World Cup Vs Champions League

gimmick

Says Alex Ferguson:

All the best players in the world are now playing in the Champions League. It's a bigger tournament than the World Cup. It's a fantastic tournament. When you take four teams from countries like Italy, Spain and England, it is unbelievable. It was enough to say 'I hope we can play Real Madrid'. Now you can play Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus, and AC Milan, all in one season. In terms of entertainment, the Champions League is better than the World Cup. The last good World Cup, excitement-wise, was 1986. There have been disappointing World Cups since then. Last season in the Champions League, and the season before, you had some fantastic games and unusual results. That's what leads me to think the Champions League is the tournament now

What are peoples opinions on this? Is the Champions League a superior competition to the World Cup?

Honestly, I think not. Maybe from a technical point of view, yes, but from a pure spectacle point of view, nothing beats the World Cup for me. I think the World Cup captures the imagination of those who arent even into football. But I suppose the fact that it only happens every four years helps there.

TheDoc

I think Champions league is much better. International football is nothing more of a farse these days, its a joke and I dont support it. I callled it a day when I heard Kevin Nolan was in agent talks wether or not to declare himself irish.
A) He is british end of story.
B)It is disgraceful players can decalre themselves for another country so they can play.
C)How can you have agent talks aobut it, its in your heart and you should have pride and passion and kill someone to play internationaly.


And then you see competitions that are muck. European championships were brutal, Greece winning, a farce. None of the top players have any pride or desire anymore. Champions league is where the big players shine.

I cant remember in my lifetime ever watching an international match that excited me. But nearly every week i can watch brilliant club level games with the best players in the world. Tonigh I get to sit down and pick between 8 games. You wiat ages for a "friendly" to come around and its patheticly crap.

Champions League > World Cup at the moment and has been for the last few years. For me anyway, sure my friends are all extatic about going to see the world cup in germany next year, Ill save my money...

Jivin Turkey

[DM]-TheDOC- wrote:

And then you see competitions that are muck. European championships were brutal, Greece winning, a farce. None of the top players have any pride or desire anymore. Champions league is where the big players shine.

What a load of garbage.

Greece's win epitomised pride and desire.

I'm a Liverpool fan, and if the CL is where "the big players shine" I'm not stupid enough to admit that Liverpool would have won it.

While the CL may be technically and competitively better, nothing in soccer matches the World Cup.

Töpher

Champions League is also a farce. It is a competition for the elite leagues and clubs in Europe to earn truck loads of cash at the expense of smaller clubs.

For it to be a competition that adequately represented its name, it would have to include all the champions of the countries in Europe, and none of this lark where fourth place English teams can get in, yet champions of other countries have to fight to reach the level these teams are entered at. It would also need to be, erm, a league

There are 52 countries that are meant to be represented by this competition, once it actually becomes the Champions League and not the ridiculous Qualifying Stages there are only 32 teams present, usually with a high percentage coming from a small number of countries. And an even higher percentage of which aren't even champions of their own national leagues! Now thats farcical!

Will I be the only one not watching the Champions of England versus the 4th runners up this evening?

World Cup, much the same position I hold, but it at least holds a slight national interest.

TheDoc

of course the competition has its flaws. If it was a perfect comp every european nation would have its first and 2nd place in it. And poeple like shells or whatever would be able to play in group stages and bypass this qualifying lark. Its a major event flaw.

And iforgot to mention in this post but made my point in another. AC Milan clearly threw away that win, they got complacent and let in 3 sloppy goals. Liverpool didnt suddenly just turn into 11 star players and win, AC slacked off and feel asleep.

The teams that Greece beat to go through, if you can remember, which most cant because it was such a rubbish. Portugal, played rubbish, the figos and decos didnt care, they didnt try, they jsut walsed around. It just looked like the Greeks were playing with pride and heart, in fact they were playing people more interested in which car to buy next. The Greeks won like 5 matches 1-0 by scoring corners, they were an absolute sham and a joke and they didnt win by pride they won because the teams they played didnt care.

The greeks beat spain,france,portugal,Czech republic. All of whom didnt really care, the top players anyway, though i will admit they did well to beat the Czechs. But France, france looked like old men playing and did nothing, it was like they wanted to get knocked out.

Greeces victory was just achieved beccause the other good teams players didnt want to. I have more respect for liverpool winning the cl then greece because pool beat teams who wanted to win, but just didnt perform.

soma

I love watching champs league games, but nothing** in football gives me as genuine an excitement (complete with butterflies) as when the first round of the world cup starts, even when ireland arent involved, 2 weeks of pure entertainment.

**exception was seeing 20,000 out to watch shels v deportivo & the feeling that one day we might have spectacles like that on our doorstep every season.

MrJoeSoap

soma wrote:

I love watching champs league games, but nothing** in football gives me as genuine an excitement (complete with butterflies) as when the first round of the world cup starts, even when ireland arent involved, 2 weeks of pure entertainment.

**exception was seeing 20,000 out to watch shels v deportivo & the feeling that one day we might have spectacles like that on our doorstep every season.

Same as.

As for The Docs post above, how did the "declaring for countries" row only affect you recently with Kevin Nolan?

Remember Cascarino??!!

Tusky

World Cup is infinately more entertaining...specially if Ireland qualify.

evad_lhorg

agreed with tusky.

world cups are the best if we qualify cause the whole country goes mad. thats about as patriotic as Ireland will get and it gets to the perfect level unlike the americans where their patriotism goes to nazi like levels

KdjaCL

Depends on whether your in it or not, football wise CL is the pinnacle of footie.
But WC well thats special [example]Senegal can beat France in that , in the CL they wouldnt get in[/example]


kdjac

PiE

evad_lhorg wrote:

world cups are the best if we qualify cause the whole country goes mad. thats about as patriotic as Ireland will get and it gets to the perfect level unlike the americans where their patriotism goes to nazi like levels

Yea, that was all well and good in 1990 when the patriotism and 'togetherness' of the country was kinda genuine. Now it's so fake, with everyone trying to recapture the feeling of those days.

Never gonna happen unfortunately. So I love them both equally.

MrJoeSoap

Mediawatch wrote:

My Little Say In Matters
According to Sir Alex of Ferguson, "The last good World Cup, excitement-wise, was 1986. There have been disappointing World Cups since then."

Could this interpretation be somewhat swayed by the fact that the one and only World Cup Sir Alex has personally been involved in happened to be the '86 jamboree?

Then again, given that his Scotland team managed only one goal in three games, finishing bottom of their group, it would be difficult for him to claim credit for how exciting the tournament was.

So true.

Jivin Turkey

PiE wrote:

Yea, that was all well and good in 1990 when the patriotism and 'togetherness' of the country was kinda genuine. Now it's so fake, with everyone trying to recapture the feeling of those days.

Eh.........excuse me?

Were you not born for 2002? Spain not ring a bell?

To be honest, I've never felt such high's and low's as then, and I even attended one of our WC90 games! And it was far from "fake".

Pigman II

If you're talking about quality of football then it has Champions League all the way. I'd wager right now that any of the top 8 club sides in Europe could beat any team that makes it to the World Cup finals (yes including Brazil). You might get a handful of top-drawer games at a World Cup (if you're lucky!) but most CL games I tune into are usually entertaining in one way or another.

For example I even enjoyed that Chelsea/liverpool game last night despite there being hardly a shot on goal because you could tell that these were two teams of players who knew each other and what they had to do precisely and it made for a facinating tactical study imho. You don't get that at international level. Most matchs do literally look like the players only met up shortly prior to the game and are running on what little preparation they have.

However that said tho for 'personal interest' the WC wins for me as I'll probably never have my club team competing at that kind of level in order to generate that level of interest. I remember feeling almost literally sick before England-Ireland at Wc90 and having to leave the house and go for a short walk shortly after we went 1-0 down. A lot of football has passed under the bridge for me since and these I rarely get that feeling of 'this match is vital' anymore as I literally don't have a care how good/bad Ireland are doing (eg it didn't really eat at me the way it should have when we lost to France) but once in a while (eg Robbie Keane scoring against Germany) I do get that feeling back and that's why I stick around to make sure I don't miss it.

Bungalow Bill

I've never really been too passionate about any club team so while I enjoy the Champions League, i'm indifferent to who wins each match.

But when Ireland play its a different story. Everyone in a great mood and everyone is buzzing off the tension and the excitement. And now and again we get those magical moments eg. Robbie against Germany, Alan McLoughlin against Northern Ireland, Ray Houghton against Italy etc.

I hate when club managers are derogatory towards International football. Its a really selfish comment by them when they do this. I think Mourinho was at it a while ago too. It is more than likely their influence on the top players that has dulled their interest in their country's success.

Lemlin

Haven't read anyone else's posts (don't have time) but just going to give my own opinion.

I think the World Cup will always be better because players are playing for a patriotic cause. Too often with club teams, we see players kiss the jersey of one club and then move to another a few months later for 10 million euros (**cough** Scott Parker **cough**).

The World Cup sees some of the best players in the world on the pitch and I for once think it'll be a travesty if Ireland aren't there in 2006 (although I expect them not to be).

Its probably for another topic but what's the deal with Ireland qualifying when tournaments are on the other side of the world but failing to qualify when we could all get a ferry or cheap flight to watch the matches!?

Pigman II

Lemlin wrote:

Its probably for another topic but what's the deal with Ireland qualifying when tournaments are on the other side of the world but failing to qualify when we could all get a ferry or cheap flight to watch the matches!?

I know what you mean! Why can't we just host the finals every 2 years and save ourselves the niggly bother of qualification and travel!

Our first two finals campaigns were in Germany and Italy (relatively close destinations). Even our matches in America weren't THAT far away (globally speaking).

Jonny Arson

I can't believe there is even a debate to this.

World Cup. Why because it's the holy grail of football. The biggest sporting event apart from the Olympics, unites the footballing world, provides ten fold the amount of passion and excitement, it's where so many great players have shined, provided endless amounts of memorable moments and on and on and on.

Champions League has been boring since since they let the 3rd and 4th place teams in to it.

Mossy Monk

World Cup all the way. Champions League isnt what it used to be

Seaneh

World Cup, it's what every players dreams of winning.

When Milan won the champions League 3 years ago Shevchenko said that "scoring the winning penelty in a shootout in the champions cup final is almost me dream come true because I will probably never get to lift a world cup.
Although I envy Marcus (Cafu) and Roque (junior) I will never forget this moment and will always remember it as my world cup final."

proves that the best players to want to win the world cup.

Kingp35

Definitely the world cup for me. There is nothing like it for passion and patriotic pride and it unites the entire country for teh duartion of the tournament. For example my firlfriend wouldnt have a clue about football and all she does is complain if I put it on but the World cup is a totally different story where she would never miss an Irish game.

Kids dont play football o the streets dreaming of winning a champions league they are dreaming of playing for Ireland in teh World cup. The champions league is no longer the champions league. The day the allowed 2nd placed teams to enter it was the day the competition died. It is still hugely entertaining and has fantastic matches but it doesnt mean what it used to mean.

There is nothing like the world cup and supporting your country

PHB

CL has better quality overall.
World Cup tends to have a better top 2 teams.

I'd rather the overall better quality

Lemlin

I know what you mean! Why can't we just host the finals every 2 years and save ourselves the niggly bother of qualification and travel!

Our first two finals campaigns were in Germany and Italy (relatively close destinations). Even our matches in America weren't THAT far away (globally speaking).

Yes, but we failed to qualify for France '98 (the World Cup ain't going to get much closer!!) and now probably Germany 2006. Yet we can qualify for Japan and South Korea and the USA!

The good thing about 2010 is that the World Cup is in South Africe so I'd say the lads will definitely qualify!

Pigman II

Lemlin wrote:

The good thing about 2010 is that the World Cup is in South Africe so I'd say the lads will definitely qualify!

I wouldn't bet on it.

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

Töpher

ziggy67 wrote:

I prefer club football so the Champions League for me (Do you blame me? I'm Scottish )


But i would much rather score the winning goal in a World Cup Final than a CL Final.

Suffice to say you'll never do either!

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

FatherTed

[DM]-TheDOC- wrote:

Greeces victory was just achieved beccause the other good teams players didnt want to. I have more respect for liverpool winning the cl then greece because pool beat teams who wanted to win, but just didnt perform.

That is just untrue. How can you say in one hand the players didnt want to win the the Euros but did in the CL? That's just plain stupid.

As for the CL, UEFA sold its soul to the devil called Money when they let the second place teams in. Now it's a lost cause with England having 5 years in this year's competition.

Despite it's flaws, the World Cup still has it's magic. It unifies countries around their team.