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Europa League 2012/13 - Benfica 1 - 2 Chelsea


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Guest Geordiesned

Sorry if Giggs - I didn't notice at the time but been reading that Ba went up to collect a medal despite having inelligible to play for Chelsea in the Europa! Surely will be made to hand it back. He can hardly have "Europa League winner" on his CV.

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@pkelso 16m Expect #Uefa to confirm tomorrow that from 2015-16 Europa League winners qualify for Champions League. Could be 5 teams from one country

 

Interesting. Gives teams a reason to compete in the Europa League.

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They'd be far better re-allocating some of the wealth to the Europa League from the CL. Would encourage higher levels of participation from big clubs and also stop the ruining of leagues by having the same CL qualifiers every year hoarding money.

 

Small steps though...

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Split on this. In one way I think its another step towards devaluing a historic competition that used to hold huge value, but I guess its the only step considering the beast they've turned the CL into.

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So just like this season Chelsea could get knocked out the CL, drop into the Europa League and then sack off the rest of the league season and ensure they win the Europa? Its a decent idea but only if its coupled with abolishing the Champions League drop out farce.

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So just like this season Chelsea could get knocked out the CL, drop into the Europa League and then sack off the rest of the league season and ensure they win the Europa? Its a decent idea but only if its coupled with abolishing the Champions League drop out farce.

 

Completely agree.

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Just make one European cup knockout competition from the top 3-5 clubs of each country.

 

No daft mini leagues, no 2nd chances for the knocked out big guns, no clubs sweating on financial meltdown because they finished 5th instead of 4th one season.

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They badly need to make the CL smaller IMO, 2 places for each country max. Then those other clubs go into the Europa and make it better.

 

Not at all, they just need to reduce the wealth.

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Guest neesy111

They badly need to make the CL smaller IMO, 2 places for each country max. Then those other clubs go into the Europa and make it better.

 

Not at all, they just need to reduce the wealth.

 

:thup:

 

Just like how the PL should prop-up a much bigger payment pool for the FA cup imo.

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So long as the Champs league dropouts remain, continues to emulate the Champs league group format and even keeps it's rubbish sounding name, the Europa League will remain a joke of competition. How I long for the old UEFA Cup knockouts :(

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Came to the conclusion that on the whole, this is a bad move.

 

Why? It's a step in the right direction imo.

 

It devalues the competition even further. The UEFA Cup used to be a prestigious competition that teams were desperate to win and often had line-ups that were as strong or stronger than the European Cup. But the expansion of the CL, the ridiculous changes to the format and the tacky rebranding have all contributed to making it a naffer competition than it was. Then you take into account the lack of prize money in the modern game and you're left with a shell of a competition.

 

They'd be better off improving the actual competition (less bloated format, spread the CL money out) but instead they've tacked on the prize of playing in the real competition that UEFA cares about. They've basically admitted its rubbish rather than trying to fix it, and stuck on an incentive as an easy fix. When WINNING A TROPHY needs an incentive of playing in another competition to make it worthwhile surely that should tell them that they've fucked it up completely somewhere along the way.

 

Over the next few years it status will fall to being no more than a 4th place finish equivalent.

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Came to the conclusion that on the whole, this is a bad move.

 

Why? It's a step in the right direction imo.

 

It devalues the competition even further. The UEFA Cup used to be a prestigious competition that teams were desperate to win and often had line-ups that were as strong or stronger than the European Cup. But the expansion of the CL, the ridiculous changes to the format and the tacky rebranding have all contributed to making it a naffer competition than it was. Then you take into account the lack of prize money in the modern game and you're left with a shell of a competition.

 

They'd be better off improving the actual competition (less bloated format, spread the CL money out) but instead they've tacked on the prize of playing in the real competition that UEFA cares about. They've basically admitted its rubbish rather than trying to fix it, and stuck on an incentive as an easy fix. When WINNING A TROPHY needs an incentive of playing in another competition to make it worthwhile surely that should tell them that they've f***ed it up completely somewhere along the way.

 

TBF before the rebranding UEFA was still a pretty shit cup, the rules have been the same for a long long time except it's not knockout phase anymore.

 

I do agree with your sentiment, but it was still the same problem with the UEFA Cup and I think it's an extra incentive to teams, so in my opinion it's a step in the right direction. It's either this with knockout phase or give it up completely.

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