As proud as I am that we won the European Cup as Champions of England, you can't pretend that it was harder to win back then. Would we have found it easier if the 2nd and 3rd best teams in Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal etc had been in the tournament rather than the champions of Luxembourg, Northern Ireland, Malta, Albania and Iceland? People say it was all knock out back in those days, but there was only one extra knock out round. Plus, the group stages generally mean, by and large, the best 16 teams in Europe pop out into the knock out phases now. There is no chance on earth Glentoran, Arges Pitesti, Rabo ETA Gyor and Szombierki Bytom (all appeared in the last 16 in the early 80s) would do that now. That is a shame and perhaps makes it less pure. But it means the competition is now harder to win and (almost) impossible for a smaller team.I just dont see the need to denigrate it now. Maybe because we dont play in it.
Quote from: LeeS on March 19, 2014, 09:03:58 AMAs proud as I am that we won the European Cup as Champions of England, you can't pretend that it was harder to win back then. Would we have found it easier if the 2nd and 3rd best teams in Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal etc had been in the tournament rather than the champions of Luxembourg, Northern Ireland, Malta, Albania and Iceland? People say it was all knock out back in those days, but there was only one extra knock out round. Plus, the group stages generally mean, by and large, the best 16 teams in Europe pop out into the knock out phases now. There is no chance on earth Glentoran, Arges Pitesti, Rabo ETA Gyor and Szombierki Bytom (all appeared in the last 16 in the early 80s) would do that now. That is a shame and perhaps makes it less pure. But it means the competition is now harder to win and (almost) impossible for a smaller team.I just dont see the need to denigrate it now. Maybe because we dont play in it. It is a moot point as to whether or not it was more or less difficult to win.The fact is that at the time it was the premier European club tournament and in 1982 the winners were Aston Villa.
You know I'm still absolutely loving it that we beat them. This twat just reinforces my complete lack of respect for that horrible club. I must have watched that last 20 minutes about 7 times now. It's great.
The Brummie Chelsea fan who used to be a Villa fan at work was in a very bad mood on Monday, apparently we had the ref on a string.He conveniently seemed to forget the refereeing from the game at Stamford Bridge and stormed off in a sulk. I didn't see him for the rest of the day.I didn't even bring the match up with him, he started the conversation. I just tried to look as smug as I could.
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Topic: Chelsea fans Ignorance (Read 16672 times)
