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Jonone wrote:

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Well Bayern actually finished second in the Bundesliga in the relevant season - namely 1997/1998, for Champions League qualification in 1998/1999, which was the season they lost to Man Utd.

But yes, I suppose you could look at it like that.

To be honest I used to enjoy the old format much more - three competitions (EC, ECWC and UEFA Cup) when anyone could be drawn against anyone in any round, and it was just straight knockout, without all this fannying about with pre-season qualification rounds, seeding, group stages and all that bollocks.

It was also more credible then somehow - the Champions' Cup was actually contested just by the Champions of each league (plus the current holders if they didn't also win their domestic league in the season they won the European Cup), and the Cup winners contested the Cup Winners' Cup. Maybe it's just me but I dunno - somehow there seemed to be more passion to the European club competitions then.

But like just about everything else these days, football has become first and foremost all about money and commercialism, and less about the sport itself (which has merely become a means to that cash-orientated end). Sad really.

Flat_Eric wrote:
>
> But like just about everything else these days, football has
> become first and foremost all about money and commercialism,
> and less about the sport itself (which has merely become a
> means to that cash-orientated end). Sad really.
>
>

But you also have to remember that Europe has changed in many formats in a political and geographical sense too.

The old champions of the U.S.S.R. for example comprised of Russia, Ukraine, Georgia etc etc so would have had to be a top side. Now they're single countries therefore more Champions but probably a dilution in quality.

Also remember there were work restrictions back then and players had for the most part to stay in their own countries. However the European Union has changed all that and these players now play in the bigger leagues for bigger money further diluting the quality in many of the smaller leagues.

I am all for traditions and football has changed in many aspects, many not for the better but the political and geographical world has changed things as well and not just the money men.

I was referring to the 1998/99 season when Bayern would have claimed their 'vice euro champs' status, losing to Man Utd in 1999. Utd too finished runners-up in the Premiership in 1997/98 and won it in 1998/99.

There's been a right old furore today about the ticket situation with all sides blaming each other.

Probably everybody has some blame attached to them, the club, the fans, the Greek police and Uefa, who proved again how incompetent they really are.

i was already in the ground when all that happen but fuck me there where alot of people without or with fake tickets getting in

I totally agree about the bar code scanners.

Supposedly each ticket had a unique bar code so they could stop and detect forgeries so with Uefa announcing on Tuesday that 5,000 forged tickets were in circulation then all tickets were scanned right? Wrong. How many scanners did Uefa have at the ground? Apparently zero. Unbelieveable.

Also I have been lucky enough to attend some top sporting events including World Cup games and most stadiums are cordoned off and you can't get within 200-300 yards of the stadium without a ticket. Why didn't that happen here? Surely that's basic crowd control.

This doesn't excuse the ticketless fans from going to the ground and certainly the older ones who remember Hillsborough shouldn't have done so but as I said they shouldn't have been allowed to get near the stadium.

LFC's allocation of tickets was a fiasco as well.

Tickets problems once again for a major final - quel surprise!!!
And, once again, the fans get the blame from the so-called organisers who'd have problems setting up a drinking fest in a public house.
UEFA, FIFA, the FA, yeah, I'll tar them all with the same brush marked "INCOMPETENT".

"At the end of the storm is a golden sky and the sweet silver song of the lark..."

Liverpool Football Club isn't blameless though not just because of the ticket allocation fiasco.

The club approved travel contributed. 60 or 70 chartered planes over 2 days and carrying around 10,000 supporters to Athens and there was no requirement when booking these flights that anybody had to have a match ticket as they were sold separately.

Various estimates doing the rounds are that about 6,000 of the (near) 10,000 that used the clubs charter flights didn't have match tickets so basically Liverpool FC dumped 6,000 ticketless fans in Athens all scouring the black market.

A stupid thing to do and hopefully the club will admit it's mistake and learn from it.

PS. Alot of the figures being banded about today are just rumours and I take them as rumours and not gospel before anybody tries to pick me up on them as facts.