Its all another symptom of the absolute death of football.
The CL now goes on endlessly. Used to stop before Xmas & come back in early March, giving everyone a break to concentrate on their domestic leagues.
Now it carries on all the way through to the end of January, has a break for about 15 minutes then comes back in February. Madness.
After all this ****ing faff, 2 thirds of the teams will still be involved.
The seeding system also ensures that the big clubs will still more than likely piss their way through to the last 16.
As I said, all just a symptom of the wider collapse of the game.
The stupid amount of teams that qualify in the first place, the complete dilution of quality in the Europa as a result, the completely ****ing pointless Conference League...& then at international level the equally pointless Nations League, plus the upcoming expansion of the World Cup to a million teams.
All just ends up with players playing constantly without any kind of acceptable break, leading to the inevitable drop in quality in favour of quantity.
European football used to be about being an elite event & they still sell it as such.
How in the name of **** can it be when teams finishing literally nowhere in their leagues can still qualify for europe?
SHITE
The last WC was proof enough. Despite the fact that the whole thing was a triumph of corruption & cynicism, it did produce probably the best tournament in years & certainly the best final of my lifetime.
Why? Because it was played in mid season when players are at the peak of fitness rather than in the summer when the current programme sees them all shagged out or playing with injuries.
The same programme that just got even worse thanks to this ****ing bollocks.
**** it all. I grew up with the european cup. A genuinely elite event with games spaced out so that they were real occasions, not just another bog standard league game.
& the UEFA cup was for teams that could genuinely challenge for league titles.
& no ****er qualified for europe by finishing 30 bastard points behind the champions.
Dogshit.