UEFA Cups (or decline of Italian football) (5 Viewers)

[Doctor]

Currently Italy is third below spain and england (the first 3 disposes 4 UCL places)and above france and germany (each disposes 3 UCL places) , Italy was first in the ranking not so long ago but now have to defend her third place (and the 4 UCL places which comes with) from france and germany.
italians teams should start winning uefa cup matches or risk losing the third place to germany or france and lose one UCL place to them.

That was part of my point.
What if some time in the future we finish 4 th and end up playing the UEFA Cup insted of Champions league because Italy lost that 4 th Champions league place?

 

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[sateeh]

But there was a reason why Parma wasfielding its B team in europe.They were battling with relegation,and i expect any club that was has been in top flight football for a decent amount of time to pay more attention to the league than a european competition,PROVIDED that they are battling with relegation.You wont see the Parma scenario too often.They wouldnt have fielded their B team in the UEFA cup had their Serie A status not been in jeaopardy.Their case was an exception.

I cannot fathom why a club would not want to take a European Competition seriously,even if its the UEFA cup.Sure,the cup's quality may have declined because the teams are that strong,but i wont buy that they dont play as well as they should on purpose.

snoop put it best, simply put though its not worth it .

It is indeed a disaster, and only UEFA is responsible for that. that's because they don't invest much money on it, and when that is the case, clubs won't bother themselves to win it, unless if they have a huge squad that can play both domestically and in UEFA, or if they don't care (aren't worries about finishing at the bottom or the middle of the table) about their league's position..

Just look at this sad fact, with all Sevilla's effort, they only managed to win 4.2 Million pound and the other finalist made 3.5 million pound. Now you tell me, would If you were Fiorentina or Palermo manager, would you focus on the league to make a huge effort and win a CL seeding to have a piece of that big cake of CL (Huge Finance), or you would go for UEFA while they have many competitives out there at their level and they could risk ending out without title, and what for? for a 4 Million pound. Which crazy would do that and risk their League position?

 

[JuveAdam]

Something quite similar to this next year would see the UEFA Cup returned to its former glory.........

..............or this

 

[rainhard]

I think they'll prefer that one in your avatar

 

[JuveAdam]

I think they'll prefer that one in your avatar

Maybe so, but wouldn't complain at winning either next year. Cant see us winning the CL so quickly, not with our poor record. And if we can help the UEFA Cup out of the sad state its currently in the so much the better. A dominant Bayern look set to start that off this season, hope we can do the same in 08/09

 

[Chxta]

:bump:

Now that Meelan are in the UEFA Cup, what can we say about its value?