The Mail Bag
Another Champions League fix?
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According to Sky the other day (and Clive Tyldesley no less) the draw for the Champions League qualifying round is no longer seeded and any team can be drawn against any other. To them this raised the awful prospect that Arsenal might not make it to the lucrative group stage if they had to play the likes of Valencia or Lyon.
It struck me as strange that Uefa would not seed this draw when they seem to do it for every other round up to and including the group stage. I looked into it and discovered that they were wrong but the truth was even worse ? especially for a club like Everton.
There are now effectively two qualifying rounds to get into the group stage, running in parallel. Five clubs will qualify from the 'Champions' qualifying round and another five from the 'non-Champions'. Paradoxically, the 'Champions' are in the weaker side of the draw as they are all from the weaker football nations whereas the 'non-Champions', including Arsenal, are all from the stronger nations.
The draw is seeded and Arsenal will get one of the five unseeded clubs. It is undoubtedly more difficult for them than the old system but they should still get a relatively weak opponent.
On the other hand, what would be our position if we did make it to fourth place next season? We would almost certainly be an UNSEEDED team and as such, we are bound to be drawn against one of only five teams all of which will be from the strong European leagues. I know it would not be impossible but the prospect of another Villarreal is very much on the cards.
To my mind this is yet another way in which Uefa attempts to keep the shop closed to up-and-coming clubs like Everton. It makes it all the more important to have a good run in the Europa League so that we just might be seeded when the time comes.
Phil Guyers, Posted 12/05/2009 at 14:04:30
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Failing that, you could have League Champions gaining automatic qualification to the group stage.
The rich get richer...
The article I read in the Guardian today laid out much of the detail ? I can?t take in that much information anymore ? but David Hynter did guess that the Arse probably won?t face Lyon ? but might meet eg Valencia, Celtic or Fiorentina. They would obviously do much better than us against the Italians ? did someone on Sky say that?
Martin O?Neill is quoted today saying that the Europa League format, quite rightly, needs a trim. To support his case he says that fixture overload leads to Manchester United going to an FA Cup semi-final "and play with a weakened side". A wonderful combination of sour grapes and arse-licking.
I agree that the main motivation behind the changes is to get more actual ’Champions’ in the group phase and that this is commendable.
However, someone has to pay the price for improving the chances of clubs from weaker nations and it is just our luck that we are the type of club to suffer. A club like Hertha Berlin are similar to us in this respect and it will be interesting to see if they can get through the qualifying round if they get there.
The lesser leagues will surely improve as all the money won't be going to the usual suspects. Plus it would slow down the glory hunting players as there would be a lot less clubs in the CL and I guess not so many teams would be able to use the draw of regular CL football. It would stop the false feeling of achievement and put the emphasis back on actually winning the league.
Brett Bradshaw, you have saved time for me ? thanks.
Only the champions of each country go into the Champions League which could be played as a KO competitition from the start. Teams placed 2, 3, 4 and 5 + cup winners go into a second competition which would be very strong and could also be a KO competition from the start.
No seeding anywhere and no rules about playing teams from your own country. I think this would make for really exciting football and would break the monopoly of the rich clubs. I?ve sent this exciting futuristic idea to M Platini...
My idea, for what it's worth ? We start with on one European competition instead of two. 16 groups of 4 with each team playing home and away ? effectively the same teams would compete in this as would be in a combination of the Champions League and Uefa Cup.
At the end of the group stage, the top team in each group goes into the last 16 of the ?Champions League?. The next 2 placed teams in each league go into the last 32 of the ?Uefa Cup?.
This way you retain the two European competitions but the money is more evenly distributed because the TV rights and sponsorship money is split amongst all the competing clubs.
Just an idea...
Some Evertonians starting to sound like stereotypical moaning kopites.
I like your idea. What about we do that, but we make yet another competition for the Cup winners? We could call it the Cup Winners Trophy or something similar. We could have three European competitions, all knock-out affairs. Then again, maybe there is something wrong somewhere with this? We should just leave ’them’ to work it out. They’re just so much cleverer than we are.
I must admit, you lads that say the prem, FA, the refs etc have it in for us, are spot on. Now where did I put the number for Mulder & Scully?
Also, I actually felt sorry for Liege, they win their league and get to play one of the favourites and then when bounced out to the Uefa Cup they have to play a team that was one of the strongest the season before, we even beat the eventual winners in our own mini-league.
No a conspiracy but very bad luck.
I fully agree Tony Williams, how come Citeh, who got into Europe via the fair play league, got drawn against a part time Cypriat team and we get the Belgian champions? We finish 5th and qualify on merit and Citeh get in because they don’t make enough tackles. The year before we get Metalist who this season were unbeaten in the group stages. In saying that I doubt we’d be in the cup final had we played in Europe this season.
It?s simple in my eyes (or maybe that?s just me); the whole concept has been utterly devalued beyond belief, because the whole thing is/was about the Championship winning teams ? those that win the top league within their respective country.
Football has been ruined by the money men, who to all intents and purposes are now pulling the strings for football altogether.
So the whole idea of being able to reach the covetted group stages, where realistically most of the champions should end up, you have to play some no-marks, those that couldn?t bridge the gap from top 4 to winning the trophy, before the real Champions League takes place. Even then some of the non-champions still make it through, and in some cases actually go on and win the trophy which to me just doesn?t make any sense whatsoever.
I could rant all day about this, so I?ll stop now...!
We will just have to win the league title to ease our passage into the group stages!
On a different note, has anybody heard that Chelsea may be banned for next season's Champions League because of semi?s fuck up? This may & should give EFC the motivation to finish 5th, just in case ? you never know!!!
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1 Posted 12/05/2009 at 18:00:27
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It’s a shame for us because as you mention if we were to finish 4th, we’d still have some work to do to reach the group stages but I’m not sure about the conspiracy theory you’ve concocted to be honest!