Euro grades

Well the first main round of Euro action, so how has the Bundesliga done?

In the Champions League, the answer has to be “Very Well”, perhaps an A- or B+. I’m still not sure how Thomas Muller managed to miss the open net from about 6 inches, but Bayern deserved their win against Man City. A tough opponent, so a good result. Also great was Schalke’s point at Chelski, which was really unexpected, since Schalke has sucked and Chelski has been on fire, so getting a point at Stamford Bridge is quite an accomplishment. Dortmund and Arsenal you could expect to be a toss-up, but the Neons dominated that match and looked quite good doing so – despite a hospital list of injuries requiring replacements. Leverkusen managed to ruin things somewhat by losing at Monaco, otherwise the overall grade would have been a solid A.

As for the Europa-League (the one nobody cares about), I suppose the grade has to be something like D-, but so what? It’s like your grade in Art class, nobody cares. Gladbach probably threw away a win in a 1-1 home draw with Villareal, and Wolfsburg got biatch-slapped at Everton. OK, I get it, this is a worthless competition, but if you are going to play in it, you might as well give a decent effort. From the season perspective, it’s an interesting conversational aspect when you can talk about somebody “in the race for a Eurospot”, but that really is only relevant to clubs like Augsburg or Wuppertal, not serious contenders. And instead of the at least palatable knockout UEFA Cup, the Euroleague now has group stages. It’s about as relevant as those old Summer leagues, I think it was called the “Totto League” where various disinterested sides played in groups just so the betting companies would have something to put up in the offseason.

2 thoughts on “Euro grades

  1. How quickly they forget…it was InterToto Cup. Schalke used it as a backdoor to UEFA Cup in 2004-05.

    And I would GREALY support a return of the knockout format of UEFA Cup instead of this Europa League.

    • Yep, knockout format of the UEFA Cup was great, especially since this was a Cup…and people actually were interested, so it meant something. Of course if that wanker Platini (as a bureucrat, not as a player) has his way, they’ll expand the group round so another 100 clubs that you never heard of or care about make the grade….

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