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Football stuff that doesn't deserve its own thread
- Thread starter andruid
- Start date
Molehill
International Captain
36 teams and each team will play 8 (possibly 10, not sure) group games. I guess the top 16 then go into the knockouts. I assume teams will be seeded so you cannot get an uneven set of matches.
Worth noting that England could easily get a 5th team into that group if say a team with a high coefficient came 5th in the Prem (eg Man Utd, Spurs, Chelsea).
Worth noting that England could easily get a 5th team into that group if say a team with a high coefficient came 5th in the Prem (eg Man Utd, Spurs, Chelsea).
I think 1-8 go straight through, 9-24 playoff
Molehill
International Captain
Makes sense, you'd obviously want as many pointless games as possible.
Furball
Evil Scotsman
Having looked into this the other day (been off sick and I was bored), I think it's potentially more interesting than the current format.
36 team group, split into 4 pots of 9. Each team plays 2 teams from each pot, one at home and one away. So based on this season's pots, Man City might have had the following group games:
Bayern Munich (h)
Barcelona (a)
RB Leipzig (h)
Atletico Madrid (a)
AC Milan (h)
Benfica (a)
Celtic (h)
Royal Antwerp (a)
Games against Bayern and Barcelona are way more interesting than watching City or Bayern smash **** out of their groups.
Likewise, for teams in smaller leagues like Rangers (pot 3) or Celtic (pot 4), we get more sides from comparable leagues and therefore more winnable games, instead of what happened last season to us where we get a nightmare draw and get smashed around for 6 games. So in my hypothetical example, Royal Antwerp and Celtic might have been hammered by Man City, but might also have a game against each other, Young Boys and Union Berlin which is more winnable.
36 team group, split into 4 pots of 9. Each team plays 2 teams from each pot, one at home and one away. So based on this season's pots, Man City might have had the following group games:
Bayern Munich (h)
Barcelona (a)
RB Leipzig (h)
Atletico Madrid (a)
AC Milan (h)
Benfica (a)
Celtic (h)
Royal Antwerp (a)
Games against Bayern and Barcelona are way more interesting than watching City or Bayern smash **** out of their groups.
Likewise, for teams in smaller leagues like Rangers (pot 3) or Celtic (pot 4), we get more sides from comparable leagues and therefore more winnable games, instead of what happened last season to us where we get a nightmare draw and get smashed around for 6 games. So in my hypothetical example, Royal Antwerp and Celtic might have been hammered by Man City, but might also have a game against each other, Young Boys and Union Berlin which is more winnable.
Furball
Evil Scotsman
It's the two leagues with the highest co-efficient ranking which get an extra spot. As of Wednesday lunchtime when I was looking at this, that was Germany and Italy who'd be getting a 5th team (in fact this is still the case after Wednesday and Thursday's games.)
Manchester United and Newcastle being eliminated completely from Europe (along with Osasuna and Sevilla) will likely hamper England and Spain in this regard.
Magrat Garlick
Global Moderator
Saudi league investment in the World Club Cup going well then
Furball
Evil Scotsman
I know you're being facetious but I am actually genuinely surprised there hasn't been more of a move around Europe to reduce the amount of league games played.
Why would any club want that?
It's hard to know who to root for less
sledger
Spanish_Vicente
Well my personal preference is for the ESL to die. But at the same time I don't really disagree with much of what the CJEU has said (i.e., that what FIFA and UEFA have essentially tried to do is massively restrict freedom of trade for the sake of protecting their own monopoly).
Yep. Kinda want football, at least at this level, to kill itself or **** off and play in the desert somewhere in front of a bunch of billionaire sheikhs. Then Klopp really will have something to moan about when it comes to crowd atmosphere.
Molehill
International Captain
If suicide was a football strategy….
Not sure what the point of this comp is, all the best teams are in Europe. I think we know what happens here and City don’t even have some of their best players available.
BoyBrumby
Englishman
It's one of those little footy trivia tidbits I love that, despite Albion's domination of the (as was) European Cup in the late 70s/early 80s (7 in 8 years between 77 & 84), no English team won the Intercontinental Cup (the forerunner comp) until ManUre in 99.
That said, looking up the comp on Wiki, I'm not sure how seriously we treated it. In 77 and 79 Borussia Monchengladbach and Malmo competed instead of yer Scousers and Forest respectively because neither CBF and it wasn't held at all in 1978.
That said, looking up the comp on Wiki, I'm not sure how seriously we treated it. In 77 and 79 Borussia Monchengladbach and Malmo competed instead of yer Scousers and Forest respectively because neither CBF and it wasn't held at all in 1978.
wpdavid
Hall of Fame Member
Yeah, I didn't remember us entering it in those days. Maybe it owed something to the horrible matches that Celtic and Man. Utd had experienced against Argentine opponents only ten years previously. And Trevor Cherry's experience playing for England in Argentina in 1977 wouldn't have convinced anyone that things had changed very much.
EDIT
Reading the same section of Wiki as your good self reminded me that AC Milan, in 1969, had it even worse that the two British clubs in the previous two contests; once again facing Argentine opponents. Further unpleansantness dished out to Ajax and Panathinaicos in the early 1970s meant that the European Champions rarely took part. As a rule of thumb, they declined to play against Argentine opposition, but were willing to take part if the South American Champions were from Brazil. What eventually changed things was moving the tournament to Japan in 1980 and forcing all entrants in the European Cup to sign a contract saying that they would take part in the Intercontinental Cup if they won the EC.
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wpdavid
Hall of Fame Member
Speaking of old football, I was given this lasy week, and it's a great read.
What makes it do good is that Spurling doesn't just repeat the events of the decade. Each chapter is full of quotes from the people that he's writing about, mostly taken from interviews that he'd carried out with them over the last 20+ years.
EDIT
It turns out that the generally excellent David Tossell has produced something similar, also with a glam rock title from the same era.
It would probably be overkill to read both. But then again I just might.
What makes it do good is that Spurling doesn't just repeat the events of the decade. Each chapter is full of quotes from the people that he's writing about, mostly taken from interviews that he'd carried out with them over the last 20+ years.
EDIT
It turns out that the generally excellent David Tossell has produced something similar, also with a glam rock title from the same era.
It would probably be overkill to read both. But then again I just might.
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