European Leagues.

[thewobbler]

I'd say Liverpool would be happier playing Spurs. And Spurs glad to be in a final!

If Liverpool lose to Spurs they will never live it down. Eternal shame

Was your internet not working last night?

Researching the names of pubs in Liverpool.

Hope he enjoys watching Thursday night football next year in places like Kazakhstan....

Some turnaround in form from Tadic from not being good enough for Mark Hughes at Southampton. Regardless of result some player! It'll make for a great final. Hopefully Harry Kane gets back fully fit and make a good game of it!

Spurs are a better team without Kane.

I've watched every single Spurs game this season and I can promise you hand on heart that this is complete bollocks. Spurs counter attack better with him as the focal point. Spurs hold the ball up and spread the ball better when he plays as a 10. Spurs are genuinely twice as cutting in front of goal when he plays. Spurs concede fewer from corners when he plays. And up until this evening Spurs have always shown more bottle when he is in the field as he leads from the front.

Absolute bollocks internet rumour shitfuckery.

[BennyCake]

Calm down dude. Don't be throwing a wobbler

[mouview]

Dembele surely kicking himself for missing that sitter with the final kick in the first leg v. Pool. How fates hinge on such things.

[mrdeeds]

A lot of talk a European League is now inevitable with English club's dominance.

[Milltown Row2]

A lot of talk a European League is now inevitable with English club's dominance.

Only dominance if you win and this year is the first in a while since a English club will have won it, Chelsea being the last team to win back in 2012.. dominance wouldnt be a word I'd use.

If Arsenal and Chelsea get through to their final will that be the first time both finals will have been contested by teams from one country?

[mrdeeds]

I was referring to this year's dominance. European clubs were already scared of English financial dominance so this may speed up process. Talk of introducing relegation and promotion to protect the top 20 clubs.

[seafoid]

I was referring to this year's dominance. European clubs were already scared of English financial dominance so this may speed up process. Talk of introducing relegation and promotion to protect the top 20 clubs.

England have 8/20 of the richest clubs because of the TV deal
Over time this should mean more English wins 

[imtommygunn]

Only watching back the spurs game now. That Ajax keeper was ropy. How did he not grab the ball for that second goal? The only person near him was his own player.

Great win for spurs though. I think Liverpool will have more bother with them than they would have had with Ajax. Hard game to call.

[Maroon Manc]

A lot of talk a European League is now inevitable with English club's dominance.

Its one season and both clubs really rode their luck to get to the final.

[seafoid]

4 of the Spurs squad were bought from Ajax and Ajax didn't have the experience to hold on to their lead . Cruel
At the same time it wasn't a very Spurs reaction at 3 nil down to go and win the thing

[Milltown Row2]

4 of the Spurs squad were bought from Ajax and Ajax didn't have the experience to hold on to their lead . Cruel
At the same time it wasn't a very Spurs reaction at 3 nil down to go and win the thing

So its a Ajax and Southampton CL FINAL

[Jell 0 Biafra]

4 of the Spurs squad were bought from Ajax and Ajax didn't have the experience to hold on to their lead . Cruel
At the same time it wasn't a very Spurs reaction at 3 nil down to go and win the thing

It's actually been pretty typical of Spurs in the CL this year.  Came back from a terrible opening 3 group matches to qualify, came back against City, and now against Ajax.  If I believed in that sort of thing, I'd be inclined to say their name was on the cup.

[seafoid]

Shameful Champions League proposals backed by Barcelona are rife with self-interest and would stifle evolution

By

Sam Wallace
Chief Football Writer 

Follow 











Sam Wallace















9 May 2019

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/05/09/shameful-champions-league-proposals-backed-barcelona-rife-self/   
Lionel Messi can only carry Barcelona for so long

Whatever pain was inflicted on Barcelona on Tuesday night, whatever fin de siècle mood hung over that grim flight home in the early hours, it will not have changed what the club's president – and the club itself - think about the proposed changes post-2024 to Champions League.

A week earlier, in the reflected glory of that 3-0, first-leg win, Josep Bartomeu had announced his support for the proposals that would rip the heart out of what will be by then a once-great competition.

"We're going to change it for the better," he said, and by that he meant an end to the old principle of annual qualification, and more certainties for the old aristocratic clubs of Europe. More of those pre-season tour-style heritage games of one stupendously rich club against another, from here to eternity.

Clubs like Barcelona think they need this new Champions League more than ever. This closed-shop, de facto European super league by the back door; this made-for-television, new-markets conquering, big football, big greed, destruction of the last vestiges of a beautiful, original idea.
That idea being that it would be wonderful to watch the champions of Europe play one another to see who prevailed. To experience new styles of playing, develop new tastes, a feisty Barolo after a crisp glass of Meursault.

Barcelona are getting old. The team that lost 4-0 to Liverpool is on the slow descent from a high peak, and one that has given the club many trophies. It is not a crisis, certainly not domestically where they are one final from a second consecutive league and cup double, but in Europe you get the feeling they have relied on the same great players for too long. Six who started at Anfield are 30-something, 100-plus cap internationals - heroes all of them but that is a lot for one team.

How do you replace Messi, 32 next month, in possession of 129 caps and an undeniable genius? The answer is that you cannot. Then you look down the list and remember you soon have to find a new Gerard Pique (32, 102 caps), Luis Suarez (32/106), Sergio Busquets (30/112), Ivan Rakitic (31/104) and even Artur Vidal (31/105). Bartomeu has to try. But if he supports Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli's post-2024 Champions League bonfire then that says the president of Barcelona is not prepared to adhere to the oft-stated principles of his more-than-a-club club.

All great teams fall eventually. More often they fade, as this Barcelona have done in recent years in Europe; a gradual falling short in the games that matter. But in the modern era, when clubs are run like global corporations, it is not possible for the great commercial beasts of the age to accept this immutable law of the game. What's more, there is nothing they will not tear up to try to preserve their status.

Barcelona do not have as much money as they would like. They do, however, have the highest annual wage bill in European football, at €639 million. They have an agreement to sign Frenkie De Jong, one of the standout talents of this season's Champions League. Like Real Madrid, short on cash, committed on wages, Barcelona prefer deals which spread the cost of the transfer fee over a number of years, and Ajax are the kind of club who do this.

Last July, Barcelona extended a credit line of €140m to pay their wage bill. There is a new stadium project to finance. The executive failed in an attempt to change the club's constitution that limits long-term borrowing to 10 per cent of revenue – currently €914m.

When Bartomeu says the Champions League is going to change for the better after 2024, what he really means is that the likes of Juventus, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and his own club cannot afford not to change it.

The wealth gap to the Premier League has become so great that they are running out of options to close it. Their own domestic leagues have been coerced and corralled into giving up a greater share to the elite and now it is time to look elsewhere.

It is hard for any club to replace the greatest player in their history. Thanks to Messi's adaptation, and his enduring brilliance, Barcelona do not have to just yet.

But that day is coming and there has already been around €300m staked on Philippe Coutinho, ineffective in the second leg against Liverpool, and Ousmane Dembele. The latter was injured at the weekend, and seems to have trouble living the way a professional athlete should. There are penalties built into the deal with Borussia Dortmund should Dembele be sold early.

Barcelona reacted to Neymar's departure the only way they knew: by taking other top clubs' best players. Yet the Liverpool team that won on Tuesday night included players signed for much less from clubs like Hull City, Lille, Schalke and Southampton. Some in Barcelona's position would take a long, hard look at their recruitment. But men like Bartomeu and Agnelli think it is the Champions League that must change and not them.

Barcelona first competed in the European Cup in 1960 and did not win it until 32 years later. Madrid once went 32 years without a European Cup between 1966 and 1998. Bayern Munich went 25 years. Juventus have lost seven finals. Clubs rise and clubs fall. Change for the better after 2024? No. It is change to maintain a status quo in a competition that does not need one and has thrived for most of its 64-year history without one.

For the last five years the Cristiano Ronaldo- Lionel Messi axis has dominated the Champions League, one of the two having won it every season - but not this season.

Perhaps one, or both, is still due a last triumph but either way they cannot indefinitely stop others emerging to challenge.

We do not need nights like Tuesday to tell us that.

[Boycey]

I'm pretty sure all the big teams will be squarely behind the proposals not just Barcelona

[Captain Obvious]

The start to this 2nd leg that Arsenal didn't want.