Liverpool FC Forum

by **bigmick** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:32 pm

I asked this as a discussion about (I think) Rafa's record earlier in the year spilled over into a discussion about European records and the like. Nobody I don't think disputed that Rafa has an excellent record in Europe, but I did make the point at the time that given our transfer kitty and the fact we have Gerrard and Carra in the team as freebies, qualification for the Champions League (by virtue of finishing in the top four of the Prem) should be an absolute formality, whoever is the manager.

I also developed the point further by saying the bare minimum for any Englsih club, should be to get out of the group at the very very least. Further, the competition only really starts proper when you've won your two legger with Weder Bremen, Ajax, Lyon or whoever it is and got yourself into the last eight. Once your there, you'll run into the other three English clubs for certain, Barcelona for certain and usually at least one of the Milan clubs, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and a randomite. The point being that the same clubs get to the latter stages every year (which is borne out by the English clubs records over the last few seasons).

It was something of a flier of a theory at the time. No journo's were talking about it, although Platini has cottoned onto the fact recently that it's getting predictable.

The reason I mentioned it at the time of course was not because I particularly give a feck about UEFA or Platini, but because I was making the point that just because you did well in Europe, it doesn't make your manager a God if he manages one of the big four in England. To be justifiably revered, you have to do well against your peers IMHO, in the Premiership. Needless to say the whole notion came in for a fair bit of stick at the time, but since then much Perrier water has gone under the bridge and I wonder what people think now?

Clearly Rafa has taken huge strides towards addressing his lack of success in the English Premier League since then, which is fantastic. We are now giving ourselves a chance in the competition, so we will find out soon enough how good we are, and infact how good he is. In Europe meanwhile, as predicted all of the English clubs are sailing serenely through their groups. In the last two years, English teams have filled three of the four semi final slots, does anybody want to give me a price that at least two of the slots won't be filled by English clubs again? I wouldn't think they would, and my money would be on three out of four again, with Barcelona filling the other slot. It's a rich clubs playground these days, exactly as it was designed originally.

DISCLAIMER-I ENJOY/ENJOYED IT AT LEAST AS MUCH AS THE NEXT MAN WE HAD/HAVE SUCCESS IN THE COMPETITION. I AM NOT SAYING IT'S A BUNCH OF SH!T OR ANYTHING SIMILAR.

by **Zidane** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:52 pm

I think the only reason it seems easier is because it happens yearly the top teams have a high chance of winning every year. It's like a mini Euro/World Cup but with it happening every year it isn't as prestigious and when you don't win it it doesn't feel so bad. Even if you're eliminated early you still have next year with practically the same chance of winning it.

by **LFC2007** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:57 pm

It's significantly easier for English sides (to reach the latter stages), there's no real debate in it, but it shouldn't take anything away from our achievement 3 and a bit years ago*, because back then it was stronger (and more difficult to reach the latter stages) and we had a significantly weaker team.

*DISCLAIMER - NOT SAYING YOU ARE.

by **Ace Ventura** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:03 pm

Tbh you are right mick, AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME the english sides are too far ahead, Barca, Real etc have a chance but the italians, dutch and germans etc dont ever (in this day and age have a realistic chance of winning it)
I think its quite sad really, and i think (without doubt that when we were dominant - by we i mean the english sides in the late 70's and early 80's it was far more merited.

Not taking anything away from Rafa, to win it and then get to a final and another semi in recent seasons imo couldnt be bettered by any manager, i just think at this moment in time the english sides are too strong, i didnt even want to watch arsenal and united yesterday, its too predicatable, neutrals will say the same about us, not sure how to sort it now tbh but if we won it this season i really dont think it should rank alongside past european cup wins even 2005, too many lives you get now.

by **Sabre** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:19 pm

What's being discussed? How hard it is? How CL can't be a excuse to explain a 4th position in the league?

I'll stick to the question of the thread.

It's as difficult as in 2001.

The difference is which teams reach the semifinals and the finals, but at the end of the day to win the champions league you have to play a competition midweek and beat all the best teams of Europe.

The only difference is that in 2001 you could find 3 spanish teams, and in 2008 you find Manchester United and Chelsea or Arsenal. But you still have to beat them, who are the strongest right now.

If what's being discussed is the supremacy of the english football, let's go somewhere else because right now there's not discussion about that.

But this competition *seems* a lot easier when you have a deep quality squad and players like Torres, Gerrard, Mascherano or Reina. It looks even more easier if you add to them a proper width with Riera. And even easier if you find a poor Atletico and are vastly superior in their own pitch. Last season it seemed a bit more difficult when we had to do a heroic to go to the next stage.

But the Champions League is still a demanding competition, that requires you have a deep squad, that will push your squad phisically because you play wednesdays (1) and weekends, and in which you have to face the best team of Europe in a month in which the league is in a hot moment. It's irrelevant that the teams you face at the end are English or Foreign, you still have to beat the best teams midweek.

Easy or not, that competition added to the local cups will require you have a deep quality squad, so reaching far in it, will make you pay a price in the league.

(1) Correct me if I'm wrong but some players did seem tired today.

by **Ace Ventura** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:27 pm

Dont mean that Sabre, you are of course right about the pendulum swinging from spanish possibly to english, but i genuinely think (although i wasnt actually old enough to know better) that it was more to do with better management than us just having bigger and better squads in the late 70's and early 80's.
I hate Platini, he is a c'nt, and he is only comin out with all this cos its the english dominating, but he is right, its not good for football all this imo.
And with what i say i just want to say we are nowhere near like united or chelsea, ourselves and arsenal are possibly on a par with alot of the other G14 clubs spending wise, but still it all stinks imo.

by **Sabre** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:49 pm

All the opinions here have been sensible Ace, I just wanted to focus exactly the discussion, as the good thread opener touched several points, not only about the CL, but also Rafa's record.

English superiority? It's obvious right now.

Platini is a cúnt? It's obvious.

Is the CL easy? no, you still have to beat teams midweek, and the only difference is that if you reach semifinals you'll find an english club

Does Rafa's record make him a God? No.

Did the CL made us pay a price in the league in the past? IMHO, definitely.

Was our squad in 2005 stronger than the one we have now? IMHO, no. We haven't stagnated and get stuck but have been progressively improving. This latter question could be ASKED another way

Ace says

And with what i say i just want to say we are nowhere near like united or chelsea, ourselves and arsenal are possibly on a par with alot of the other G14 clubs spending wise, but still it all stinks imo.

Have we got closer to Manchester United and Chelsea as strong squad? If so, how much?

I personally would like to read opinions about that, but if we want to stick to the topic's question, we'll make it in another thread.

Several points were touched in the thread opener and I wanted to know exactly which was the key topic of discussion.

by **LFC2007** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:55 pm

I think the standard across the board was higher back in 2001 - whereas it's more concentrated now, which - broadly speaking with respect to English sides - makes it easier to reach the latter stages. The likes of Bayern, Real Madrid, Deportivo, Valencia were all very strong teams* back then but they aren't nearly as strong as now, add to that the removal of the second group stage which has given some of the smaller sides a greater chance of reaching the latter stages.

English clubs apart, I only see Barca, Inter, and possibly Real Madrid on a similar kind of level to the top four English sides. It's a cup competition, so you never know what will happen, but if you analyse the level of those who used to be considered major players, a lot have declined in recent years and with it the concentration of power.

*Bayern are almost a second tier team and are the only team of any threat from Germany (and hardly one at that), every one of the Italian teams is second tier except Inter, Real Madrid aren't what they were and are very suspect defensively (Zenit should've beaten them), Valencia have had a huge dip recently, Deportivo disappeared.

by **Sabre** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 12:10 am

LFC2007 wrote:I think the standard across the board was higher back in 2001 - whereas it's more concentrated now which makes it easier to reach the latter stages. The likes of Bayern, Real Madrid, Deportivo, Valencia were all very strong teams* back then but they aren't nearly as strong as now, add to that the removal of the second group stage which has given some of the smaller sides a greater chance of reaching the latter stages.

English clubs apart, I only see Barca, Inter, and possibly Real Madrid on a similar kind of level to the top four English sides. It's a cup competition, so you never know what will happen, but if you analyse the level of those who used to be considered major players, a lot have declined in recent years.

*Bayern are almost a second tier team and are the only team of any threat from Germany (and hardly one at that), every one of the Italian teams is second tier except Inter, Real Madrid aren't what they were and are very suspect defensively (Zenit should've beaten them), Valencia have had a huge dip recently, Deportivo disappeared.

I have to admit you have a point there. But still a Villarreal can draw a game in Manchester.

I agree that there's a concentration of quality players in the current top english teams -- Look our midfield (Mascherano, Gerrard, Alonso) today and look Atletico's.

But I think mate that it's not that much that the other's level have declined (there have been power swaps like Villarreal-Deportivo), but English teams growing massively from 2002

There's no competition in the current spending power of English clubs.

Oh, and I'm chuffed about it because I preffer watching LFC in semifinals rather than Barcelona or Real Madrid, and I wouldn't change it neither. It's not fair that the game was like this until now (about money) and now we change it because the English are winning. Only a chauvinist like Platini would do that

by **LFC2007** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 12:19 am

I should also add that, just because it's easier for English clubs in general to reach the latter stages, it's not necessarily easier for us to win it. It's not as if we've had an easy draw in the past four seasons, last season being the best example. I just think if you're an English side and you do face a non-English one in the knockout stages, generally you're in luck e.g. Manc's last season, Lyon, Roma then a Barca side with a lot of problems (speaking about the more recent state of the competition).

by **Ace Ventura** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 12:27 am

LFC2007 wrote:I should also add that, just because it's easier for English clubs in general to reach the latter stages, it's not necessarily easier for us to win it. It's not as if we've had an easy draw in the past four seasons, last season being the best example. I just think if you're an English side and you do face a non-English one in the knockout stages, generally you're in luck e.g. Manc's last season, Lyon, Roma then a Barca side with a lot of problems (speaking about the more recent state of the competition).

That is spot on, and sort of half way proves what i am trying to say, united beat the french champions, Barca - one of the only current teams imo capable of winning it and Roma in the latter stages, we played Arsenal - who beat AC Milan in Milan and it was ourselves and Chelsea that was the hardest contested semi, united were always going to win against Barca, the english sides are too well organised as well as having the best squads, any money united, chelsea or us get to the final again !

Thats not a bad thing, am just saying that the sides of the late 70's and early 80's had more to compete against and with 2 legged knockouts more of a chance of getting knocked out.

Made up btw to see Rafa putting out strong teams in both AND BRINGING PLAYERS OFF AT END !!!

by **LegBarnes** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 5:02 am

LFC2007 wrote:It's significantly easier for English sides (to reach the latter stages), there's no real debate in it, but it shouldn't take anything away from our achievement 3 and a bit years ago*, because back then it was stronger (and more difficult to reach the latter stages) and we had a significantly weaker team.

*DISCLAIMER - NOT SAYING YOU ARE.

You would think that wouldn't you but I feel its only due to the amount of games we play and our prems very high fitness demands that give us that edge over the other so called top teams.

We play normaly 20% more games then almost every league in europe and it tells in games when we play our high tempo counter attacks that others euro teams just can't handle.

When you see teams upset the english clubs its when they are well drilled in the same like for like tactics and give 110% all over the pitch to match our fitness.

by **JoeTerp** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 5:07 am

I know they are :censored:

now, but AC Milan won it just two years ago. And it was Porto v. Monaco in 2004. How short a time span are we talking here? I do agree though that even since we were last in the final the shift of quality has only continued to move across the channel. But even all this easiness being said. You still have to say that its a 50/50 match up anytime you get a top team in the round of 16, and any team in the round of 8 onwards. You also have to see that Rafa has done better than 50%. And because of the money involved, its very important for us to be over 50%, and it cannot be taken for granted.

It doesn't matter if it is easy. Its important.

The Bundesliga should be a walk for Bayern Munich when you consider their resources, but they didn't even qualify for the CL two years ago and they are off to a terrible start this year. Sounds dumb, but having a manager that just does what is expected of the club is an accomplishment because clubs don't reach expectations all the time.

by **Owzat** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 7:29 am

Put simply, any competition has a point at which the preliminaries are over and the competition begins in earnest. That in the Champions League is the Quarter-Finals, down to the best eight sides in Europe that season. So the English clubs should be aiming at the QFs at least, you will occaisionally stumble upon a tough task or slip up before, but you should get to the knockouts.

The groups are mainly a TV money spinning, dragged out and completely unneccessary exercise. You only need to play two round of matches or four games to eliminate two teams, the groups require TWELVE ie three times as many. And for what? There will be an upset or two, but normally the groups are decided long before the fifth and sixth rounds of games and so they had to bring in the system that the 3rd placed team drops into the UEFA Cup to maintain interest. By my reckoning THREE Champions League dropouts have won the UEFA Cup out of the last nine, thus devaluing that competition even further. They put groups in that competition for TV, dragging it out, and I vaguely recall something about it taking on a CL format next season.

So I say bring back straight knockouts, best sides should go through over two legs, and the competition will still only start in earnest at the QFs. League Cup probably only starts at the QFs or Semis even, FA Cup sometimes doesn't really start at all as last season demonstrated - unless you buy into this 'good to see the big guns knocked out' :censored:

. The Premiership is really down to the last 2-4, talking to someone yesterday they said it would be nice just to see someone else other than the mancs and Chelsea win it for a change. I guess the CL has that to say for it, FIVE different winners in the last five seasons and seven in the last eight seasons - Man Utd, Milan, Barcelona, LIVERPOOL, Porto, Milan (again), Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. The only other competition readily springs to mind as that open is the League Cup, in the past nine seasons Liverpool and Chelsea have won it twice, alternating with FIVE other winners - Leicester, Blackburn, Middlesboro, Man Utd and Tottenham. That competition suffers from the 'big four' fielding second strings and only getting very far through the weakness of other teams - leading to Arsenal's 'young guns' being over-hyped until some team finally shows that you do 'win nothing with kids'

by **taff** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 12:10 pm

I would say it looks easier for english clubs now because of the squad strength and the experience gained in Europe with consistently qualifying for the thing. But to say its easy is wrong as the european clubs are still strong and capable of knocking an English team out at any stage. We forget sometimes about the players that arent in the premier league.

But Bigmick has a point about our league and the need to strengthen in that, although IMO we have had to maintain strength in Europe and the league and this is a hard task unless you have the squad. I would use Arsenal in this argument, as good as Wenger has been in the PL he has not won the CL, and this is a doubter regarding his total success. Ferguson had an obsession about it with the most expensive squad till Chelsea came along. The holy grail is a squad capable of getting a result away to a top european club and then beating a PL team either side of that result but consistently throughout the season and this is a difficult task.

I think Benitez in the past has been pragmatic and concentrated on the CL when he felt that the PL was out of reach. You could argue that he was a genius long term strategist, raising the club profile and gaining valuable money for the latter stages and even more valuable experience for the players or you could take the view that he sacrificed the holy grail we all want for high profile european success. I would say that its somewhere in the middle although I do find myself drawn to the argument that if we are heading towards 4th as we are not strong enough to win the PL then its great to have a good CL run

What I do find odd regarding England is that the majority of the squad are now seasoned CL players and rightly feared but in and England shirt they look like a team who havent come across differing tactics before. Capello looks like he is correcting this.

But easy no, money and experience have increased the chances of English clubs but anything less than 100% will result in a defeat. We also have experienced managers with european experience and players who are now used to the fixture build up

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