Quote Originally Posted by J R Hartley View Post
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!!
They are I know. I’m just reminiscing about the competitions of my youth, through rose tinted specs as well, no doubt. Perhaps us older fans are lucky in a way that we’ve seen most formats in our day. None of us witnessed the original FA Cup format though, when it was the FA Challenge Trophy. The winners of the previous season were automatically in the final the next season, waiting to be challenged by the team who got through the preceding rounds. Wanderers had to play a series of friendlies to warm waiting to see who they faced in the final TV would be apoplectic nowadays