Champions League Last 16 Draw - RB Leipzig

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Blue and true said:
All football is a money making racket. The Premier League was founded as a breakaway from the old football pyramid precisely as a vehicle for making more money, so why don't you have an issue with that?

The Champions League is fine in its current format, the alternative is a Super League which all fanbases oppose for obvious reasons. So it's called the "Champions" league, genuinely who gives a fuck? It's just a name. The reality is it's the European Cup. It's the biggest club competition in the world, and it's the only way we ever have a chance of meeting the likes of Madrid, Bayern, Juve, etc. Club football without any European matches would be shite. It would be like someone handing you a travel brochure with lots of exotic destinations then slamming it shut in your face and telling you that you can never go there. It's the competition all the top players strive to play in. Do you reckon Haaland will stick around if we're yet to win one in a few years, whilst the likes of Madrid pick up yet another? One of his personal goals will be the Balon d'Or, and he isn't winning that without a CL winners medal.

This competition is denigrated by a small section of City fans as a defence mechanism, we've never won it so it comforts them to imagine it as unimportant. This same set of fans will then blow smoke up the arse of the League Cup, a competition where we'll likely meet cannon fodder up until the final round and then potentially play one tough game; all completed by mid-season: for a club of our current standing that is the definition of tinpot.

We need to win this trophy. Pretty much all of our competitors have at least one and we've had a team good enough to win it for over half a decade now. This teams legacy will be incomplete without it. No more excuses.
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Very good post. I don’t disagree with anything you say.

I personally do not like the competition because of who runs it and the long winded qualifying part. Also that particular organisation has basically, by adding a second and third tournament, created its own European League. One competition is enough and go for a straight knock out after weeding out lesser teams with pre-qualificaton.
 
Gray said:
My point exactly, all the qualifying is a complete waste of time. Straight KO competition between the top 64 teams on co-efficient or even more revolutionary a straight KO competition involving all the League Champions.
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This format carries 10x more weight and it is much better at deciding which team is really the best one. If you qualify this as a waste of time, how would you describe playing Omonia, Ferencvaros and Craiova before we reach 1/4 or 1/2? Or it might be that I am not so nostalgic when it comes to the football of the past.
 
Blue and true said:
All football is a money making racket. The Premier League was founded as a breakaway from the old football pyramid precisely as a vehicle for making more money, so why don't you have an issue with that?

The Champions League is fine in its current format, the alternative is a Super League which all fanbases oppose for obvious reasons. So it's called the "Champions" league, genuinely who gives a fuck? It's just a name. The reality is it's the European Cup. It's the biggest club competition in the world, and it's the only way we ever have a chance of meeting the likes of Madrid, Bayern, Juve, etc. Club football without any European matches would be shite. It would be like someone handing you a travel brochure with lots of exotic destinations then slamming it shut in your face and telling you that you can never go there. It's the competition all the top players strive to play in. Do you reckon Haaland will stick around if we're yet to win one in a few years, whilst the likes of Madrid pick up yet another? One of his personal goals will be the Balon d'Or, and he isn't winning that without a CL winners medal.

This competition is denigrated by a small section of City fans as a defence mechanism, we've never won it so it comforts them to imagine it as unimportant. This same set of fans will then blow smoke up the arse of the League Cup, a competition where we'll likely meet cannon fodder up until the final round and then potentially play one tough game; all completed by mid-season: for a club of our current standing that is the definition of tinpot.

We need to win this trophy. Pretty much all of our competitors have at least one and we've had a team good enough to win it for over half a decade now. This teams legacy will be incomplete without it. No more excuses.
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Excellent post.

And yeah, the league cup was created so a bunch of clubs could pay off their new floodlights. If we are annoyed about money then we are in the wrong sport.

We need to win this. This season, next season, the season after. No ifs or buts.

And once you get to the quarter final it produces some of the best quality of football and best moments the sport has ever created. We have now been part of a fair few of them, just the wrong side. I'd like to be on one of the right sides now.
 
Gray said:
Very good post. I don’t disagree with anything you say.

I personally do not like the competition because of who runs it and the long winded qualifying part. Also that particular organisation has basically, by adding a second and third tournament, created its own European League. One competition is enough and go for a straight knock out after weeding out lesser teams with pre-qualificaton.
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Why just let the Elite play international matches? When I look at teams like Freiburg, Cologne, Frankfurt etc. - their fans love European competitions. It might not even be about winning - but about the whole away fan event. Yes, the CL is for the Elite - but why should everything just be for them.
 
Let's scrap the group games and go back to how the European cup was played for,we should have the League champions from 15 country's plus the Europa league winner's.Then we would start from the last 16 which would mean 8 games home and away legs and so on.Then you would be the proper Champion's of Europe.Plus the teams that finish 2nd in those other 15 league's and the losing finalist from the Champions league go into the Europa league.
 
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Put the names of all the European champions in a hat. Then draw teams out in pairs. Two legs, home and away, the winner goes into the hat for the next round. If you lose a tie, you’re out, goodnight Vienna, better luck next time. To qualify you must be the champion of your country. Not 2nd. Or 3rd. Or 4th. Champions only need apply.
For teams finishing 2nd-5th we’d have a UEFA Cup.
For Cup Winners’ a European Cup Winners’ Cup.
No group stages, no dropping into any other competitions, no bollocks about not playing a team from your own country.
Straightforward knockout
 
As it stands:

Guaranteed 1st Place
Chelsea
Manchester City
Bayern Munich
FC Porto
Napoli
Tottenham Hotspur

Guaranteed 2nd Place
Borussia Dortmund
Inter
Club Brugge
Eintracht Frankfurt
Liverpool

Qualified, Place Undecided
Real Madrid
Paris Saint-Germain
Benfica

Teams still in contention for Champions League knockouts
1 of: AC Milan or FC Salzburg
1 of: RB Leipzig (could finish 1st) or Shakhtar Donetsk

Europa League Knockouts (3rd)
Sevilla
Barcelona
Bayer Leverkusen
Ajax
Sporting CP

Out/Could get Europa League
Dinamo Zagreb
Juventus
Maccabi Haifa

Teams that are out (4th)
Celtic
FC Copenhagen
Rangers
Viktoria Plzen
Atletico Madrid
Marseille

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