Liam Barnes
One of the most exciting moments of the year for me happened recently. No, not the Manchester derby, or Chelsea-Arsenal, but the FA Cup third-round draw. The best club competition in the world kicks into gear, with Premier League heavyweights, lower-league middleweights and plucky non-league striplings are all chucked into a bowl and randomly pulled back out. Some are happy with an easy draw; some strike it lucky, have a nice day out and play a top team; and one or two giants are paired up early in a glamour tie that TV falls over itself to advertise.
This cherished trophy, having come through a bit of a battering in the last decade, threw up a classic last year, with Liverpool just about avoiding the huge embarrassment of being knocked out at home by the obscure Havant & Waterlooville, only to succumb to Barnsley. The Tykes then go toe-to-toe with the Chelsea juggernaut, and miraculously win, before losing to Cardiff in the semis, who then lose to Manchester United’s victorious opponents, Portsmouth, in a most unpredictable final. The final was a little bit forgetful, but finals often are somewhat underwhelming, and the journey to it was enough reward for fans tired of serial dominance from the “big four”.
Contrast the excitement and anticipation of the early rounds in the FA Cup with the early rounds of European competition. Various champions of various dodgy leagues make it through to the money-spinning group stages, but have virtually no chance, whereas Histon humiliated Leeds, Eastwood became the first team to defeat Wycombe despite playing three divisions below, and Barrow beat Brentford. UEFA does everything it can to thwart their progress at the expense of the Barcelonas, the Arsenals and the Inter Milans. The big teams get seeded to avoid the possibility that, heaven forbid, they might need to sweat to get to the knockout stages. Then, just in case they might have a bad day at the office, get unlucky or just outplayed by an emboldened underdog upsetting the odds, they are all put into groups, so the big guns that generate big bucks get the big breaks.
This year could have been quite an interesting Champions League, as the champions of Russia, Belarus, Denmark, Romania and Cyprus (Zenit St. Petersburg, BATE Borisov, Aalborg, Cluj and Anorthosis Famagusta) were all making their debuts, and adding a rare sight of a Champions League comprised mostly of actual champions. Yet any romantic notions foundered when kick-off came: BATE and Zenit came up against Real Madrid and Juventus (combined league titles – 58; European Cups – 11); Aalborg had to beat Man Utd as well as experienced Villareal and Celtic sides; while Cluj have fallen at the hands of Chelsea and Roma, despite promising performances. Anorthosis may buck the trend and qualify ahead of Panthinaikos, but they still have to win their last game on top of their decent showing already, and they got an easier group than most – had they been with Liverpool and Atlético, or Bayern Münich and Lyon, do you think they would have got through?
The group stages of the Champions League are full of dead rubbers, dull games and detract from the competition as a whole. Everyone knows that it doesn’t really get going until the last 16, and in most cases the big teams qualify with at least a game to spare, leaving the last round irrelevant, bar maybe sorting out who gets the wooden spoon and who undeservedly goes into the UEFA Cup as a consolation prize. It used to be even worse when there was a second group phase before the quarter-finals, but thankfully even UEFA were compelled to relieve everyone of the needless extra games that resulted from this money-spinning venture.
Yet whilst UEFA saw the light in disposing of this extra group stage, they then bizarrely imposed a most lop-sided and haphazard one onto the UEFA Cup. The second round is composed of eight groups of five, from which the top three qualify. They don’t even play a full round-robin system, but are assigned two home and away games each. Other than being pointless, it’s stupid. One team is inactive for a week, the groups again fuel the entrenched class system in European football, and again by just after halfway most of the big teams are already safe – Man City have only played twice and they’ve already qualified. If the UEFA Cup had not already been belittled by having Champions League outcasts come in and often win it, then this ridiculous format adds a new level of farce that only a bloated bureaucracy such as UEFA’s could dream up.
There are some cases when group stages work. In international tournaments, for example, it would be impractical to organise and harsh on the teams – and especially the fans – if you could be on the plane home after one game. Imagine if you were a Costa Rican supporting your team in the last World Cup, to travel all that way and spend all that money, only to come up against the hosts and be out on your ear before you can savour the atmosphere? The same with Ghana against Italy, or Ukraine against Spain. Qualifying for international tournaments also requires group stages, as having multiple entrants and huge numbers of countries requires a different set-up from a league, and to stage a cup to get there would be pointless, as how can ten teams win from fifty as it would be in Europe?
So what solution could remedy the situation in the European competitions? Firstly, the UEFA Cup needs to get rid of the moronic and unsightly group stage, return to a classic two-legged knockout format, and not debase itself by allowing top-table also-rans to make a mockery of it when there’s already enough quality on show. As for the Champions League, why not follow the example of the FA Cup? Keep the qualifying rounds for the minnows, but when it comes down to the last 32 (or even 64, to mirror the third-round’s numbers and allow more champions from smaller leagues to feel wanted), just revert to type. If UEFA are still concerned about not enough big teams making it through and consequently the competition not making enough money, then seed last year’s quarter-finalists or the top eight ranked sides from the last couple of years, so the advantage is not too overbearing for the Histons, the Eastwoods and the Barrows to overcome.
The FA Cup, the oldest, the liveliest and the best club competition in world football, is such a famous tournament for its surprises, its shocks and its simplicity: UEFA should go back to the founding principles of the game.
