Champions League 2024/25

[Chris_OGrady]

18 hours ago, Dan said:

We literally just had the game happen without the super league. You can have too much of a good thing - that game was special because it doesn't happen often.

 

That being said I do genuinely believe that football is going through managed decline so that people accept the super league by stealth.

The majority of the champions league is an absolute nonsense. Pretending Red Star Belgrade can compete with Real Madrid. I'd imagine in the Super League they'd have some kid of NBA style play-off.

 

I think your point about managed decline kind of sums up where I'm at. Originally I was completely anti super league (and always would be in an ideal world), but I think football is so broke now that It could actually be a silver lining for non top 6 clubs. In reality, I'm sure we wouldn't put the rules in place to stop the same issues happening again. 

 

The biggest critics of the Super League tend to be Man Utd and Liverpool sofa fans (90% of their fans) as it deludes them into thinking they are sticking it to the corporate machine (when in reality they are the cause of most of football's issues). The premier league is great for the likes of Neville and Carragher as it's essentially the Man Utd and Liverpool show. They can also pretend that they care about the wider English football structure, but in reality they're scared of Man Utd and Liverpool becoming mid table irrelevant clubs- like most clubs in England. When I saw United's new spaceship ground I just thought please **** off to the super league, no way do I want to ever watch football here!

 

I think our views will be pretty aligned on this, I'm just a lot more pessimistic and want to **** off the big clubs  

Edited 13 hours ago by Chris_OGrady

[Deeg67]

18 minutes ago, filbertway said:

It's beautiful to see teams care more about scoring than stopping the other team from scoring. Should be the default setting for most managers

It's certainly fun to watch. I mean, Inter only had about 30% of the ball, but they didn't park the bus. Their counterattacking play was superb.

[grobyfox1990]

39 minutes ago, filbertway said:

It's beautiful to see teams care more about scoring than stopping the other team from scoring. Should be the default setting for most managers

Agreed and this is why I never had a problem with Klopp and Guardiola (not this season) and despite disliking Spurs, kinda want them to win the Europa League. They are all out attack. 

It is a nice change to Prem football when I was growing up with the likes of Fergie, Wenger, Benitez, Mourinho going 3-0 up after 60 mins and taking the big guns off to rest, if Klopp was 3-0 up he wants to win 5-0.

That and the Prem now has managers like Iraola, Glasner et al instead of Hodgson, Allardyce, Dyche and that rigid, solid, defensive mindset. They openly said 'our league won't be decided here' when playing the big teams away. These days all teams believe they can beat each other, and go on the pitch playing like it.

[Super_horns]

I think Fergie and Wenger teams were pretty attacking certainly in their pomp .

 

Agree the middle teams are particularly more set up to attack though now 

[CosbehFox]

On 01/05/2025 at 13:13, SouthStandUpperTier said:

It's only the jeopardy of the knockout stages that has brought the entertainment. The actual league phase was utterly boring and far too bloated.

I've said repeatedly it's like the American sports with the regular season/post season - teams are on cruise mode during the regular. Think it will get worse now clubs understand the format.