2025-26 UEFA Champions League

They have completely fallen apart. This could get more embarrassing

They could score 10 yet

Premier League seems very poor preparation for playing teams that focus on passing the ball.

Yes and No I suppose is the answer which you have alluded to.

I think the CL is mostly won by the team that peaks around March/April/May time. And it certainly requires more "luck" to win than a PL title.

Real Madrid are the absolute masters of peaking at that stage of the season. It's not uncommon for Real to be "off" before Xmas to hit the ground running in the 2nd half of the season and they always have match winners in their squad.

PSG last year as well. Looked a million miles off it in the group phase but by the time the knockout games came around they looked the best team in Europe.

Flip side of that is Pep's Man City were the masters of putting away teams that they were better than. They played football on a spreadsheet and setup to take the "optimum" option as often as possible. But they had obvious enough weakness that you could exploit if you had the players to A) Defend and B) Hit them on the counter. Real did it to them for the 3rd time this year.

Back to the competitions -

You can (especially in the new CL setup) coast your way through to February / March time in the CL. That's not true in the PL, so in that regard it is "easier".

It's "harder" in terms that you do need more luck and things to fall your way as the games at the business end tend to be decided (or change) on very fine margins.

I think it's "easier" for an average team to get to a CL semi final or latter stages with a bit of luck than it is for them to get into a PL title race for example.

7 and probably a few more to come

Best league in the world

Best league in their own heads

It's time UEFA looked back at this CL setup. Bodi Glint got to late stages. So many PL teams got to last 16 and were shown up badly. Hell spurs got to last 16.

Something is not right and it's possible the league stage gets dismissed as nonsense. Top 8 hard to argue with going through. The next 16 playoff is too many.

I know it was done as a money grab and clubs wanted it for revenue but surely it can't continue.

The previous format with the 4 team group stages had got stale as well. There are too many teams now in the competition. Having 5 or 6 clubs from one country is way too much as well.

I agree but will never happen, doesn’t guard the Revenue of the wanted to be breakaway Super League clubs.

Its basically the early version of a super league anyway.

Will be some tweaks along the way but when you have 5 EPL, 5 La Liga, 5 Germans, 5 Italians, 3 Portugese, 3 French, 2 Dutch....what else can you call it.