Uefa plans third European club competition from 2021

[Gus Setsniffer]

7 minutes ago, ahemps said:

Braga, Bilbao, Dnipro and Marseille have all been to the final the last 10 years. Dortmund, Monchengladbach, Leipzig, Leverkusen, Roma, Napoli, Lazio and even Juventus at least twice have all dropped in to the Europa in the same time yet none have even made it to the final. I imagine if the Italians and Germans cared about the EL at all they would have a far better record over the last 10 years.

 

why ? maybe they just aren't good enough, Dortmund lost to Liverpool a few years back, the aggregate score suggested they did try, but just weren't up to it. take a closer look at Italy and their league isnt as strong as the names of the teams would suggest.

[ahemps]

57 minutes ago, Gus Setsniffer said:

why ? maybe they just aren't good enough, Dortmund lost to Liverpool a few years back, the aggregate score suggested they did try, but just weren't up to it. take a closer look at Italy and their league isnt as strong as the names of the teams would suggest.

So in the same period Juventus and Dortmund have been to CL finals, Roma and Leipzig have reached semi finals yet these teams who aren't quite good enough manage to perform better in the CL than EL????

I believe they don't prioritize the EL, you are telling me they do. We'll never know unless a German or Italian football fan confirms it for us but I think that generally the 3rd and 4th strongest leagues in Europe should have had more winners and finalists than the Ukrainian or Portuguese league over a 10yr period . Their record of 1 runner up makes me think it is not a big deal for them or we would have seen more of these teams in the latter stages. In the 10-15yr period before they had several winners and finalists of the UEFA cup so I think there has been some change in their view of the competition.

[paddymcp]

8 hours ago, ahemps said:

So in the same period Juventus and Dortmund have been to CL finals, Roma and Leipzig have reached semi finals yet these teams who aren't quite good enough manage to perform better in the CL than EL????

I believe they don't prioritize the EL, you are telling me they do. We'll never know unless a German or Italian football fan confirms it for us but I think that generally the 3rd and 4th strongest leagues in Europe should have had more winners and finalists than the Ukrainian or Portuguese league over a 10yr period . Their record of 1 runner up makes me think it is not a big deal for them or we would have seen more of these teams in the latter stages. In the 10-15yr period before they had several winners and finalists of the UEFA cup so I think there has been some change in their view of the competition.

Disagree. Once all the teams are in the knockout stages they generally play their strongest sides. Italy and Germany rarely have CL finalists aswell as the EL. Ultimately theyve not been good enough.

[ahemps]

On 18/12/2020 at 21:27, paddymcp said:

Disagree. Once all the teams are in the knockout stages they generally play their strongest sides. Italy and Germany rarely have CL finalists aswell as the EL. Ultimately theyve not been good enough.

You disagree??? It's not subjective, Italy and Germany have been in more CL finals in the last 10yrs than EL finals.

Of course when teams find themselves in the quarter finals they will put more emphasis on it but 10yrs ago Italy and Germany were the 2 most successful nations in the UEFA cup, Spain and England have now surpassed them in that period. The power and finances of the top 4 leagues which includes Germany and Italy has increased considerably and yet their performances in the EL have fallen off a cliff. I don't believe they have not been good enough when teams like Dnipro and Braga have made it to finals. How can the 3rd and 4th strongest leagues in Europe be outperformed by the Portuguese, Dutch, French and Ukranian league????

If this poor performance was over a 1-3 yr period I would agree that they haven't been good enough but 10yrs for these nations not to produce a winner and only 1 runner up makes me question it's not top of their priority list.

[craigkillie]

When you say "Italy and Germany", what you basically mean is "Juventus and Bayern Munich, with one bonus Borussia Dortmund", who have funnily enough been two of the best clubs in Europe, and winners of those domestic leagues in every season. Napoli, AC Milan, Bayer Leverkusen or RB Leipzig haven't made the Champions League final in that period, but nobody would accuse them of not taking that competition seriously.

[amidst-tundra]

10 hours ago, craigkillie said:

When you say "Italy and Germany", what you basically mean is "Juventus and Bayern Munich, with one bonus Borussia Dortmund", who have funnily enough been two of the best clubs in Europe, and winners of those domestic leagues in every season. Napoli, AC Milan, Bayer Leverkusen or RB Leipzig haven't made the Champions League final in that period, but nobody would accuse them of not taking that competition seriously.

Of course, that is the result of the endless expansion of European competition and particularly the CL. Obviously there were big teams in the 50's that have remained big teams - but you at least used to get some surprise teams doing well in Europe when they were straight up knockout competitions, I mean Dundee United got to a UEFA Cup final. You're not going to see an Anderlecht in a final any time soon or a team like Ferencváros being as big anymore. Maybe a better use of a third competition would be like the AFC does in Asia with the AFC Cup using it for smaller and developing nations, I mean at least the Nations League felt like a small step in that direction giving teams like San Marino and Liechtenstein to play opponents that they could compete against.

[Ray Patterson]

1 hour ago, amidst-tundra said:

Of course, that is the result of the endless expansion of European competition and particularly the CL. Obviously there were big teams in the 50's that have remained big teams - but you at least used to get some surprise teams doing well in Europe when they were straight up knockout competitions, I mean Dundee United got to a UEFA Cup final. You're not going to see an Anderlecht in a final any time soon or a team like Ferencváros being as big anymore. Maybe a better use of a third competition would be like the AFC does in Asia with the AFC Cup using it for smaller and developing nations, I mean at least the Nations League felt like a small step in that direction giving teams like San Marino and Liechtenstein to play opponents that they could compete against.

Ajax got to the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2018-19 and were 5 minutes from the final.

[amidst-tundra]

1 minute ago, ArabAuslander said:

Ajax got to the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2018-19 and were 5 minutes from the final.

The fact a team that has won the CL a number of times in the 70's and two UEFA titles in the 90's making a CL semi final is seen as a big thing now shows that it's unusual for someone like an Ajax or a Porto to break into the current European Elite. I mean there have been 12 teams from 5 nations in the last 10 CL finals, which actually isn't as lopsided as I thought, but I think a lot of that has been a product of shifting hierarchies in the big 3 or 4 major European leagues. PSG got there in an unusual year and Spurs have benefitted with the weakening of Manchester United. 

In the ten years prior to the introduction of the group stages in 91/92 there were 15 teams represented from 7 nations including the former state of Yugoslavia, Portugal, Romania and the Netherlands. Obviously a big part of the success of the likes of Steaua and Red Star was the fact that players were unable to relocate - but the reason the Netherlands, Portugal and France (aside from PSG) are really only nearly runs is because of the constant expansion of the CL and now the Europa League have created bigger disparities between not just the biggest teams in individual leagues but also a bigger disparity amongst the elite leagues themselves.

It's sort of sad, but also why if they have to introduce a third European competition I'd rather it was more like the AFC cup, than another tournament spooning up teams from the PL, Serie A, LaLiga and Bundesliga. I guess the counter argument is would fans of Scottish teams relish playing the likes of teams from Macedonia, the Faroes and say Malta - as I'd imagine in an AFC Cup type tournament the Scottish teams would be the big seeds.

[Ray Patterson]

1 minute ago, amidst-tundra said:

The fact a team that has won the CL a number of times in the 70's and two UEFA titles in the 90's making a CL semi final is seen as a big thing now shows that it's unusual for someone like an Ajax or a Porto to break into the current European Elite. I mean there have been 12 teams from 5 nations in the last 10 CL finals, which actually isn't as lopsided as I thought, but I think a lot of that has been a product of shifting hierarchies in the big 3 or 4 major European leagues. PSG got there in an unusual year and Spurs have benefitted with the weakening of Manchester United. 

Real Madrid literally won the first 5 European Cups.
 

[FairWeatherFan]

8 minutes ago, amidst-tundra said:

In the ten years prior to the introduction of the group stages in 91/92 there were 15 teams represented from 7 nations including the former state of Yugoslavia, Portugal, Romania and the Netherlands.

The group stage doesn't really matter, increasing the number of teams that qualify would still have skewed things to the bigger nations.

[amidst-tundra]

16 minutes ago, ArabAuslander said:

Real Madrid literally won the first 5 European Cups.
 

Against five different clubs from three different nations. Dominance has been a factor forever in football and there are few outlier winners of the European cups, Real Madrid were massive in the 50's, and the start of the European cup coincided with the waning of Hungarian football.  I'm not simply talking about winners, the group stage ultimately weeds out teams and has created a general European hierarchy that is much harder to breach than was once the case. I doubt had the group stage been in place in say 78/79 that Malmo would have made the final and now look at Swedish football - it's gone from being relatively present in most European competitions in my childhood to kind of nothing in CL terms now - got to go back to 2015/16 the last time a Swedish team made the group stage and only twice in the last decade.

7 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

The group stage doesn't really matter, increasing the number of teams that qualify would still have skewed things to the bigger nations.

Possibly. Maybe I'm just nostalgic about creating ridiculous European competitions on Sensible Soccer. The fact you have teams like Millwall make an FA Cup final means there is more opportunity for smaller teams in a knockout. The group stages have just allowed bigger teams to capitalize in an annual way for the bigger money pie, while middling nations have to scrap it out to get a tiny slice.

Edited January 13, 2021 by amidst-tundra

[Thistle Scotland Europe]

I hope Scottish teams take the new Conference League seriously. A Scottish club COULD win this new competition.

3 Scottish clubs have won European trophies. So it would be great to add to that,  

I think it is too difficult for Scottish clubs to win the Champions League. Celtic and Rangers could just about win the Europa League. But I really think any Scottish Premier team could get a good run and win the Conference League. Which would be great for Scottish football. 

Scotland should take the trophy seriously. 

[charger29]

4 hours ago, Thistle Scotland Europe said:

I hope Scottish teams take the new Conference League seriously. A Scottish club COULD win this new competition.

3 Scottish clubs have won European trophies. So it would be great to add to that,  

I think it is too difficult for Scottish clubs to win the Champions League. Celtic and Rangers could just about win the Europa League. But I really think any Scottish Premier team could get a good run and win the Conference League. Which would be great for Scottish football. 

Scotland should take the trophy seriously. 

Not sure if you're at the wind up but there's no chance of that happening. The conference league is not that massive of a step below the Europa League.
If you use the current positions of clubs in their leagues across Europe for next years seedings, the last 16 of the conference league could (very roughly) involve PSV, Rangers, Qarabag, Steaua Bucharest, Rennes, Malmo, Spartak Moscow, Real Sociedad, Tottenham, Atalanta, Basel, Plzen, B.Monchengladbach, Anderlecht, Astana, S.Leige.

It'd be a miracle if any team outside Rangers & Celtic even made it out their conference group, nevermind compete with those teams above.

[Ray Patterson]

21 hours ago, charger29 said:

Not sure if you're at the wind up but there's no chance of that happening. The conference league is not that massive of a step below the Europa League.
If you use the current positions of clubs in their leagues across Europe for next years seedings, the last 16 of the conference league could (very roughly) involve PSV, Rangers, Qarabag, Steaua Bucharest, Rennes, Malmo, Spartak Moscow, Real Sociedad, Tottenham, Atalanta, Basel, Plzen, B.Monchengladbach, Anderlecht, Astana, S.Leige.

It'd be a miracle if any team outside Rangers & Celtic even made it out their conference group, nevermind compete with those teams above.

You're talking mince. Rangers could easily make the last 8 or further of this season's EL, no reason that a Scottish club can go on far in this tournament, including the diddies. Albeit, probably only the OF could win the tournament.

[charger29]

You're talking mince. Rangers could easily make the last 8 or further of this season's EL, no reason that a Scottish club can go on far in this tournament, including the diddies. Albeit, probably only the OF could win the tournament.

Eh? I never mentioned anything about Rangers in the EL.
FWIW, looking it at the teams left in the EL, Tottenham, Man Utd, Arsenal, AC Milan, Leicester, Roma, Bayer Leverkusen, Napoli, Shakhtar & Ajax would all be favourites against Rangers.
Which of the teams in my previous post could Aberdeen, Hibs or Livingston beat?
I really don't get why, when no Scottish team outside of the old firm has reached the group stages of a European tournament in ~12 years, people suddenly think we're going to start competing. I'd be amazed if 4th/5th even get out of the qualifying rounds.

[DMCs]

16 hours ago, ArabAuslander said:

You're talking mince. Rangers could easily make the last 8 or further of this season's EL, no reason that a Scottish club can go on far in this tournament, including the diddies. Albeit, probably only the OF could win the tournament.

You can see the teams that could be the groups and qualifiers here:

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=4FE4712A1E3EA4FA!301&ithint=file%2Cxlsx&authkey=!AI0j65LlMWkMofc

All non-OF teams would be seeded in QR2 but unseeded after that. Aberdeen's coefficient might be enough to get into Pot 3 but it's likely that everyone else would be Pot 4. I do think we will get 3 teams in groups of some kind next season but 4th and 5th place won't make it imo.

[craigkillie]

3 hours ago, DMCs said:

I do think we will get 3 teams in groups of some kind next season but 4th and 5th place won't make it imo.

The only way we won't get 3 teams in groups is if Celtic (or whoever else comes 2nd) lose three consecutive qualifiers. Rangers and whoever comes 3rd (or the cup winners if such a thing exists) are guaranteed to at least be in the Conference League group stage.

[ahemps]

10 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

The only way we won't get 3 teams in groups is if Celtic (or whoever else comes 2nd) lose three consecutive qualifiers. Rangers and whoever comes 3rd (or the cup winners if such a thing exists) are guaranteed to at least be in the Conference League group stage.

Is the 3rd team guaranteed??? According to the Wikipedia page the 3rd and 4th Scottish teams go into the 2nd qualifier meaning 3 qualifying rounds to get to the groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021–22_UEFA_Europa_Conference_League#Teams

[DMCs]

12 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

The only way we won't get 3 teams in groups is if Celtic (or whoever else comes 2nd) lose three consecutive qualifiers. Rangers and whoever comes 3rd (or the cup winners if such a thing exists) are guaranteed to at least be in the Conference League group stage.

Yes. I'd like there to be more but 4th and 5th getting through 3 qualifiers with 2 unseeded isn't an easy task. It's easier than the EL qualifiers now but not loads easier.

[MrWorldwideJr]

1 minute ago, ahemps said:

Is the 3rd team guaranteed??? According to the Wikipedia page the 3rd and 4th Scottish teams go into the 2nd qualifier meaning 3 qualifying rounds to get to the groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021–22_UEFA_Europa_Conference_League#Teams

The cup winners/3rd place team start in the Europa League play off round. If they win then they are in the Europa League groups, if they lose then they drop into the Conference League groups.