Cards on the table, I'm not a great fan of the champions league. 'What!' I hear you cry. Yes! Not a great fan despite it being responsible for my greatest away trip.
Paris 2006 with the man from Eastlower, his brother (who had my wife's ticket due to having just given birth! Yes I was allowed to leave her with a week old baby. What a woman!) and our friend MD had the best 72 hours ever despite the horrible result. The picture of me in front of the half time score board (1-0 to the Arsenal) takes pride of place in our house. Still not keen though.
It's a massive money making juggernaut ploughing through the game. It has become the ultimate aim at the expense to actual success. Robert Pires once answered a question about being disappointed with 3rd replied, 'No, we are in the Champions league.' We'd won nothing yet were successful. Every year we are in the league of Champions usually as champions of nothing. Us and 2 other English teams. I'm writing this while the spuds huff against Shamrock Rovers in the dreaded Wafer cup. (ha! Shamrock have just gone 1-0 up!!) It's the cup nobody wants to be in. If Arsenal ended up playing on a spursday night there would be less interest than the Carling Cup. The champions league has undermined it. It's struggling to be second best out of two cups.
It's the groups of the Champions league I really dislike. It's an elongated cash generating nonsense for a corrupt organisation and we all fall for it. Don't even get me going on the fixed draw due to TV schedules.
However, a win is a win!
- Posted too hot & quite grumpy using BlogPress from an iTelephone.
I was in Paris in 2006 also; friend of a friend somehow sorted a ticket the day before, had to stump up £££ for Eurostar but it was worth every penny. Fantastic event, wrong result, but the tales we could tell of that night...
ReplyDelete*descends into 20 minute reverie*
....anyway, I agree in principle, but we can't do away with it altogether. Let it return to a straight knockout format, unseeded draw, home and away legs, off you go lads, shit or bust, death or glory, proper old fashioned cup competition. Could never happen, though. Could it?
The Champions League.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just for the champions and it's not a league.
They could call it the European cup! Trouble is if Barcelona get knocked out in the first round it would have to be called off.
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