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Thread: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

  1. #1

    Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    With all the Super League stuff going on... can we please also speak about the new Champions League format? More and more and more games, is no one thinking about us players?
    The new UCL format is just the lesser of the two evils in comparison to the Super League...

    The UCL format right now works great and that is why it's the most popular club competition in the world - for us players and for the fans.

    https://twitter.com/IlkayGuendogan/s...93404100235272
    Difficult to remember now but there was plenty of criticism of new Champions League proposals before the "Super League" announcement. It's still risks restricting competition (part of criticism of Super League) in favour of the wealthiest clubs, but Gündogan also right to point out how many more games players are going to play.

    I know there isn't a lot of sympathy for players playing more but, as Lone Gunman says, quality of Championship this year has been poor and teams that have come down from premier league are going straight back up - imo, part of that double assessment is limited break between seasons and therefore longer period of time where players playing twice a week.

    But, as he says, lesser of the two evils. Will be interesting to see if anyone else speaks out against something already signed off and what the consequences will be further down the line.

  2. #2

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    Quote Originally Posted by surge View Post
    Difficult to remember now but there was plenty of criticism of new Champions League proposals before the "Super League" announcement. It's still risks restricting competition (part of criticism of Super League) in favour of the wealthiest clubs, but Gündogan also right to point out how many more games players are going to play.

    I know there isn't a lot of sympathy for players playing more but, as Lone Gunman says, quality of Championship this year has been poor and teams that have come down from premier league are going straight back up - imo, part of that double assessment is limited break between seasons and therefore longer period of time where players playing twice a week.

    But, as he says, lesser of the two evils. Will be interesting to see if anyone else speaks out against something already signed off and what the consequences will be further down the line.
    Ironically, this probably favours the bigger teams with the bigger squads.

    Surely makes it a lot harder for the smaller teams to progress

  3. #3

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    Quote Originally Posted by WJ99mobile View Post
    Ironically, this probably favours the bigger teams with the bigger squads.

    Surely makes it a lot harder for the smaller teams to progress
    and the 2 highest seeded teams that didn't qualify will get a free pass - if the rules were brought in this season it would likely be Chelsea and Liverpool. How long before the 2 teams is expanded to 4 teams?

  4. #4

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    Klopp on new Champions League:

    "They showed it to me, I spent one hour with UEFA, I told them I don't like it.

    "It has 10 more games in, I don't know how we fit them in.

    "The only people who never get asked are the coaches, players and supporters.

    "We are already on the edge"

    "UEFA didn't ask us, the Super League didn't ask us. It's just always 'play more games' - that's not possible."
    Pep on new Champions League:

    All the time managers ask for better quality and the football world wants quantity. We are not in charge of that. We have to ask UEFA / FIFA to extend the year. Instead of 365 days, maybe they can find 400? Maybe they have a solution.
    It's either going to lead to worse games, more injuries or wealthy clubs maintaining success by going to even more extremes to hoard players.

    More games of worse quality isn't going to keep fans interested/attract new fans.

  5. #5

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    Quote Originally Posted by WJ99mobile View Post
    Ironically, this probably favours the bigger teams with the bigger squads.

    Surely makes it a lot harder for the smaller teams to progress
    Isn't that the fact for every league just in a smaller scale ?

  6. #6

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    This is their one big chance to change things. But I'm going to call it now, and say that nothing will happen. Slap on the wrist, try again next year.

  7. #7

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    A ludicrous tournament gets even more ludicrous, the old European Cup was actually a tournament for Champions and we’ve not had one since.

  8. #8

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
    A ludicrous tournament gets even more ludicrous, the old European Cup was actually a tournament for Champions and we’ve not had one since.
    ..ironic that when it was a Champions competition it was called the European cup

  9. #9

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
    A ludicrous tournament gets even more ludicrous, the old European Cup was actually a tournament for Champions and we’ve not had one since.
    Two legs, no chance for the big boys to have an off day with the comfort of another four or five group games to dig themselves out of a hole. Every club the champions of their respective country, every game, because they weren’t nigh on every bloody week, was a big occasion, no dead rubbers. The winners were the Champions of Europe because they’d triumphed in a competition where they hadn’t been beaten overall by any other side. Cup competitions are all about upsets as well as brilliant winners, no chance of that nowadays sadly.

  10. #10

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
    A ludicrous tournament gets even more ludicrous, the old European Cup was actually a tournament for Champions and we’ve not had one since.
    Loads of people bring this up. But all the Champions are there with back up from the other top sides in the strongest leagues.

    The competition is far stronger now and better for it rather than a knockout of Champions in Europe where some champions would struggle in England Spain Italy Germany.

    European Cup would have been a better name for it today though.

  11. #11

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    Quote Originally Posted by Hilts View Post
    Loads of people bring this up. But all the Champions are there with back up from the other top sides in the strongest leagues.

    The competition is far stronger now and better for it rather than a knockout of Champions in Europe where some champions would struggle in England Spain Italy Germany.

    European Cup would have been a better name for it today though.
    Better? Really? It’s geared to making sure the ‘big’ teams get to the latter stages, that’s not what cup football should be about. It only gets to be cup football when it gets to the contrived knock out stage. Even when it was a proper competition the best team inevitably won it but they’d had hairy moments along the way and on occasions ‘big’ teams had been knocked out by supposed no hopers, as cup tradition intended? Why is it so wrong for clubs like Malmo, Celtic, Bruges, Steau Bucharest etc to reach the final? Clubs complain about too many games yet they bit UEFA’s hand off when they realised that they could finish second, third or fourth and still be involved in the biggest competition. Now it seems that, whereas it was a race to the death to win the league and be crowned domestic champions, coming fourth is a right result. The Fairs Cup/UEFA Cup was a cracking competition as well, it very often included a form team who’d become champions of their country in their Fairs Cup/UEFA Cup seasons. Some clubs, and with the governing bodies blessing, want it all their way, that’s not competition, it’s a closed shop, the very thing fans are up in arms against at present.

  12. #12

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    Quote Originally Posted by Hilts View Post
    Loads of people bring this up. But all the Champions are there with back up from the other top sides in the strongest leagues.

    The competition is far stronger now and better for it rather than a knockout of Champions in Europe where some champions would struggle in England Spain Italy Germany.

    European Cup would have been a better name for it today though.
    Why should the Champions of the strongest countries need "back up" if they're so strong?

    When the Champions League started, I thought I was alone, or in a tiny minority anyway, in finding the group games so boring, but down the years it's become clear that there were plenty of us who had a problem with a tournament that is completely weighted in favour of the sort of clubs who were prepared to desert it a few days ago - it's not a better tournament, it's a reflection of a modern way of life that says might is always right, but, hopefully, the little people and "legacy fans" kicked back in the last week and, in football at least, things may just be changing.

    The notion that every year there is a tournament of "Champions" taking place which, in truth, has been won by a team finishing fifth in their domestic league is ludicrous.

  13. #13

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    It’s a bit rich players and managers complaining about the amount of games they have to play.
    How are the top clubs in Europe supposed to pay the obscene wages these guys get, by playing less games?
    Football is slowly imploding, and greed is the sole reason. The beautiful game has turned sour. It’s become a runaway train, and it will inevitably crash.
    Fans all over the country, are puffing their chests out this week, thinking they’ve won some kind of moral victory after halting the super league plans.All they’ve done, is land a decent punch in the 1st round.

  14. #14

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    Quote Originally Posted by splott parker View Post
    Two legs, no chance for the big boys to have an off day with the comfort of another four or five group games to dig themselves out of a hole. Every club the champions of their respective country, every game, because they weren’t nigh on every bloody week, was a big occasion, no dead rubbers. The winners were the Champions of Europe because they’d triumphed in a competition where they hadn’t been beaten overall by any other side. Cup competitions are all about upsets as well as brilliant winners, no chance of that nowadays sadly.
    No dead rubbers? Check the run of any winning English team in the 70s and 80s. With the exception of the first round game when forest played Liverpool, they were all fairly easy until the semi finals.

    Between 1970 and 1981, only 4 clubs won the trophy. I don't love the champions league as it is but let's not look back at the European cup as being 100 times better. The knock out rounds now are far better than they were.

  15. #15

    Re: Ilkay Gündogan questions new Champions League rules

    Quote Originally Posted by lardy View Post
    No dead rubbers? Check the run of any winning English team in the 70s and 80s. With the exception of the first round game when forest played Liverpool, they were all fairly easy until the semi finals.

    Between 1970 and 1981, only 4 clubs won the trophy. I don't love the champions league as it is but let's not look back at the European cup as being 100 times better. The knock out rounds now are far better than they were.
    Of course there were no dead rubbers or if there were the team from the first leg would have to be about 3 or 4 nil up. If you lost 2-0 away, you still had hope of turning it around at home. How do you think Malmo and that got to the final?

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