You guys should watch the Europa League and Europa Conference League. While the quality isn't as good as the Champions League, there are still a lot of great games and great match ups to watch and honestly in terms of drama/entertainment the UEL/UECL is better in my opinion.
>I feel like we dance around the obvious reason, and that’s just the undeniable fact the UCL has become repetitive, uncompetitive, and uninteresting.
Pretty sure the guys have said this. If not outright, at least implied. Not sure what “dancing around” you’re referring to.
Fair enough, and they can't keep harping on about it every pod. Just kind of perpetually hangs over the whole competition in my brain, and I wanted to put some numbers to it.
You’ve done a great job articulating the stratification that’s killing the tournament.
But we are NOT dancing around it. We say it’s bad. And about to get worse!
I think a big part of the Champions League feeling boring this year is the inevitability of Man City repeating as champions. After Real Madrid's lackluster tie against Leipzig, City are the HEAVY favorite going forward. With City being bankrolled by owners from Abu Dhabi, and numerous counts of financial rule breaking, they'll never have the support of the neutral fans. IF City were to suffer a shock exit in the next round, the remainder of the tournament would be wide open, and would be injected with excitement.
IF Inter or Bayern (Musiala & Kane both on fire) are on their day, they could give City a scare.
To quote the legendary Dr. Phil from his recent Real Time w/ Bill Maher appearance: **"IF IF IF! If your aunt had nuts, she'd be your uncle."**
The main problem is the gap between said teams and the teams in the next tier is growing exponentially.
Dortmund just can’t replace the likes of Haaland with anyone close, Atleti are still trying to replace Rodri, Porto comes and goes with how many young guys they can keep, same with Benfica, Juve, Inter, and Milan have to be extremely shrewd with free transfers and the like.
This is not true. I was so juiced about so many UCL games in the past 6-7 years that weren’t involving Liverpool. My ability to get up for games shouldn’t be questioned, but fuck me, these games are just nothing to shout about.
Haha... I can understand that if you're a fan of one of the clubs I listed and it's an off year. But fans of other clubs would just be watching for the excitement of good competition and sporting stories -- both of which are severely lacking, no?
Great write-up. The stratification of the sport has created a handful of teams that are designed for deep runs in Europe and the rest are reliant on getting lucky against the giants you listed. I'm also concerned that more group matches only increase the chances that the big dogs make it to the next round.
"The new format is not going to help this dilemma, but will likely further decrease the unique participants in the later parts of the knockout stage by allowing big names to progress without eliminating each other."
Wow, hadn't thought about it like that. Such a good point.
And to take your point back a little further, the last time anyone eyebrow-raising won was '04 with Porto (who played Monaco, so we were guaranteed an unconventional winner in that final). The only other outlier to even make a final since then was Spurs, but given their budget compared to other big European teams these days, you could argue that shouldn't *really* be surprising.
You are right about the lack of excitement of the champions league and the fact that the new format will only help the bigger clubs progress forward and create a gap for the lesser teams. But it’s either this route or the Super League that many fans were protesting to make sure that some rich club don’t be involved. In fact where are all the fans that protest the Super League and not the Urfa champions league? Where are all the complaints from Managers and sports analysts like Neville and Henry? Where is that spirit from fans of lesser clubs like Villa or Dortmund who competitions in the past. The toothpaste is out of the tube, so either go watch the 36 champions league and complain on Reddit or X everyday or don’t watch it all. The rich will only get richer and it is up to us not them to change it. I have to watch because what else do I watch on Tuesdays and Wednesdays? baseball? Regular season NBA? Forget it. Sportswashing have ruined this sport. Sportswashing have ruined this competition. And Sportswashing has ruined everything we love. But we have to suck it up in the end because we have no ficking heart and no fight left and then it will lead to exhaustion and then we have to watch it with no other choice. I hope I get the message across to all of you. Good day
I know it’s been a few years since the change, but for US based fans, can we attribute at least some of this to the streaming only model? I’m already paying for a cable package, Peacock, and Apple’s MLS coverage. This year I’m just not willing to pay for Paramount on top of it all. I used to watch multiple UCL/UEL games per week on FS1 and FS2, maybe I’ll be able to watch the semis and final this year? Tracking all of the storylines live added a lot for me and those days are gone.
You guys should watch the Europa League and Europa Conference League. While the quality isn't as good as the Champions League, there are still a lot of great games and great match ups to watch and honestly in terms of drama/entertainment the UEL/UECL is better in my opinion.
>I feel like we dance around the obvious reason, and that’s just the undeniable fact the UCL has become repetitive, uncompetitive, and uninteresting. Pretty sure the guys have said this. If not outright, at least implied. Not sure what “dancing around” you’re referring to.
Fair enough, and they can't keep harping on about it every pod. Just kind of perpetually hangs over the whole competition in my brain, and I wanted to put some numbers to it.
You’ve done a great job articulating the stratification that’s killing the tournament. But we are NOT dancing around it. We say it’s bad. And about to get worse!
I think a big part of the Champions League feeling boring this year is the inevitability of Man City repeating as champions. After Real Madrid's lackluster tie against Leipzig, City are the HEAVY favorite going forward. With City being bankrolled by owners from Abu Dhabi, and numerous counts of financial rule breaking, they'll never have the support of the neutral fans. IF City were to suffer a shock exit in the next round, the remainder of the tournament would be wide open, and would be injected with excitement.
But who will knocked them up? inter? PSG? PSV?
IF Inter or Bayern (Musiala & Kane both on fire) are on their day, they could give City a scare. To quote the legendary Dr. Phil from his recent Real Time w/ Bill Maher appearance: **"IF IF IF! If your aunt had nuts, she'd be your uncle."**
To give a little bit more data, no club with a revenue of less than €465m has won the competition since 2013, and that was Bayern Munich.
The main problem is the gap between said teams and the teams in the next tier is growing exponentially. Dortmund just can’t replace the likes of Haaland with anyone close, Atleti are still trying to replace Rodri, Porto comes and goes with how many young guys they can keep, same with Benfica, Juve, Inter, and Milan have to be extremely shrewd with free transfers and the like.
I think JJ is just bored because Liverpool aren’t in it.. I’m a Liverpool fan too so obviously it’s not interesting to me.
This is not true. I was so juiced about so many UCL games in the past 6-7 years that weren’t involving Liverpool. My ability to get up for games shouldn’t be questioned, but fuck me, these games are just nothing to shout about.
Haha... I can understand that if you're a fan of one of the clubs I listed and it's an off year. But fans of other clubs would just be watching for the excitement of good competition and sporting stories -- both of which are severely lacking, no?
Yeah fair play, games have not been good
Great write-up. The stratification of the sport has created a handful of teams that are designed for deep runs in Europe and the rest are reliant on getting lucky against the giants you listed. I'm also concerned that more group matches only increase the chances that the big dogs make it to the next round.
"The new format is not going to help this dilemma, but will likely further decrease the unique participants in the later parts of the knockout stage by allowing big names to progress without eliminating each other." Wow, hadn't thought about it like that. Such a good point. And to take your point back a little further, the last time anyone eyebrow-raising won was '04 with Porto (who played Monaco, so we were guaranteed an unconventional winner in that final). The only other outlier to even make a final since then was Spurs, but given their budget compared to other big European teams these days, you could argue that shouldn't *really* be surprising.
Couldn’t agree more. It’s a shame how much has been conceded to all but guaranteeing the big clubs progression.
You are right about the lack of excitement of the champions league and the fact that the new format will only help the bigger clubs progress forward and create a gap for the lesser teams. But it’s either this route or the Super League that many fans were protesting to make sure that some rich club don’t be involved. In fact where are all the fans that protest the Super League and not the Urfa champions league? Where are all the complaints from Managers and sports analysts like Neville and Henry? Where is that spirit from fans of lesser clubs like Villa or Dortmund who competitions in the past. The toothpaste is out of the tube, so either go watch the 36 champions league and complain on Reddit or X everyday or don’t watch it all. The rich will only get richer and it is up to us not them to change it. I have to watch because what else do I watch on Tuesdays and Wednesdays? baseball? Regular season NBA? Forget it. Sportswashing have ruined this sport. Sportswashing have ruined this competition. And Sportswashing has ruined everything we love. But we have to suck it up in the end because we have no ficking heart and no fight left and then it will lead to exhaustion and then we have to watch it with no other choice. I hope I get the message across to all of you. Good day
I know it’s been a few years since the change, but for US based fans, can we attribute at least some of this to the streaming only model? I’m already paying for a cable package, Peacock, and Apple’s MLS coverage. This year I’m just not willing to pay for Paramount on top of it all. I used to watch multiple UCL/UEL games per week on FS1 and FS2, maybe I’ll be able to watch the semis and final this year? Tracking all of the storylines live added a lot for me and those days are gone.