The much maligned younger brother of the best competition in the world, the Champions League, has been given a face lift but was the format ever the problem?
Success will always breed imitation and with the success of the Champions League it was natural for the UEFA Cup to change its format towards it in the 08/09 season. Last year saw a largely unsuccessful half way house between the 2 phased Champions League and the current format.
The 2009 UEFA Cup followed the usual qualifying rounds. This led to a 2 legged first round with 80 teams. Then a group stage with 8 groups of 5 which curiously did not include home/away fixtures, with the first 3 going through from each group, and the 8 teams placed 3rd in the Champions League groups joining them. From then on in it was knockout football.
The Europa League is all together less complex. 12 groups of 4 (home and away games), top 2 teams go through with the 8 teams placed 3rd in the Champions League joining them for the knockout phase of the competition.
I was actually a fan of the 2 phase Champions League because 4 groups of 4 is a lot more competitive than 8 groups of 4. The best teams are involved in a league type situation which will stem further away from the luck of a 2 legged tie. Inevitably the quarter finals and semi finals were cup ties but there was still some filtering.
Imagine a group of Chelsea, Real Madrid, Lyon, Juventus, and 3 other groups like that. The top team goes through to the semi-final. This would extend the competition by 4 fixtures from its current format, but would take away some of the luck involved with 4 rounds of knockout football. I do however admit that knockout football is an entertaining product and has produced the defining memories of this decade.
The UEFA Cup had the additional problem of catering for 3rd placed teams in the 8 groups of the Champions League. I feel a format of 8 groups of 4, the top team going forward to face the 8 teams knocked out in the group stages of the Champions League is the simplest format.
How many fans seriously take the UEFA Cup as a consolation for failing to qualify for the next phase of the Champions League though? Perhaps they should scrap this idea entirely. But the point is that some teams in Europe do not enjoy participating in the Second Tier European competition.
I have to believe that the fixture list has a lot to do with this. A team trying to qualify for the Champions League does not have the squad to deal with the extra traveling and fixtures of the competition and in fact will risk finishing fourth instead of third.
My suggestion is to allocate 4 Champions League slots to the 4 Semi Finalists of the Europa League. The winner getting an automatic spot, the other 3 teams going into the qualifying phases. It would create another path into Europe’s premier competition and would spark the competition back into life.
These are just ideas of course and I would be in favour of a competition format which both reduces the strains of the fixture list and also increase the incentives of participating.
Personally, i don’t think Europa League will ever succeed to get rid of ‘the retard cousin of CL’ tag. I’m for a bigger number of teams playing in CL, like 64, and the canceling of Europa League altogether. The Cup of Cups, the predecesor of Uefa Cup and Europa League, had the argument of being played between the winners of the national cups, and even then it was second CL’s predecesor EC.
I think your idea about one European competition is a good one.
Maybe some knockout rounds before the group phase for all tier two teams
The only problem is, what happens when quarter finalists are Arsenal, Liverpool, United, Chelsea, City and Spurs say?
Doesn’t that make a mockery of a ‘European competition’?
I don’t think the EPL domination will be a long-lasting one. it’s present success is a combination of factors like a long-serving coach(Alex Ferguson), a genial talent finder(Arsene Wenger) and a crazy rich russian billionaire(Abramovich). Before Abramovich brought Chelsea, EPL was not such a fashionable league. Sure, Man City and , to a lesser extent, Tottenham have that money too now, but, it doesn’t mean they’ll succeed. Abramovich brought a Chelsea team that were already qualified for the next season’s CL, so all he had to do is buy a couple more world class players(Drogba, Makelele) to add to the already existing core(Lampard, Terry), and you got yourself a team that finishes regularly in top 4 and plays in CL! Before Chelsea got rich, there was no top 4 elite, there was only a top 3: ManU, Arsenal, Liverpool. it takes time to establish a big club and Chelsea is the exception, not the rule. Hoping you can compete with the elite with a bunch of Arsenal rejects and a mentally unstable, immature kid(Robinho) is far too optimistic i say. Anyways, italian teams will bounce back in a few years and, there will be no more EPL domination. More like a rotation of domination, mainly between spanish, english and italian powerhouses, interfered by periodical surprises, like Porto ‘04.
Some idealism may be creeping into your argument. The Italians can’t bounce back in the swift way you describe because many teams in Italy outside the usual top 2 or 3 are impoverished.
Premier League has also done well because it has been welcoming to foreign talent and philosophies. Italy is still extremely backwards with regards to this.
European football is a mess. Interest is lukewarm in the Europa league, and we have teams like Fulham using it to blood young players, which may be a good thing for them but it starts to put the league on the same standing as the FA Cup for top sides. What is the answer? I’m not 100% sure, but I think they need to keep it simple. UEFA seem to think the solution always involves complicating the competitions and I’m not sure that’s a good thing.