As the final whistle went in the Sunderland v Liverpool match last Sunday I spoke to a few scousers, all of whom told me Spurs had better watch their back because they were coming for us. My response was I didn’t really care. If we’re not in the champions league again next season I’m happy not to be in Europe at all and thanks to the way the cup competitions have gone this season, finishing 6th would mean exactly that. Their response wasn’t mixed, all of them saying they would happily be in the Europa league again next season because it was another trophy they could win and it showed they were ambitious. That’s a fair assessment of it I guess or you could say reducing the amount of games your club plays can help propel them onto bigger and better things.
Obviously the Europa League is Europes secondary club competition and everyone in it would prefer to be in the champions league but the way UEFA have structured it and diminished it by allowing losing teams from the Champions League to enter at a later stage means it’s a competition that most teams don’t take seriously until they’re into the quarter finals which means they’ve played 10 games (minimum) before anyone really cares. They’re also still 5 games away from winning it which when you consider it’s only 6 games in total to win the oldest club competition, The FA Cup, for a premier league side that’s a lot.
Due to UEFA’s insistence on allowing teams as far down as 4th in their domestic league enter the “Champions” league the Europa League is left with quite a lot of second rate football clubs (I realise the irony in that statement). That’s no disrespect to those clubs or clubs that were big in the 70′s but no longer are. Lets be honest, there’s a reason we’ve played in that competition more than the premier one, but when you compare the teams we’ve played in both competitions it’s clear to see why it’s no longer a competition that gets the heart pumping.
In the Champions League so far this season we’ve played Werder Bremen, Inter Milan, AC Milan and soon Real Madrid. In the Europa League or UEFA Cup as it was once known we’ve played the following in recent years: Anorthosis Famagusta, Aalborg, Anderlecht, Wisla Krakow, Udinese and Dinamo Zagreb. Hardly inspiring matches that make you want to part with your cash, not that White Hart Lane wouldn’t be packed as always because that’s what we Spurs fans do but you get my point.
So my question to you is this, if we fail in our attempt to get back into the champions league by finishing in the top 4, or dare I say it lifting the trophy itself, would you prefer us to finish 6th and not be in Europe at all next season or is the Europa League something we should be happy to get into? Leave your vote below…
Submitted by THFC1882
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