Why are people so obsessed with the Champions League?

El Flaco

El Flaco

Active member
There's not a shadow of doubt that a Champions League is easily the most prestigious competition in football (after WC) and where you can find the biggest concentration of quality where top clubs all around from Europe are challenging. There's continental European giants who are desperate to win Champions League more than anything else.

- How comes that Juventus signed Bonucci & CR7 while ditching Higuain despite winning Serie A 7 years in a row?
- How comes that Qataris took over PSG and signed the likes of Neymar, Cavani, David Luiz etc. despite their dominance in Ligue 1?
- How comes that Bayern Munchen signed Lewandowski (as free-agent), Guardiola, Vidal etc. despite their dominans in Bundesliga?

Granted, winning a domestic league campaign is great achievement but UCL is the crème de la crème when all thing in considered.
 
Gaudi

Gaudi

Senior Member
I'm not, I think winning the league is the most important title. It show consistency, form and so on...I think most here want CL because we looked so off the mark in recent years. Like, not even close to challenging it. It's not like that year with Pep against Inter were bad luck cost us, but we trully look out of depth in CL....that is the reason why, I think, most here want to wint the CL.
 
LeeRomeno

LeeRomeno

Active member
El Flaco said:
There's not a shadow of doubt that a Champions League is easily the most prestigious competition in football (after WC) and where you can find the biggest concentration of quality where top clubs all around from Europe are challenging. There's continental European giants who are desperate to win Champions League more than anything else.

- How comes that Juventus signed Bonucci & CR7 while ditching Higuain despite winning Serie A 7 years in a row?
- How comes that Qataris took over PSG and signed the likes of Neymar, Cavani, David Luiz etc. despite their dominance in Ligue 1?
- How comes that Bayern Munchen signed Lewandowski (as free-agent), Guardiola, Vidal etc. despite their dominans in Bundesliga?

Granted, winning a domestic league campaign is great achievement but UCL is the crème de la crème when all thing in considered.
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Those teams do not really have any challenge in winning local league as they are so far ahead in terms of financial success and player quality than competitors. It is not the case luckily in La Liga yet, even less in Premier League, which explains why majority of English football fans consider Premier League more valuable trophy than CL.
Think no one is arguing against CL being the most prestigious competition, prestige is not everything though. Each top club starts the season with hopes of winning every competition they participate in, in 99% of cases, no club achieves it though. So for me, Barcelona winning treble twice is by far much greater achievement than winning CL alone, no matter if its 2 years in a row or 3. CL is a nice trophy but in the end, it is still a cup competition and cups are far more often won by not the best teams in competition, compared to leagues.
 
S

Stoichkov1

New member
vlad said:
CL>la liga, no disscussion for me, in la liga you face 70% team where whole team doesnt cost like 1 barca player, and most of those matches barca are crusing through, just the matter of how many goals will barca score, its just not fair, so why would i value that competition same as CL where you face teams which are on the same level or close, there you prove are you really the best team
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Because you don't have the best team in Europe to win the CL. Or do you think that Madrid last year or Chelsea in 2012 were the best team in Europe? The truth is that a team can win the CL even if they're outplayed every match like it happened with Madrid and Chelsea because like in every knockout tournament luck and referee decisions matter.

While it's absolutely impossible that a team wins the league without being the best in their country.
 
serghei

serghei

Senior Member
El Flaco said:
There's not a shadow of doubt that a Champions League is easily the most prestigious competition in football (after WC) and where you can find the biggest concentration of quality where top clubs all around from Europe are challenging. There's continental European giants who are desperate to win Champions League more than anything else.

- How comes that Juventus signed Bonucci & CR7 while ditching Higuain despite winning Serie A 7 years in a row?
- How comes that Qataris took over PSG and signed the likes of Neymar, Cavani, David Luiz etc. despite their dominance in Ligue 1?
- How comes that Bayern Munchen signed Lewandowski (as free-agent), Guardiola, Vidal etc. despite their dominans in Bundesliga?

Granted, winning a domestic league campaign is great achievement but UCL is the crème de la crème when all thing in considered.
Click to expand...

The really tough leagues are a different animal compared to some leagues where there's a big team and some smaller ones. Think about Serie A back in 80's and 90's. Nobody can tell me winning that Serie A wasn't as important and as hard as winning the CL / European Cup.

La Liga and Premier League produce just as high-quality games as the CL. The different is the format and the duration. An endurance battle, not a sprint.
 
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B

BarcelonaBiondi

Member
The word "obsession" has such a negative connotation but I, for one, don't think it would hurt Barcelona and Ernesto to prioritize winning the Champions League trophy to the point of "obsession." Make it an absolute priority.

Madrid made winning the big eared trophy their "obsession", their number one priority and look how well it turned out for them.

In all the years we've won the Champions League/European Cup, we've invariably/always won La Liga too (which is why the exit at the hands of Roma was very much a missed opportunity, given how inferior Roma are to, say, a side like Juventus).
 
G

Gnidrologist

Senior Member
Didn't read the whole thread, but main pull of CL is that club who wins it writes its name in the history of greatest ever teams of their era. Wining it several times in a row make them a legend. Winning la liga three times in a raw isn't even all that important even in local context, let alone for neutrals. No one gives a shit about local leagues except people, who are very enthusiastic about football, like members of this forum. For majority of casual observers CL is the only arena that counts, whether anyone likes it or not. In the 90s, when there were no internet streams i didn't even acknowledge about existence of any spanish or other national championships. I could only watch various European cups and from there judged who is who. Majority of people probably still mostly know only what's happening there. Local ponds are for hardcore fans.
And imo it is objectively greater achievement to win it than la liga, even if the former involves a great deal of luck.
 
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BarçaBarça

BarçaBarça

New member
I think these discussion always misses a key point:
It all depend on how our eternal rivals in Madrid are doing in those same competions.

If we win the league 3 times in a row, while Real wins nothing and doesn't reach the CL-final, the league dominance suddenly means a lot.
If we win 1 CL and Real wins 2 in the next 5 years, we have had a bad CL-spell during those years, while 1 CL in 3 years, with Real not winning it would mean great CL-times for us.

You can't discuss the values of those trophies without recognizing that Reals winning/losing those competitions means more than the other arguments (the history of the competition, other elite clubs want it as well etc.).
 
Obiaseti

Obiaseti

New member
There are two factors when it comes to comparing competitions:

1) Format: League vs Knock-out. League is arguably the more accurate measure to identify the best team as it considers all possible combinations and all teams are tested in a nearly identical way.

2) The Teams: Local vs European. The important thing to note is that generally, people care more about this than the format. This is what makes the UCL the biggest. Even though the format is not the best for determining the best teams, the competition you get is picked from the pinnacle of club football.

If you look at local teams and teams from across Europe, there are 4 possible options from combining this with the format. But only three of those 4 combinations exist in current competitions. Currently, since the only competition we have that pits the best teams against each other is the UCL it is what most people value the most. This also the only place where you can see the more exotic matchups like the one we just had today. Simply put it is the only competition that in theory, any European club can potentially win.
 
A

Altomonte

New member
let's just agree that Liverpool had much more intensity and physical play forcing Barca's pussies to concede 3 goals.
I refuse to concede goal #4, it was an Aberration not worthy of deciding the CL.
The fair result would have been to play a proper 2x15 min extension.
All spectators were deprived of that ending by the ridiculous 4th goal.
Nothing to be be proud of by those 'fair Englishmen'.
 
Andrew M

Andrew M

New member
Altomonte said:
let's just agree that Liverpool had much more intensity and physical play forcing Barca's pussies to concede 3 goals.
I refuse to concede goal #4, it was an Aberration not worthy of deciding the CL.
The fair result would have been to play a proper 2x15 min extension.
All spectators were deprived of that ending by the ridiculous 4th goal.
Nothing to be be proud of by those 'fair Englishmen'.
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What a load of guff
 
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