Champions League Semi Final *Spoilers* 29/30 April
- Thread starter Ripper
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But only 1 winner and it was probably the weakest team to win it in a long time- freak result. There is a risk to the CL that it will become a annual premiership showdown which i think will harm it, even in england as a lot of the glamour would be taken out of it.
not really a freak result, was it porto the year before? they weren't the strongest team in europe by any means.
anyway there's no real danger there's cyclical periods of dominance but soon you'll have the usual suspects like real madrid, your milans, juventus, barca, bayern right back in there.
anyway there's no real danger there's cyclical periods of dominance but soon you'll have the usual suspects like real madrid, your milans, juventus, barca, bayern right back in there.
2 winners, now. That's 50%
And that weak side you mentioned got to the final again 2 years later.So, in the past 4 years we have:
50% Winners
62.5% Finalists
56% Semis
...even if it does become something of a premiership fest, there are only 4 teams from the premiership entered, so it won't become an issue until we reach the end stages.
I don't think the Champions League will become an all English affair every year. Bayern will be back next season, Roma may be taken over by Soros = $$$, Barca will add to their squad and be very strong next year and same for a few others teams.
You could be excused for thinking that at the time but a final and semi final appearance in the next 3 seasons shows it was no freak result at all.
you don't think real are going to buy a couple of players this summer and get straight back in there? barca have a bit of a clearout and spend £40-£50m? would you put it past them? milan are bankrolled by berlusconi, bayern never spend that much money but always seem to put together a compact unit of players. they're never that far away that it can't change in a season or so.
Soldato
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Think I would take Ronaldo Hargreaves Carrick Scholes Park with Rooney up top, we'd have great options on the bench in Anderson, Nani, Tevez, Giggs... really spoilt for choice.
European sides can't match our wages we pay. You no longer here the top players talking about moving to Italy or Spain, it's now the other way around. Just the other week Villa wasn't talking about Milan and Madrid but Liverpool or Arsenal.
Despite Berlusconi Milan don't spend that much and although Real and Barca will usually buy a top player each summer, it's become the fading star rather than the superstars. Also the way in which these sides are run will also hold them back.
Bayern's a strange one because they're run well but i don't think playing in Germany does them any favours, the standard of the league is just not up to it.
Individually each one has the potential to challenge the odd season but no other coutries top 4 will collectively and consistently match ours.
heh i still think barca and real have their drawing power for top players you know. milan have had an odd year but they'll be able to bring in real quality this summer and when they do get a youngster it'll be a good one. i think the premiership has been far and away the best league this season but there's no point getting ahead of ourselves. if i'm honest i think it's been a pretty poor season in terms of quality in european football, that will rectify itself though.
Players will always want to play in Spain and Italy though. Young South Americans will always prefer Spain and to a lesser extent Italy over England as it's less of a culture shock. Take Messi, Aguero, Pato etc. none choose to come to England and both Ronaldinho and Kaka choose to stay in Spain and Italy respectively for the prime of their careers.
They may well be able to attract the players but as ive said before, the days of the £30m+ transfers by Real are long gone and Barca have never really been ones for massive transfers either. As for Milan, as Boom's said before, they seem to be going after players around 30 years old or youngsters which isn't the easiest way of doing things.
Like i said above, im sure that the likes of Real, Barca and Milan will compete albeit sporadically. The strength of our top 4 is far and away the best in Europe and give or take we'll have at least 1 club seriously challenging for the CL for the next 5-10 years.
I agree with this - not to mention the weather aspect (don't underestimate that as a factor for young brazilians not used to training in temperatures less than ~20C). I also agree that teams like Real, Barca and maybe Inter/AC will continue to be of roughly equal calibre to the top 4 premiership teams (at least for a good few years).
I do see the overall dominance of the premiership teams continuing though, perhaps maintaining the '50-50 chance of a premiership side winning' trend.
It's very difficult for English sides to sign young South American's due to work permits etc. Also when the likes of Messi etc joined Barca they weren't star players.
Perhaps, but Man U signed Anderson with next to no trouble. Not sure what you mean about Messi? He may not have been a star player back then but he doesn't look like leaving any time soon.
Man of Honour
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Also I think that English rules state that clubs can only have three members of their squad from outside the E.U.. If they want more, then they have to go through the red tape to prove that the player they want is of special ability - and that there isn't an E.U. equivelent which could be had. A few years back we bought Alex Song like that. Seems like Wenger is proving right that he is a good player.
In Spain (at least) they've lifted the three player rule.
Sometimes also there are passport problems. We shipped off a Silvinho due to that reason. Pity, he's the left back with the most ability I've ever seen at Arsenal, including Winterburn and C$shly.
Anderson had established himself (to a degree) in a European league and was an U-21 international. To buy a player direct from Brazil etc is difficult unless they've been playing Internationally.
You said Barca could attract top players and gave Messi as an example however he wasn't a star when he joined. Whether Messi leaves Barca or not isn't totally down to the standard of the Spanish league also. He'd cost a fortune, Barca wouldn't want or have to sell and to my knowledge he's not had the chance to move to England yet.
Porto were defensively very good, something Traore and co werent. 3-0 down, should have been 4-0 as a perfectly good goal was disallowed for offside- to turn that around against a vastly better side is a freak result. It would be like UTD/Chelsea going 3-0 up at the weekend and end up 3-3.
Real and Barca have the resources but are run by clowns a lot of the time. Bayern were never big spenders and are really dependent on home grown talent which seems pretty scarce. We saw the best that italy had to offer against Arsenal, liverpool and man utd this year and none of the 3 Italian teams scored across the SIX matches.