y va marquer wrote:
Clrnc wrote:
It's live streamed now yva. Neville say he rather watch San Marino every week than Arsenal and Spurs who are an utter joke to him this year.
I find it unreal today that Arteta, Klopp and Tuchel + players say they have totally no idea about this. The owners are outright snakes
Klopp looked so uncomfortable when being asked about it pre-match.
That's because he's lying through his teeth. I didn't see the pre-match interview he did, but I saw the post-match one, and he was horribly disingenuous and contradictory. Like most of the stuff I have heard on this.
Football has been a snooze-fest for years and years and years. The last time it was fun was probably when Ronaldo and Messi were in their primes and had great teams built around them. Even then, that was in spite of UEFA and their expanding Champions League format - which makes group games largely unwatchable, as Rapid Bucharest play a half-strength Real Madrid or whatever. Even the knockouts feature too many average teams and average players. And you know it's bad when even the semi-finalists of football's premium competition get worse by the years and the eventual winner is a team that just isn't that good. And that's without talking about the waste of time that is Fifa and international football - country or club.
In short: quantity over quality is an approach to generating more money that has near ended my interest in foootball. The big clubs being forced into building great squads and not great teams. And being told by Sky and BT that I'm watching something extraordinary or unprecendented has been the icing on the cake. I have eyes: Players, and the teams they feature in, have detriorated in quality in the previous decade. Unquestionably.
I also think the reaction from pundits, whilst predictable, is illogical. They, along with most fans I have spoken to, say: "the football pyramid must be protected" (like they actually care and would watch even 5 minites of Crewe Vs Leyton Orient). Yes, the grassroots must be funded, but not on philosophical grounds. The big clubs generate the global demand and there would be no money at all for any of the clubs outside the big six without them, because those other 85-odd clubs certainly do not generate their own money - philosophically that is my position. The clubs that can't generate their own money will be funded for the same reason they are funded now: so that the self-interests of the clubs that give them the money is protected. It's really that simple. And if there is more money at the top - and there will be - then there will be more money at the bottom. A healthy football eco-system is to the benefit of all.
Whether it's the Premier League or the Champions League, I am very bored of watching big teams face little teams that have basically zero good players because the few big teams hoard them all. It makes for a shitty match and League, and, ultimately, has ruined even the Champions League. And that is not going to change now that the size of a club's global fanbase is integral to the revenue generated. So I am all for seeing a league of 15 clubs on a roughly equal footing, looking to build great teams, with superstar players, going at it toe-to-toe.
That's not to say there aren't problems with the idea of a closed system. But I'm sure there are ways to work it out.
