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I don't mean the beautiful game in that way. I mean in the style or way it's played.

Scum of the earth is perhaps a bit strong, but the game has lost so much in recent years since UEFA casually put the Champions League in place as a country club for the rich teams of Europe. A strong generator of cash for the already rich, and a sure fire way of sending lower league clubs (and smaller countries) to football extinction.

True,very few teams try to PLAY these days

The fact that Squads are continually turned over doesn't help the players
become totally fluent with each other....midfield cohesion like that seen at liverpool with barnes,houghton & beardsley isn't likely to be replicated anytime soon IMHO

Its all about results...at one end you've got Barcelona & Arsenal(only at home) and at the other Juventus 1-0 bore me silly specialists

Thats what Money does to sport...turns it into anything but a Spectacle

Occasionally you'll see flashes of individual brilliance but for the most part its follow the team plan and don't make a mistake defensively

cheers
B....OZ

Maybe the real passion in football now lies with female television chefs who've perhaps had one sherry too many?

you only need to look at us to see what the persuit of champions league can do to a club, still we do enjoy our game and we still follow and support, 34,000 in Elland road for the hammers game on Sat, not bad for a bankrupt club!

But if you'd managed to stay at the top, your club would be in hog's heaven right now, snout in the trough with all the other big bullies. (This isn't a go at you, Diplo, or your club).

The EU is supposed to be about competition, flexibility and the likes. A carpenter from Sardinia can, in theory, find work in Holland. Not much chance of a football team from Iceland or Lithuania finding itself with the opportunity of making a few million in the group stages of the Champions League, though, not with the voting favouring the big teams in the big five countries.

Still can't believe no one raised any objections when it was first mooted. Were we all blinkered by the prospect of Man Utd v AC Milan, and Real Madrid v Bayern Munich on a regular basis to see what it would mean to the rest of the clubs?

Oh, and Champions League should mean champions, not the top four in the leagues in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Caractacus wrote:

> But if you'd managed to stay at the top, your club would be in
> hog's heaven right now, snout in the trough with all the other
> big bullies. (This isn't a go at you, Diplo, or your club).

Thta would be great...then we'd have manager spats involving Ferguson,Arsene,Mourinho & O'Leary
>
> The EU is supposed to be about competition, flexibility and the
> likes. A carpenter from Sardinia can, in theory, find work in
> Holland. Not much chance of a football team from Iceland or
> Lithuania finding itself with the opportunity of making a few
> million in the group stages of the Champions League, though,
> not with the voting favouring the big teams in the big five
> countries.

It starts and ends with how much Money you've got to splash around
If you equal representation you need every club to be equal(salary cap)
Never going to happen with the Bosman Ruling in play


>
> Still can't believe no one raised any objections when it was
> first mooted. Were we all blinkered by the prospect of Man Utd
> v AC Milan, and Real Madrid v Bayern Munich on a regular basis
> to see what it would mean to the rest of the clubs?

Thats why they have the fall back competitions
The smaller clubs don't have the calibre of players to put on a decent spectacle when playing the Big Boys


>
> Oh, and Champions League should mean champions, not the top
> four in the leagues in England, France, Germany, Italy and
> Spain.

They already had that - The Cup Winners Cup
A more one sided joke of a competition there has never been
Chelseas favourite European competition-say no more