Atletico also had respectable CL runs. But yes, as you say core to Spains good seasons has been their total dominance of the EL they had for years. Only Real reaching a semifinal is surprisingly poor from Spain.
Will English teams do well enough in Europe to earn the league a 5th CL place?
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Updated probabilities this morning by Opta. England's expected total has dropped to 18... This suggest Germany only needs one draw from the coming 6 fixtures...
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Love to see it. Who wants to see shyte teams sneak into the CL to finish bottom of the group.
They still will, just a shite team from Germany instead.
As it currently stands, the shite 5th place team from Germany sneaking into next years CL would be this years semifinal participant Dortmund...
I was just questioning that poster’s logic. If that ends up being Dortmund’s route to the Champions League, then this year that extra fifth place probably went to the best team, but as a general rule I don’t think you can say that Germany’s fifth-best side is better than England’s (I also don’t think Aston Villa are shite). Do you?
In general I wouldn't. But this season will see Stuttgart qualify for the CL as 2nd/3rd and I think of the current German top 5 they are the most likely to be "shite" next season, at least compared to CL standards. So in a way getting the 5th spot for the BL fixes that Stuttgart sneaked into top 4.
Again? Haven't they had the same as Germany, England and Spain for awhile now?
Yes the current season is the 6th with 4 clubs from the big countries being guaranteed GS... In the meantime, both Germany and Spain have sent 5 clubs thanks to a team outside the top 4 winning the EL (Frankfurt, Villareal and Sevilla).
England did also send 5 the year before that, when United won the EL back in 2017, and the following year England managed to take 5 teams to the round of 16... I believe it's the only time a country has done this (but I think England ultimately lost all of their KOs vs Top 4 clubs that season).
That was a dig at United trying to finish 5th.
Oh, forget my response then, it’s just we’re so far behind fifth now that we’re actually too shite for even that dig to make sense.
Why can't a winner from Norway, Sweden or Denmark get a automatic spot? Instead 5 teams from Germany? It's fecking stupid
Cause 5th place Germany or top 5 league are better than Champions of those countries.
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I find it quite amusing that it is actually called "Champions" League and the majority of the teams playing in it are anything but that.
Yep. Just rename it "Super League", finally bury that project with it and be more honest about the nature of the competition.
Atletico has been pretty solid with Simeone in the CL overall. And I wouldn't call Spanish teams in Europa just 'doing allright' They've dominated that competition with 9 titles out of the last 15 seasons.
Well there’s a chance for 2 teams to do the double who are still in it and a chance for 2 other teams who haven’t won there leagues to win something big.
They added 4 spots. 2 places going to the best performing leagues of each season (This could have been anyone, it doesn't have to be a top league). The others:
Slot three: This place will go to the club ranked third in the championship of the association in fifth position in the access list (France), which is determined by the five-year UEFA association club coefficient ranking up to the end of the 2022/23 season.
This means France (or whoever is fifth) will have 3+1 instead of 2+1 previously. But the +1 is now obliged to go through qualifiers each year, in the old system the +1 could go directly to group stage as EL TH replacement, when the titleholder of the EL doesn't need their spot. Which happened last in 2019 with Lyon going directly into the GS (and ultimately reaching the semifinals of the CL).
Slot four: This spot will be awarded to a domestic champion by extending from four to five the number of clubs qualifying via the champions path of the competition's qualifying process, which will consist of three qualifying rounds and the play-offs.
Only the fourth spot is awarded to smaller leagues via the Champions path.
It's actually possible for countries to have seven teams in CL at once now. If the country is among the TOP2 for the current seasons coefficient and already has 4 CL that takes them to 5 spots. If two teams of that league finish outside of top 5 in that league and go on to win both CL and EL (which actually would make a TOP2 coefficient highly likely, too), that would bring them to 7. I'd reckon it's not completely unlikely that the EPL might do that at some point over the next years, actually.
Then I have expressed myself in a misleading way. I meant that the top 4 teams in the big leagues qualifying for a so-called "Champions" League is a mockery for small leagues, as the teams in 2nd to 4th place in England, Spain etc. are by no means "champions" of anything
They should rename it to European league, or European Cup.
100%. Just call it Super League to mess with those wannabes
Fair point. Plus you get the odd chance that a Leicester/Bologna etc can sneak in top top 4 and get into the CL. There’s no other way they could do it though. Need more teams than just whoever finishes 1st in the top leagues. Also I like how a team that finishes 4th in there respective league could win the CL. I don’t think that’s ever happened though as it? Usually it’s the top 2 in the league who wins the Cl.
This has happened though... Madrid in 1999/2000 and Milan in 2006/07.
What'll be more interesting is how totally pointless a lot of the early games are in the new bloated CL next year.
Chelsea did it in 2020/21, finishing 4th, two points ahead of West Ham in 6th. And in 2011/12 they had even won it as 6th placed team in EPL. The day Roberto di Matteo would crown himself a Champions League winning manager only to never being heard about ever again.
Actually, Barcelona have reached the semi-final of the Champions League/European Cup 17 times, third only to Real Madrid and Bayern and 5 times more than any English club. Atletico Madrid have reached the semi final 6 times, which is more than any English club other than United, Liverpool and Chelsea (thanks to stolen Russian money).
So they haven’t reached the semi finals more times than English clubs
You’ve just named 3 English teams that have more than them.Narrator: No
I disagree.
Any league that has the champions of England, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium etc in is the champions league.
"This European league has the winners of all the major European leagues in, what's it called?"
"The Champions League"
"Oh yeah that makes sense. And what about this other one that has the other clubs in."
"Who cares"
How it started
How it's going
'Unexpected' doesn't quite do it justice
And despite all that, it's not over. Leverkusen's plot armor will probably have to bear the main weight.
How it's going
'Unexpected' doesn't quite do it justice
And despite all that, it's not over. Leverkusen's plot armor will probably have to bear the main weight.
Imagine you're the guy in charge of the prediction model and you have to pass on that it put Turkey in fourth place to some other department.
How it started
How it's going
'Unexpected' doesn't quite do it justice
And despite all that, it's not over. Leverkusen's plot armor will probably have to bear the main weight.
Shows just quite how poor the league is this year, all English teams in European competitions were not really at their best level (apart from Villa maybe)
Considering that at that time Turkey were comfortably leading it's not that outlandish.
But the point of a prediction model should be that it can handle a minnow having a good start. Otherwise it's a bit pointless.
The code that led to this prediction should be deleted and the person who released it should be locked up.
But Turkey had a surprisingly good start. Predicting then a similarly surprising final score isn't a fault of the model I think. All smaller leagues have a head start due to the qualification rounds, yet none were predicted to get that many points in the end.
Still wholy possible that the German teams lose all their remaining fixtures and Villa go on a run. You'd expect them to beat Olympiakos while both Bayern and Dortmund are the weaker teams in their match ups. Roma have been on a great run of form since De Rossi took over and Leverkusen have been weaker in the EL compared to domestic, so possible that Roma do them as well.
Bloody Emi Martinez and Cash, could've sealed it for Germany had Villa not gone through.
Bloody Emi Martinez and Cash, could've sealed it for Germany had Villa not gone through.
Which is even more laughable. The advantages for the top leagues will only get bigger and bigger. Champions League will have 64 teams soon with 8 actual Champions around Europe