Champions League 23/24

Who will win CL this season?


  • Total voters
    57

fergus90

Senior Member
United gonna finish plum last of that group. Copenhagen away is a genuinely tough game. Bayern scraped by there, City drew there last year.

Can’t see them getting anything in Turkey either.
 

Jenks

Senior Member
I think now (and maybe it is just me) that it isn't just about seeing a midtable LaLiga game versus a midtable Premier game.

The choice is out of a midtable LaLifa game or a top of the table Italian (eg Milan vs Napoli) French (PSG vs Marseille) German or even Portuguese (Lisbons/Porto) if one is on. Which may be more interesting and have more star power.

So LaLiga is falling behind as a draw because there are no recognisable names compared to the top teams in the other top leagues, let alone the Premier League.

In a sense, it supports the idea of the Super League which could have worked without England. You can't fight inevitable trends.
In what sense does it support the idea of a Super League?
 

BBZ8800

Senior Member
Regarding comments of the quality of La Liga:

A lot of fans here are somewhat younger and started to follow Barca around Messi and Pep's era when La Liga and Barca were on top of the world.
So, they are confused about what happened?

But historically, La Liga was never THAT popular.

In the 80s and 90s, Seria A was like EPL today. 90% of top footballers played there. And players like Batistuta rather played in middle table team Fiorentina than moving to some other league.

Barca was meh for neutral fans except in late 70s during Cruijff and again since 1990' with Cruijff as a manager.

Neutral fans only watched Barca-Real here and there since 90's.

EPL was always known for fans who are crazy for football and local clubs, unlike in La Liga.

But in the late 80s, after some football tragedies, British government and Uefa imposed long bans to English football.
That was a part of a reason for Seria A's growth.

In the late 90s, EPL started to get back to life with some expensive transfers and Italy wasn't a home of 90% of top footballers anymore.
So, in the late 90s, we had: Italy, Real, Barca, Man Utd and Arsenal as rich clubs.

Real continued to buy Zidanes, Figos, Ronaldos, Beckhams and Seria A was losing it's appeal slowly.

Finally, in 2000s, Seria A bankrupted paired with Calcioppoli scandal with referees and suddenly around 2005' Italy was dead.

Majority of players and sponsors moved to Barca, Real and EPL.

In the same era, one more factor happened: young Messi emerged from nowhere and RM bought Cr7.
And that was the perfect storm.
Italy was dead, the only two interesting leagues were Spain and EPL, but Barca had the best generation ever plus Spain had the GOAT star factor in Messi and Cr7.
And Spain was dominating NT football for 4 years.

In that moment, majority of our current fans started to follow Barca and football and they took La Liga's popularity for granted.

But historically, La Liga was almost never on top and lately we are back to where we have always been: on margins.

Regarding La Liga's fall, the same as how Seria A died after 15-18 years of domination: there were some money problems, taxes were too high, Messi and Cr7 got older and declined.
And today EPL is filled with oil money.
And the same as in 2000s: when players moved from Italy to Spain and England, currently all superstars are moving from Italy and Spain to EPL.

So, historically, apart from that short period during Pep, Xavi, Messi, Cr7, sponsors and neutral fans were always more into EPL.

Some fans here say that how they would rather watch midtable La Liga match than Newcastle-West Ham, but that is because you are fans of Spanish/Barca type of football. You are biased.
For neutral fans, among my friends, I have never heard anyone saying: I am going to watch Valencia-Getafe tonight.

On the other hand, I have heard plenty of people watching Everton-Aston Villa or even Roma-Sampdoria.

Also, in the western world, Usa and UK have the strongest influence in media, pop culture, sports.
So, something which happens in music or sports in Usa/Uk always had the strongest impact compared to events from Poland, Spain or Turkey.

So, comments about marketing are also true.
But other comments about the final product are also true.
So, the quality of football, players quality, star power, money, sponsors, passion of fans, hunger of fans for matches, some sort of media importance in the western world = everything is on the side of EPL.

In short, for people hoping that the spotlights will return to Spanish league = historically, there aren't too many reasons for that.

UK for football was always something like Hollywood for movies.
And expecting that La Liga will stay on top over UK is like expecting how Brazilian or Turkish cinematography will surpass Hollywood in terms of income and mainstream cultural and marketing appeal.

I know, I know, Gnidro will reply how he hates Hollywood and whatever masses love.
But he is not masses.

Usa's/Uk's popular industry like movies, music, sport was always no1 in the Western world and I don't see how the current lack of a football quality, a lack of a star power and a lack of rich investors in La Liga could change that.
 

Don Juan Laporta Estruch

Well-known member
So spending 50 times as much as your European counterparts doesn't stop financially doped English clubs from being humiliated by European minnows?

The question has to be asked. Just how much of a loaded deck do they need in order to compete?
 

Andresito

Senior Member
Staff member
So spending 50 times as much as your European counterparts doesn't stop financially doped English clubs from being humiliated by European minnows?

The question has to be asked. Just how much of a loaded deck do they need in order to compete?
The answer is probably much less. A tight budget forces you to act smart (like Barca for example). United can throw how much money they want (except FFP restrictions), seller clubs know that and now they pay a premium for everybody. Everyone knows Barca can't spend which makes it much easier to strike bargains compared to the Barto era where negotiations weren't part of the transfer policy. And we have to be very careful with whom we buy because we can't fix errors easily. Markets are completely scoured to find cheap options that can provide something.
 

El Gato

Villarato!
United have some 10 players injured on rotation at all times right now + three with some quality turned out to be knobheads

Right now both LBs are out, third they signed to cover for them is out
One RB is out
One CB is out, best CB is intermittently injured, their highest paid one was sent to the stands
Best CM is old, barely kept alive with a few wires in his chest and has been injured
Second best CM is thrown under the bus covering for lack of CBs and GK being a wally
DM they signed to help is being thrown to LB to cover
Their role player CM/DM is a lazy cunt
LW/LF that was their best player last season is now almost as good as one that came through the ranks
Their star CAM is inconsistent
They only signed a young and raw CF
And a goalkeeper who is somehow a downgrade on the previous one

And the best game they played this season has been in EFL where none of their attacking starters really featured AFAIR

Have to have some sympathy for ETH here really
 

fergus90

Senior Member
Pretty annoying for Valverde that his effort gets ruled as an own goal.

Was like he fired it out of a cannon. The lad can strike a football.
 

Iniesta Ultra

Senior Member
Anyone have stats how player injuries are increasing? Chelsea, United, Barca all stacked with them. Curious what percent are jabbed.
 

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