City fans' view towards the Champions League

Do you enjoy the Champions League?

  • Total voters
    413
supercity88 said:
Your last line there is quite something. I hadn't thought about that, but it's quite a strong point to make.
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It's a stupid point to make. For a start, they didn't decide to "leave" the champions league. They decided to take it over - the total opposite.
 
The perfect fumble said:
Fuck me! Stop acting like your shit don't stink.

Our owners want it and our detractors use it to beat us down, let's win it and get it out of our system. And if we win it again next year, the year after, the year after that that's great, but it's a sideshow, like all cup competitions.

It's the league that matters and every football fan knows it.
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Didsbury Dave said:
If you want to equate winning this to winning the Carabou Cup then there's no helping you.

This will be the biggest, most important and most prestigious "sideshow" in the club's history and the euphoria around winning it if we do would quite rightly be as much as winning the premier league in 2012. It would be the pinnacle of 128 year's history.
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Somehow, though, you are both correct. As City fans we have grown up (60s/70s) with the prestige of the European Cup, which was a fair competition that we had a small chance to qualify for - but at least it was only one of your rivals that could get into it each year - and then have had to watch it morph into this mega-bucks false league format that we were initially miles away from but have now managed to barge our way into - thank you Sheik Mansour. The CL was designed to print money for the big boys, and that wasn't originally meant for teams like us, so many fans are conflicted. Are we being disingenuous by embracing it now when we always saw it for what it was? Does it make us shallow? Are we forgetting how other teams must feel?

I don't think it's wrong to prefer the league, with its unique rivalries and memories, over the CL, but I also understand what it means to the players and younger supporters.

If it was the old format we would be hugely supportive of it I reckon. But it's not, it is what it is.
 
supercity88 said:
Your last line there is quite something. I hadn't thought about that, but it's quite a strong point to make.
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Didsbury Dave can't see the wood for the trees. Our owners see winning the Champions League not as an end in itself but a means to an end, the end being worldwide recognition as an elite football club and all that comes with it. When the European Super League popped up as an alternative means to that end, they signed up.

So just how important is winning the Champions League if it's just a means to an end? Besides, we know what'll happen if we do win it, our detractors will move the goal posts, the most obvious being we have to win it more than once.

The beauty of the League is 38 games over the length of a season does not lie, you win that and you're the best, everything else is noises off.
 
It's a mafia racket run by crooks, thieves and bent politicians. They hate us, they'd hate us to win it, and for that reason I'm desperate for us to rub it in their faces.

I hope the blues that do get to the game boo the hell out of their daft jingle twice as loud.
 
I think we have evidence of corruption at the highest level - which is why the decisions have been fair this year.

Or - we are just so good they couldn’t stop us !!


Either way I’ll be booing the jingle still
 
The perfect fumble said:
Didsbury Dave can't see the wood for the trees. Our owners see winning the Champions League not as an end in itself but a means to an end, the end being worldwide recognition as an elite football club and all that comes with it. When the European Super League popped up as an alternative means to that end, they signed up.

So just how important is winning the Champions League if it's just a means to an end? Besides, we know what'll happen if we do win it, our detractors will move the goal posts, the most obvious being we have to win it more than once.
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They see/saw winning the premier league in the exactly the same way.

Who gives a shit? It didn't reduce the euphoria when we won it. The exact same applies to the Champions League.

Why bother supporting City if your overriding emotions are cynicism of the owners instead of desire for success?

Given everything this club has been through I'd say that anyone who isn't desperate to win the biggest club football trophy in the world for the first time does not genuinely care about the club.
 
Didsbury Dave said:
It's a stupid point to make. For a start, they didn't decide to "leave" the champions league. They decided to take it over - the total opposite.
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I wouldn't say it is stupid. For me it makes a good point around our perception of the owners being desperate to win the CL. That's something we hear from the media all of the time, and as fans, we believe there to be a desire to win it - whether it's seen as the most important to them I'm not sure.

They were happy for there to be a spin-off or new version of it. Remember, UEFA weren't up for it being taken over so it wasn't quite a case of an updated version of what we currently see.

I think it is answers the question as to what our owners answer would be to this question. Do you enjoy the Champions League? We enjoy whatever competition gives us the most revenue and prize money. There has never really been any doubt as to that being their answer. But for us as fans the answer to the question can, and should be quite different.

It's inarguably the most prestigious for players and managers and the most important because of that. Would Neville give up a few league winners medals for one more CL title? You bet he would. Would Carragher swap his CL medal for a league title? Not a fucking chance.
 
I actually like the champions league, it's the only cup scheme I regularly opt into with my season ticket. I work shifts and it causes me endless headaches trying to book days off for premier leagues games only to find they have been shifted for TV. At least with this this competition dates are firm. I enjoy coming through town with opposition fans milling around and I enjoy seeing different teams. I want to win it just like I want to win every competition we enter. It doesn't mean I like UEFA though.
 
It's just another competition with a trophy at the end. Sure, there is a load of money to be made, but ultimately it's just a trophy for which we have competed.

In reality, we know it's fundamentally flawed, in fact totally flawed in that it allows teams to lose games in the group stage and in later rounds progress with draws on away goals. It's perfectly feasible in fact that a team could draw 6 group games, draws all 6 knockout games and draw the final yet goals scored, away goals and then a penalty shoot out would declare a team, who are probably not Champions of their own country even, the Champions of Europe. Have a think about that for a little while, and the younger fans amongst you just may begin to see why the lagacy fans see it as a gimmick that is only rivalled by the Emperor's New Clothes!

Meanwhile the much derived League Cup doesn't allow any side to progress that loses a game, doesn't employ away goals and uses extra time wherever possible to produce a victor before the eventuality of penalty kicks. In short, as a tournament it's rules are fair and not concocted to allow failure to triumph.

My penultimate point is I got much more satisfaction beating United in the Semi Final of the League Cup than I did beating a load of cheating mercenaries currently employed by a team in Paris in the misnomer known as the Champions League.

Finally, Will I want City to beat Chelsea?, well of course I will. Will I be devastated if we lose?, no I won't as although Chelsea will be conveniently crowned Champions of Europe I will reconcile the fact that they are not the best team in Europe being not even the best team in England, much the same scenario I may add as in 2012.

Would I swap the Premier League for Champions League? Absolutely no chance, never, and I'm not sure many fans would.
 
I have always loved European football, not least for the amazing away trips. I have only missed three home European matches since 1969 (pre-pandemic). I even went to the Anglo Italian Cup game.
But I have hated UEFA for many years and also the way we have been repeatedly stitched up in the Champs League. The problem has always been the authorities not the football (which is the best level you can watch).
 
Didsbury Dave said:
They see/saw winning the premier league in the exactly the same way.

Who gives a shit? It didn't reduce the euphoria when we won it. The exact same applies to the Champions League.

Why bother supporting City if your overriding emotions are cynicism of the owners instead of desire for success?

Given everything this club has been through I'd say that anyone who isn't desperate to win the biggest club football trophy in the world for the first time does not genuinely care about the club.
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Where does one begin with a post like this?

Sorry mate, but I'm not rising to your bait.

It's important to our club that we win the Champions League, just how important depends on what kind of stakeholder you are. Our owners want it for different reasons to me, and different reasons to Pep for sure, he never tires of reminding everyone that the true mettle of a team is to win the league, particularly a competitive league like the Premier.

The reason your post was such a stinker.....

Didsbury Dave said:
I've thought a bit this week about the small-minded Likkle City fans who've always lurked, claiming not the care about the biggest club competition in the world. They are our "legacy" fans, stuck in an era where City defined themselves by the odd derby victory and hope of a cup final every decade or so.

Hopefully the quality, the excitement, the hype, the profile and the euphoria of this week's game has illustrated to these people how they need to heave themselves into the modern world of MCFC.

I'm going to use a wank phrase: "What's not to like"? This is as exciting as 1999, 2000, 2011 and 12.
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Was its insistence that those who didn't see it as you do are "likkle City fans" and worst of all "legacy fans".

You compound your shithousery by stating....

Didsbury Dave said:
anyone who isn't desperate to win the biggest club football trophy in the world for the first time does not genuinely care about the club.
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Desperate to win?

Desperate?!!!

Get a life! All City fans will celebrate if we win that cup, but desperate? Give over.

I genuinely believe City fans are different to every fan base in the Premier League, and it's to do with our history, and it's something we should treasure. If any other fan base had enjoyed the success we've had over the last ten years they'd be insufferable entitled Billy Big Bollocks, but we're not.

We're not desperate to win that cup, we're not as a fan base full of desperation, because we've nothing to prove that we haven't proven already. It would be nice to win that cup, very, very nice, but I don't need a bunch of corrupt Euro trash thugs to hand us a big handled cup to ease my sense of desperation, to validate my club.

And I don't take kindly to the likes of you proscribing how I and other blues have to feel about it in order to qualify as "genuinely" caring for our club.
 
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There are 22 teams across the whole of Europe who have won it. If you think about all the great clubs, with their dedicated fans, and years of pain and suffering, who are not on that list it really boggles the mind. 22 teams, and City could make it 23.
 
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