I sort of get it, to be honest.
It is the very fact that UEFA took a perfectly decent competition like the UEFA Cup, and butchered it, producing this absolute joke of a format.
Now, maybe I am different on this because I can remember watching my club play in, and win, the European Cup (*obligatory mention*) so am tainted by this, but when we played in the final format of the UEFA Cup and then the EL under O'Neill, it had just been reduced to such a parody that it became boring.
It started too early - I remember sitting in blazing July sunshine, watching us play Odense, and seemed to drag on forever, pointless fecking group matches against the likes of Mentalist Kharkiv or FC Boobtube of Slovenia.
It just went on and on and on, and excited nobody.
UEFA created that format thinking they'd have a television oriented second tier competition to cream it in from, but what they got was something that so few people wanted to see on telly, Channel 5 won the rights. Channel 5 don't win the rights to anything other than Big Brother and Home and Away.
The excitement of potential European glory should be there for the likes of Hull, you're definitely right there, but if you look at the way they treat the competition, I honestly think it is down to UEFA butchering it in the first place.
Incidentally, do Celtic now drop into the Europa League, effectively getting a third chance at European glory? How can you take that seriously?
Yep, although they would have dropped down to the Europa anyway, even if the result against Legia stood.
Legia actually went though to the group stages today, I hope they draw and beat Celtic. It would be hilarious.
