Atletico Madrid 🇪🇸

⌛ 25 Minutes

⚽ 2 Goals

️‍🔥 2 Shots 

💣 1 Pass into final third

🦶 10 Touches (3 Touches in Opposition Box)

 

🎯 2/5 Passes (40%)

➖ 0 Ball Loss

 

🥊 2/3 Ground Duels (67%)

☁️ 1/2 Aerial duel (50%)

⚡️ 1 Recovery

➕ 2 Defensive actions 

🚫 2 Faults commited/was fouled *2

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

3 hours ago, Kent said:

Probably the solution would be to further limit how many teams from the big leagues make it to Champions League, and increase the number coming from smaller leagues. 

Not sure how that is not making the competition worse in quality in an unfair way.  Every league's champion currently has a chance to qualify. Artificially adding more poorer teams is not a formula for good football.

 

If we want to say there is no qualifying and only champions get in (we would have to make a format that works for 55 teams) - there is an kind of (over?) pure fairness there. 

It won't happen because of money of course.  But it would also set up some even worse blowout scenarios. And far fewer quality vs. quality games.

 

My bias is here of course.  It's a dream for West Ham to earn a Champions League spot (however that has changed over the years.) We came close not too long ago.

Just like it was a dream for Canada to  qualify for the World Cup that I could really remember. (There qualifying has been "watered down" as well, if you listen to the purist of purists.)

Edited 8 hours ago by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[narduch]

11 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

Not sure how that is not making the competition worse in quality in an unfair way.  Every league's champion currently has a chance to qualify. Artificially adding more poorer teams is not formula for good football.

I wouldn't exactly call the current qualifying format fair by any stretch.

The higher ranked leagues don't even have to qualify anymore. Their teams go straight to the group stage. 20 years ago Even the top leagues only 2 teams made the group stage automatically and 2 other teams had to do the qualifying to make it.

Now, essentially you have 40 'lower' leagues vying for 5 measly spots.

Then the mid-tier leagues (from 5th rank to 11th) battle for 2 other spots for their runner ups.

The current format heavily favours the top 4 leagues on so many levels.

 

Edited 8 hours ago by narduch

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

3 hours ago, InglewoodJack said:

May have been another non top league club that made the finals since then, but they’re probably too small/irrelevant to remember. Trying to think of the name.
 

I kid- I guess the only solution to what I’m talking about is to basically accidentally recreate Europa league, again, so hopefully they tweak where they have to this year and continue to improve. I do like the 36 team format as a concept, and it seems to mostly be working well.

Ha. Poor Rangers and poor my midterm memory apparently. We almost got to play them as well that year.

My only other excuse would get me lynched north of the border (or in Canada for that matter)

Edited 8 hours ago by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

8 minutes ago, narduch said:

I wouldn't exactly call the current qualifying format fair by any stretch.

The higher ranked leagues don't even have to qualify anymore. Their teams go straight to the group stage. 20 years ago Even the top leagues only 2 teams made the group stage automatically and 2 other teams had to do the qualifying to make it.

Now, essentially you have 40 'lower' leagues vying for 5 measly spots.

Then the mid-tier leagues (from 5th rank to 11th) battle for 2 other spots for their runner ups.

The current format heavily favours the top 4 leagues on so many levels.

 

All that is true.

But we can quibble about what  "fair" means.

You perform well over an entire season in a league that has performed well in Europe over the last 5 seasons.

Is it fair to reward you for that?

Edited 8 hours ago by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[narduch]

4 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

All that is true.

But we can quibble about what  "fair" means.

You perform well over an entire season in a league that has performed well in Europe over the last 5 seasons.

Is is fair to reward you for that?

Sure. And maybe the overall quality would drop too.

But I still think that the tournament would be way more interesting if these 5 teams that missed out (the non-bolded teams, all missed out in the final qualifying round) instead of having one more team from England or Italy. No offence to teams like Bologna or Aston Villa

Edited 8 hours ago by narduch

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

2 minutes ago, narduch said:

Sure. And maybe the overall quality would drop too.

But I still think that the tournament would be way more interesting if these 5 teams that missed out (the non-bolded teams) instead of teams like Aston Villa or Bologna (no offence intended).

Appreciated.

I think you are setting up even more blowouts.

Taking away a number of quality vs. quality matchups and replacing them with less quality vs. less quality.

That's not interesting for me personally.

As a neutral, I would much rather see Villa ( since you bring them up and I see them a lot, including recently in Europe) than Malmo (who I just saw a fair bit.)

[narduch]

7 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

Appreciated.

I think you are setting up even more blowouts.

Taking away a number of quality vs. quality matchups and replacing them with less quality vs. less quality.

That's not interesting for me personally.

As a neutral, I would much rather see Villa ( since you bring them up and I see them a lot, including recently in Europe) than Malmo (who I just saw a fair bit.)

Possibly.

But if that is all you are worried about, why not take the top 6 from the top 4 leagues, sprinkle in the leaders from 6-10 and just be done with it? Because that is essentially what people are advocating for if you don't think Malmo or Bodo/Glint don't deserve to be in Champions League when the odds are massively stacked against them.

[The Real Marc]

33 minutes ago, narduch said:

Sure. And maybe the overall quality would drop too.

But I still think that the tournament would be way more interesting if these 5 teams that missed out (the non-bolded teams, all missed out in the final qualifying round) instead of having one more team from England or Italy. No offence to teams like Bologna or Aston Villa

In principle the idea of limiting participation from strong leagues makes sense but in practicality today the gap between haves and have-lesses is just too large to make the competition meaningful. The day of a Red Star or Steaua or even Celtic making a very deep run are gone.

What could be considered is competitions be exclusive to leagues of a certain calibre.

A smaller Champions League open to all Champions from all leagues and naturally most of the chaff will be separated out in qualifying. All leagues eligible for qualification.

Europa League for the chaff from above (Only open to clubs from top 5 leagues if they fail in Champions league qualifying) and successful clubs from second tier leagues.

Conference League for the leftovers that don't make it past the Europa League qualifying stages (Not open to clubs from top 5 leagues, and only to the next top 5 if they fail in Europa qualifying) and the best of the third tiers.

Do big teams from the top five that could win Europa and Conference league miss out? Yeah. But really, the Conference League was fun and all, but do we really need another Champion from England or Italy? Matchups like Villa 8 Hibernian 0? Fiorentina vs TNS? Betis against those guys from Moldova or Iceland?

Admittedly, I've spent about 10 minutes thinking about this since reading this thread so there is no advanced thought here. It might not work. Financially UEFA would hate it.

But from a pure competition perspective, fairytale ties are sexy for the players and cute for the media but sporting-wise they're meaningless and largely boring.

Edited 7 hours ago by The Real Marc

[kacbru]

Like it or not, it's the Super League in disguise.  Over time, the 'league' phase will grow from 8 games each, there will be pressure to decrease the number of domestic fixtures (cups, etc.) to accommodate, and the quarter finalists will be guaranteed spots in subsequent years.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

16 minutes ago, narduch said:

Possibly.

But if that is all you are worried about, why not take the top 6 from the top 4 leagues, sprinkle in the leaders from 6-10 and just be done with it? Because that is essentially what people are advocating for if you don't think Malmo or Bodo/Glint don't deserve to be in Champions League when the odds are massively stacked against them.

But that's not all you need to consider.

To me you go fair one of two ways.

- You go fair by including every champion and just every champion and tell them to play straight up (somehow).

- Or you go fair by including the best teams you can get (why we have all the formulas, we can nitpick how well they work) while still giving every  league a chance, however slight. (The chances of the Malta champion getting very far  in a straight knockout are equally minimal, or you if still go league, you have set up 6-8 near unwatchable poundings.)

Edited 7 hours ago by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

13 minutes ago, kacbru said:

Like it or not, it's the Super League in disguise.  Over time, the 'league' phase will grow from 8 games each, there will be pressure to decrease the number of domestic fixtures (cups, etc.) to accommodate, and the quarter finalists will be guaranteed spots in subsequent years.

As massive opponent of the Super League, I don't buy that while you still have to qualify based on an entire league season in your domestic league.

We seem to forget teams are proving themselves over at least 30 games to even be considered.

 

[ahmedou]

80th Anniversary LOSC Box - Limited Edition

David's legend of LOSC alongside Baratte and Hazard

Edited 7 hours ago by ahmedou

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

20 minutes ago, The Real Marc said:

In principle the idea of limiting participation from strong leagues makes sense but in practicality today the gap between haves and have-lesses is just too large to make the competition meaningful. The day of a Red Star or Steaua or even Celtic making a very deep run are gone.

What could be considered is competitions be exclusive to leagues of a certain calibre.

A smaller Champions League open to all Champions from all leagues and naturally most of the chaff will be separated out in qualifying. All leagues eligible for qualification.

Europa League for the chaff from above (Only open to clubs from top 5 leagues if they fail in Champions league qualifying) and successful clubs from second tier leagues.

Conference League for the leftovers that don't make it past the Europa League qualifying stages (Not open to clubs from top 5 leagues, and only to the next top 5 if they fail in Europa qualifying) and the best of the third tiers.

Do big teams from the top five that could win Europa and Conference league miss out? Yeah. But really, the Conference League was fun and all, but do we really need another Champion from England or Italy? Matchups like Villa 8 Hibernian 0? Fiorentina vs TNS? Betis against those guys from Moldova or Iceland?

Admittedly, I've spent about 10 minutes thinking about this since reading this thread so there is no advanced thought here. It might not work. Financially UEFA would hate it.

But from a pure competition perspective, fairytale ties are sexy for the players and cute for the media but sporting-wise they're meaningless and largely boring.

I guess my practical question to that would be:

How do you convince people to continue paying the money they do for less of good/their teams against good teams? 

We get to see Canadians in Europe a lot now, not because of the financial weight of Sparta Praha supporters for instance.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

2 minutes ago, ahmedou said:

80th Anniversary LOSC Box - Limited Edition

David's legend of LOSC alongside Baratte and Hazard

You should buy us all one😉

[The Real Marc]

45 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

I guess my practical question to that would be:

How do you convince people to continue paying the money they do for less of good/their teams against good teams? 

We get to see Canadians in Europe a lot now, not because of the financial weight of Sparta Praha supporters for instance.

That's not the question. Fans of clubs from more less esteemed leagues will still fill stadiums and sports bars to watch their clubs in continental competition, whether that's against Porto or PAOK.

The question is will a more competitive league match the revenues of a lopsided competition that includes wealthy and well-followed upper-middle-meh clubs from top five leagues like Fiorentina, West Ham, Betis, Lazio, Eintracht Frankfurt, Villa, etc., - clubs with wealthiest fans and the largest stadiums that just don't make the quality cut.

And the answer to that, we all know, is no. The ideas of maximizing TV revenue, broadening inclusivity, and fostering meaningful competition are in direct opposition to each other.

I don't blame fans of uppermid-table top five league clubs for looking longingly when they know they could reasonably compete in European leagues that include lesser lights.  Even as a Villa fan our run in the Conference league felt a little dirty (secretly glad to see a non-big-five team win) and trotting out 100k per week stars to beat up on Young Boys felt wrong.

Edited 6 hours ago by The Real Marc

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, kacbru said:

Like it or not, it's the Super League in disguise.  Over time, the 'league' phase will grow from 8 games each, there will be pressure to decrease the number of domestic fixtures (cups, etc.) to accommodate, and the quarter finalists will be guaranteed spots in subsequent years.

I has a bit of that, no question. I think UEFA designed it as a sort of response to the Super League, also the financial setup meant to be more lucrative to all.

But if you look more closely, take the visiting teams to Barcelona this version. Young Boys, Brest, Atalanta...those teams are not better than the solid mid-table clubs in Spain who come in league matches. Atalanta had a good run last season, but the king of Europa League is Sevilla and they've won being midtable quite a few times.

The point was to be able to get all high-end visiting teams so that every match would be of the highest level. That is not the case.

I am not in favour of the Super League for a lot of reasons, just to be clear. One is that, even if you do get more visits from top teams, in the end you get used to seeing them, after a few years you have seen them all. So it ends up feeling like any league, familiar faces and not very much novelty. 

[ahmedou]

48 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

You should buy us all one😉

It's only reserved for LOSC members

Soldout already  

[kacbru]

1 hour ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

As massive opponent of the Super League, I don't buy that while you still have to qualify based on an entire league season in your domestic league.

We seem to forget teams are proving themselves over at least 30 games to even be considered.

 

Yes, you are right - it is not a closed shop.  And as UT said, it is UEFA's response to the Super League proposal, perhaps a pragmatic response even.  But I do think it is a slippery slope.

But to bring it back to David and Lille, I like that they are getting results, while also rotating minutes.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

40 minutes ago, The Real Marc said:

That's not the question. Fans of clubs from more less esteemed leagues will still fill stadiums and sports bars to watch their clubs in continental competition, whether that's against Porto or PAOK.

The question is will a more competitive league match the revenues of a lopsided competition that includes wealthy and well-followed upper-middle-meh clubs from top five leagues like Fiorentina, West Ham, Betis, Lazio, Eintracht Frankfurt, Villa, etc., - clubs with wealthiest fans and the largest stadiums that just don't make the quality cut.

And the answer to that, we all know, is no. The ideas of maximizing TV revenue, broadening inclusivity, and fostering meaningful competition are in direct opposition to each other.

I don't blame fans of uppermid-table top five league clubs for looking longingly when they know they could reasonably compete in European leagues that include lesser lights.  Even as a Villa fan our run in the Conference league felt a little dirty (secretly glad to see a non-big-five team win) and trotting out 100k per week stars to beat up on Young Boys felt wrong.

You repeated my question with a lot more words,  honestly.

Sparta Praha fans are an example of fans that are not driving the financial success/failure of the Champions League, to be clear.

Edit: reworking it through

Neither are Villa/West Ham fans.

You will need to define "competitive" I guess

The idea is to strike a balance between getting the best teams available (too many, maybe?) and giving even the Luxembourg champs the tiniest of chances.

And maybe I need a refresher on what you want to see.

 

From experience, I will tell you, it stops feeling "dirty" if you actually win the thing.  Very natural to start downplaying the competition after you get knocked out. Sorry but is that coming from experiencing a Europa League semi-final the year before.

Edited 6 hours ago by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

6 minutes ago, kacbru said:

Yes, you are right - it is not a closed shop.  And as UT said, it is UEFA's response to the Super League proposal, perhaps a pragmatic response even.  But I do think it is a slippery slope.

But to bring it back to David and Lille, I like that they are getting results, while also rotating minutes.

I guess we will see.

Agree on the last bit.

I also like that we are having this discussion on a thread of player not even named Davies. Because he is making a difference.

Edited 6 hours ago by WestHamCanadianinOxford