Mertin Samuel
Daily Mail
Talking with Bruce Buck, the Chelsea chairman last week, the subject of a new stadium cropped up. Buck said the club were always on the look-out for sites but also had an eye on developing one side of Stamford Bridge.
He talked of a capacity in the region of 55,000 but added the project required caution, as for smaller matches, such as the Carling Cup and the Champions League group stage, it was a struggle to fill the capacity it had now.
Did you hear that? The Carling Cup and the Champions League group stage, yoked together like the runts of the litter: the domestic knock-out tournament that most major clubs in England use to blood the youth team and what purports to be the greatest club competition in the world.
It was a casual conversation. There was no malice in Buck’s words. Chelsea have a colourful history with UEFA but this was not an attempt to belittle the governing body or their prestige offering.
Buck, a lawyer who is well practised in watching his words, was simply stating the truth.
Chelsea did not sell out against Porto last week. There were spaces at Anfield for Liverpool’s match with Debrecen, too.
Increasingly, the Champions League group games become interesting only if a favoured team makes a poor start — as happened to Liverpool in 2007-08 when they took one point from the first three matches and needed to win the three remaining games to qualify.
The fact that Liverpool did qualify that year — scoring 16 goals in the final three group fixtures to one against — merely adds to the perception that the early rounds do not matter.
Arsenal went two goals down to Standard Liege last week, yet Graeme Souness in the Sky television studio and no doubt many at home were still tipping them for victory at half-time. Correctly, as it proved.
Then there is the feeling of having seen it all before. Chelsea played Porto in 2004, then in 2007 and now here they are again two years later. Lyon and Fiorentina last met in 2008, Stuttgart and Rangers in 2007.
A Champions League revamped by Michel Platini, the UEFA president, has more new faces this season than in many before, yet UEFA’s refusal to adjust the seeding system means the same old faces keep popping up in the same old pots, increasing the chance of return visits. It is some achievement to make the visit of the Portuguese champions appear humdrum.
A small band of teams play each other constantly in domestic competition, too, but European football was supposed to be the exotic alternative to that, the step into the unknown.
Increasingly, the best club sides throughout Europe are international by nature and have lost local identity, but that is only part of the problem. These days, the fixtures are familiar and so, too, the outcomes.
Since the Champions League introduced a 32-team format in 1999, of the English clubs, only Arsenal in 1999-2000 and Manchester United in 2005-06 have failed to progress from the group stage: two teams of 35.
The seeding system has to be adjusted so that league performance, not size and ancient history, decides who goes where.
It is ridiculous that the next round of games pits the champions of England, Manchester United, against the champions of Germany, Wolfsburg, because the Bundesliga winners came out of left field and, therefore, have few coefficient points. It will now be very tough for Wolfsburg to get out of the group, which is just the way the established order likes it.
Indeed, of the German clubs, Bayern Munich, Werder Bremen, Hamburg, Schalke 04, Bayer Leverkusen, Stuttgart and Hertha Berlin would all be entitled to a better seeding than Wolfsburg right now.
'The way the biggest clubs are kept safe from harm makes the early Champions League rounds such a bore.'The coefficient system is absurdly flawed. According to UEFA, Middlesbrough (38) - beaten 5-0 at home on Saturday by West Brom - are superior to Dynamo Kiev (41) and Millwall (107) are to be preferred to FC Zurich (116), the champions of Switzerland, and Cyprus champions APOEL Nicosia (190), who drew away at Atletico Madrid last week.
This is what makes the early Champions League rounds such a bore: the way the biggest clubs are kept safe from harm.
The money generated remains enormous, but when the men who know the hidden figures draw comparisons with the Carling Cup, something is seriously wrong. Perhaps Platini could schedule another meeting to discuss it with his new best friend, Roman Abramovich.
Chelsea's next home Champions League game is on October 21; they should have no problem finding two together.
Daily Mail
Talking with Bruce Buck, the Chelsea chairman last week, the subject of a new stadium cropped up. Buck said the club were always on the look-out for sites but also had an eye on developing one side of Stamford Bridge.
He talked of a capacity in the region of 55,000 but added the project required caution, as for smaller matches, such as the Carling Cup and the Champions League group stage, it was a struggle to fill the capacity it had now.
Did you hear that? The Carling Cup and the Champions League group stage, yoked together like the runts of the litter: the domestic knock-out tournament that most major clubs in England use to blood the youth team and what purports to be the greatest club competition in the world.
It was a casual conversation. There was no malice in Buck’s words. Chelsea have a colourful history with UEFA but this was not an attempt to belittle the governing body or their prestige offering.
Buck, a lawyer who is well practised in watching his words, was simply stating the truth.
Chelsea did not sell out against Porto last week. There were spaces at Anfield for Liverpool’s match with Debrecen, too.
Increasingly, the Champions League group games become interesting only if a favoured team makes a poor start — as happened to Liverpool in 2007-08 when they took one point from the first three matches and needed to win the three remaining games to qualify.
The fact that Liverpool did qualify that year — scoring 16 goals in the final three group fixtures to one against — merely adds to the perception that the early rounds do not matter.
Arsenal went two goals down to Standard Liege last week, yet Graeme Souness in the Sky television studio and no doubt many at home were still tipping them for victory at half-time. Correctly, as it proved.
Then there is the feeling of having seen it all before. Chelsea played Porto in 2004, then in 2007 and now here they are again two years later. Lyon and Fiorentina last met in 2008, Stuttgart and Rangers in 2007.
A Champions League revamped by Michel Platini, the UEFA president, has more new faces this season than in many before, yet UEFA’s refusal to adjust the seeding system means the same old faces keep popping up in the same old pots, increasing the chance of return visits. It is some achievement to make the visit of the Portuguese champions appear humdrum.
A small band of teams play each other constantly in domestic competition, too, but European football was supposed to be the exotic alternative to that, the step into the unknown.
Increasingly, the best club sides throughout Europe are international by nature and have lost local identity, but that is only part of the problem. These days, the fixtures are familiar and so, too, the outcomes.
Since the Champions League introduced a 32-team format in 1999, of the English clubs, only Arsenal in 1999-2000 and Manchester United in 2005-06 have failed to progress from the group stage: two teams of 35.
The seeding system has to be adjusted so that league performance, not size and ancient history, decides who goes where.
It is ridiculous that the next round of games pits the champions of England, Manchester United, against the champions of Germany, Wolfsburg, because the Bundesliga winners came out of left field and, therefore, have few coefficient points. It will now be very tough for Wolfsburg to get out of the group, which is just the way the established order likes it.
Indeed, of the German clubs, Bayern Munich, Werder Bremen, Hamburg, Schalke 04, Bayer Leverkusen, Stuttgart and Hertha Berlin would all be entitled to a better seeding than Wolfsburg right now.
'The way the biggest clubs are kept safe from harm makes the early Champions League rounds such a bore.'The coefficient system is absurdly flawed. According to UEFA, Middlesbrough (38) - beaten 5-0 at home on Saturday by West Brom - are superior to Dynamo Kiev (41) and Millwall (107) are to be preferred to FC Zurich (116), the champions of Switzerland, and Cyprus champions APOEL Nicosia (190), who drew away at Atletico Madrid last week.
This is what makes the early Champions League rounds such a bore: the way the biggest clubs are kept safe from harm.
The money generated remains enormous, but when the men who know the hidden figures draw comparisons with the Carling Cup, something is seriously wrong. Perhaps Platini could schedule another meeting to discuss it with his new best friend, Roman Abramovich.
Chelsea's next home Champions League game is on October 21; they should have no problem finding two together.
) - the CL group stages are utterly boring and predictable.
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