Quote Originally Posted by splott parker View Post
Yes, I agree that fans of clubs may enjoy the group stages and I’d love us to be involved. But I’d find it annoying if our manager, if it ever happened, then complained that we were playing too many games and the players were tired.

It would be more exciting for fans of the not so glamorous clubs having a chance of progressing through the old two legged system. Unfortunately the days of Malmo, Hamburg, Forest, Bruges etc are long gone. Cup games and competition should be all about ‘on the day’ not a long drawn out execution.
Sadly those days are long gone regardless of the format. The big European clubs now snap up the very best young european (and south american too) talent from a very young age. Gone are the days the very best talent in Holland all coming through the Ajax first team at the same time.

There was a good article in The Athletic on the subject recently, in particular the eastern bloc teams of the past and how we wont see that again.

In some respects thats why the Europa League is a bit more interesting for the neutral and football romantic come the latter stages, although Seville started to ruin that by winning it every year!!