[Football] Do you watch the Champions League

[FatSuperman]

I've seen it once. I watched the 2012 Chelsea vs Bayern match at a friends workplace, on their projector. He is a massive Topspur fan and obviously needed Chelsea to lose so Spurs would go through to the CL the following season. He went apeshit when Chelsea won

 

[METALMICKY]

I think this sums it up for those of us in our 40's and above. Whilst being an Albion fan you used to tune into those big euro nights for Liverpool and Nottingham Forest and cheer them on fervently. That feeling that they were representing the nation died a long time ago. Really don't care for Champions League at all.

 

[OzMike]

I check the results the next morning but is about it.

 

[Pevenseagull]

The billionaires aren't targetting NSC users. We're legacy fans. For every one of us, there are a MILLION in Asia, Africa etc.

earlier today I saw this ... as the day went on I heard the term 'legacy fans'

Jesus ****ing wept


It's not enough that I'm nearly 50, recently made redundant, getting fat and loosing my hair and libido at a rate ... I'm now 'that lot' when it comes to enjoying watching football.

arse to it ... flabby hairy arse I say

 

[Pevenseagull]

I think this sums it up for those of us in our 40's and above. Whilst being an Albion fan you used to tune into those big euro nights for Liverpool and Nottingham Forest and cheer them on fervently. That feeling that they were representing the nation died a long time ago. Really don't care for Champions League at all.

I remember settling down to watch the '85 final and there being a delay so I went up the park to see if anyone else was about for a kickabout, got home when it was dark and Mum and Dad gave me an update on what they knew had happened. Haven't watched a euro final since.

Not because of some emotional turmoil, just English teams weren't in it for a while and I couldn't really give a toss about it thereafter.

 

[Justice]

If I like players in the fixtures I watch the games, PSG, Dortmund, Bayern full of talented players.

 

[darkwolf666]

Can honestly say I have only watched 1 Champions League Final since they did away with the Idea of it being a “cup” competition, and that was THE 2005 Liverpool final.

I remember watching and cheering on English sides, Nottingham Forest, Liverpool and even Aston Villa to wins back in the days before the Super League gravy train began its slow inevitable shunt out of the sidings!

As we have found to our cost, the Holy Grail of the Premier League is a bit of a poisoned chalice as it’s meant we have had to mix with these elitist twats who look down their noses at #teamslikeBrighton.

 

[Curious Orange]

I've not seen any Champions League games in years. The main problem I have with it is that there are too many also-rans in it. Teams that aren't current Champions in any way.

 

[GREASED WEASEL]

I'll watch the final whatever

But other than that only when British clubs are playing

 

[Mackenzie]

No. Not interested at all. If I’m on a car journey it’ll be on as background noise, but I couldn’t tell you who won it last year without looking it up.

I think I only watch football because of Brighton, I don’t think I’d bother otherwise. I do watch palace if they’re on the telly though, I get a lot of pleasure from watching them lose, but other than that it’s Brighton or nothing.

 

[Simster]

I'll go against the grain - I have BT Sport and their coverage is absolutely superb so I watch most Tuesdays and Wednesdays, although I am honestly no more likely to watch an English team than any other. The PSG v Bayern tie was gripping, far more watchable than Dortmund v Man City, so was a no brainer for me.

And I quite like the current format - a fair compromise between straight knockout and league formats which ought to fulfil the greedy appetites of the big clubs. This is what makes this ESL so utterly repugnant (along with the closed shop nature of the ESL).

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

I have found myself watching less and less of it - to me it has become monotonous.

Between 1976-1999 - 16 different clubs won the European Cup (and 27 different clubs were in the final) - Bayern, Liverpool, Forest, Villa, Hamburg, Juve, Steaua, Porto, PSV, AC Milan, Red Star, Barcelona, Marseille, Ajax, Dortmund, Man U.

Sine 1999 - there have been 9 different winners and 17 different clubs in the final - in the last 8 years Real have won it four times and Bayern twice. This year the two of the four semi-finalists have won five of the last ten cups - and the other two are both owned by oil sheikhs. It is getting tedious.

Gone are the days when the CL was a knockout competition - where smaller teams could knockout the big ones - when a team could lose 1-5 away and then win the home leg 4-0 and progress - when the likes of Forest, Villa, Hamburg, Malmo, Steaua, PSV, Ajax, Benfica, Sampdoria, Brugge, Porto could get to a final and even win it - and these are all big clubs.

It is the same with the PL - since 1992 - Man U (13), Arsenal (3), Chelsea (5), Man city (4), Liverpool last season - with the aberrations Blackburn (who won at the very start of the PL when Walker threw a sh*tload of money at it) and Leicester. Twice over 28 years did a team not from the anointed 5 win the PL. From a fans perspective - what is the point of your team playing in a competition it has no chance of winning? For everyone out of the super league six it is about survival in the PL for the money with making an occasional run at a European spot like West Ham this year. Yes you get to see your team playing the big clubs - but so what - that gets tedious after a while when you know you cannot compete.

I have made the point in the past - just to stand still in the PL you need to be spending anything up to £100million every year - certainly £60-70million these days. after that you need to be willing to pay £50million for a striker in the hope of getting a good one - and pay well over £100K a week in wages - that is not sustainable.

Kicking out the super league six could be the best thing that every happened English football - it would level the paying pitch because of a dramatic drop in the money - and, more importantly, it would give every team in the league a change of winning not just the title but would bring meaning back to the FA Cup and the League Cup and give every team a chance of winning those as well.

The super league twelve will attempt to ride out this storm - and then try and twist UEFA's arm and the individual federations' arms to allow them exemptions from cup competitions, to reduce the size of domestic leagues to reduce the number of games - and there will be a sop that out of the 18 teams to play in the super league every year, three of them will go through a qualifying process that will replace the Champions League. From that the top clubs will then have the rights to stream a number of their own domestic matches and super league matches which will dramatically shift the tv money into the pockets of the super league 12/15 (they want PSG and Bayern in it) and make domestic football even more monotonous and tedious.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Quite a telling POLL. Seems that many can be arsed with the Champions League even in its current format. How on earth do the Twattish Twelve expect to fare any better, no matter how much they hype up their closed shop?

 

[Iggle Piggle]

I'll go against the grain - I have BT Sport and their coverage is absolutely superb so I watch most Tuesdays and Wednesdays, although I am honestly no more likely to watch an English team than any other. The PSG v Bayern tie was gripping, far more watchable than Dortmund v Man City, so was a no brainer for me.

And I quite like the current format - a fair compromise between straight knockout and league formats which ought to fulfil the greedy appetites of the big clubs. This is what makes this ESL so utterly repugnant (along with the closed shop nature of the ESL).

Like you I watch it and also tuned in for the PSG game over - I think - Chelsea who were trying their best to lose against Porto. It was an excellent game to watch and frustrating it finished on the Away goal from the dark ages rule. As a neutral it was a good a game as you could watch and better than anything I'd seen in the PL this year. Back in 1999, I cheered Man Utd winning the competition and so did half the pub who were by no means united fans. At some point, any allegiance to English clubs has long gone. Man City, owned by its own oil state with barely an Englishman playing is no more English than a Dortmund side with Jude Bellingham in it.

Where I disagree with you is the group stages. There is barely a single game worth watching unless you are a fan and the groups are largely predictable before they even start (The Man U / PSG / Leipzig was the exception this year). The ESL is a car crash of a concept but the CL group stage and the whole of the Europa cup - especially the CL hand me downs - needs reform. From a competitive point of view, They would be better off having the top 8 in English football in the competition and binning off tinpot nations like Scotland but that is hardly fair and I understand the reasons why they don't. The European cup in rugby has some genuinely competitive group games unless you get the pub standard Italian team and it would be a better if there were some close groups in a similar vein. As it stands, its just formulaic.

 

[Simster]

Like you I watch it and also tuned in for the PSG game over - I think - Chelsea who were trying their best to lose against Porto. It was an excellent game to watch and frustrating it finished on the Away goal from the dark ages rule. As a neutral it was a good a game as you could watch and better than anything I'd seen in the PL this year. Back in 1999, I cheered Man Utd winning the competition and so did half the pub who were by no means united fans. At some point, any allegiance to English clubs has long gone. Man City, owned by its own oil state with barely an Englishman playing is no more English than a Dortmund side with Jude Bellingham in it.

Where I disagree with you is the group stages. There is barely a single game worth watching unless you are a fan and the groups are largely predictable before they even start (The Man U / PSG / Leipzig was the exception this year). The ESL is a car crash of a concept but the CL group stage and the whole of the Europa cup - especially the CL hand me downs - needs reform. From a competitive point of view, They would be better off having the top 8 in English football in the competition and binning off tinpot nations like Scotland but that is hardly fair and I understand the reasons why they don't. The European cup in rugby has some genuinely competitive group games unless you get the pub standard Italian team and it would be a better if there were some close groups in a similar vein. As it stands, its just formulaic.

Well yes they are predictable because the best teams usually do best. Group stages are just a necessary evil designed to make a cup competition more league-like and thus provide more TV money. That has always been the trade off I think.

So when I say "I quite like the group stages", what I meant was that I feel it ought to be enough to appease greedy owners whilst not massively compromising the integrity of the competition.