Funny you started your reply with that sentence as I spent the rest of your post wondering what point you were trying to make.Originally Posted by fellboy
We're not talking about the league, we're talking about the European Cup. Are you seriously saying that the European Cup wouldn't have been stronger with both Forest and Liverpool in it? You've already bigged yourself up by saying you beat them domestically so you must agree that they would add to the strength of the European competition.
You beat one decent team in Bayern Munich and a semi-decent team in Anderlecht. In 1999, we went through the group stages unbeaten (with Bayern & Barca), beat Inter Milan, beat Juventus and beat Bayern Munich. How can you argue that isn't a harder route to the title?
Incidentally, Juventus had contested the three finals previous to the 1999 one and not 6 years previous (Bayern won it in 1976).
What's your point? The Champions League is easier to qualify for now? No argument from me on that front. That's not the point I'm making though - I'm saying it's harder to win because you have more of the big European teams in it.
Most of the 'lesser' teams are weeded out during the qualification stage. When we won it in 1999, we had both Bayern Munich and Barcelona in our group stage - are these 'lesser' teams?
Don't get me wrong, I have massive respect for the achievements of Villa and Forest because (sadly) it's something that we'll never see again because of the over-commercialisation of football. However, please don't delude yourself that it was harder to win in the good old days.
I would like to see a reduction in the number of qualification places to 2 - the league winner and the FA cup winner which should see more teams putting more emphasis on the cup.
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