BBZ8800
Senior Member
Unfortunately, that is the level of ?top? teams in Europe at the moment. The best players in the world are a roided up Inzaghi and a player who is like 30% as effective against a low block/ without space to run into
While we don't have a prime Messi anymore, imo, a part of posts like these is a huge fan-bias.
Yeah, Barca ALONE was great around 2010'.
But honestly, the rest of the world was equally as meh as today.
Today, number of quality CL teams:
EPL: Man City, Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham
Bundesliga: Bayern
La Liga: Real, Barca, AM
France: Psg
Italy: maybe Napoli
Let's check 2008-2012 era:
Real = check
Barca = check
Atletico = not there
Man City = who?
Man Utd = check
Arsenal = eternal chockers
Chelsea = check
Liverpool = no
Qatari Psg = who?
Anyone from Seria A = Seria A bankrupted and barely existed outside of Inter
Bayern = at their lowest point in the 21st century, especially in 2009, 2010.
So, basically, around 2010, CL was without teams like current Bayern, City, Liverpool, AM, Juve + Milan (ok, Juve and Milan are dead even today).
So, I would agree that the ceiling today is not as high as a ceiling of prime Barca.
But the rest of the opponents are more or less the same as back then, or honestly better today.
Quarter finals of 2010:
Lyon-Bordeaux
Inter-Cska Moscow (Russia)
Quarter finals of 2011:
Barca-Shakhtar (Ukraine)
Inter-Schalke
Quarter finals 2012:
Real-Apoel (Cyprus, lol)
Bayern-Marseille
Chelsea-Benfica
Honorable mentions, round of 16 in 2012: Lyon-Apoel, Benfica-Zenit St Petersburg, Bayern-Basel, Real-Cska Moscow
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