which one is more challenging to achieve , Champions league tittle 1956 Vs CL title 2012

turkey made it to the semis in 2002, senegal to the quarters in 2002, ukraine to the quarters in 2006

and?

i'd also like to point out that the world cup was played by 16 teams back then, not 32, so throwing out random finishes by crappy countries to prove how amazing football was isn't exactly what you could call an argument

che wrote:turkey made it to the semis in 2002, senegal to the quarters in 2002, ukraine to the quarters in 2006

and?

Their best players played for clubs in top leagues outside of their countries

In the past, players went to the top clubs in their home countries because they had to. How NTs played was directly correlated to the quality of the top domestic clubs in the old days. You had a rule where you weren't allowed more than 3 foreign players on your entire squad up until the late 80s in Europe.

Well, now that Sportsczy has mentioned it, i think it is harder to win now, because the best players are concentrated in the top 4-5 teams.

Whereas in the past it was scattered all around which makes the competition easier to win if your team has more number of better players. It shows in the results too as teams were able to successfully defend their title.

The playing field was probably more level in 1956, but that doesn't mean it was more difficult...Definitely more difficult now, when the biggest teams have the money to buy almost whoever they want and and talent is increasingly concentrated at the top...

it works the other way actually. You cannot go out there and buy the best team. All the teams were competitive for the most part from round 1. Spain has only been a top NT for the past 6 years... before that, Spain was a middle of the road NT.

Italy, England, Russia, France, Germany, etc all produced much better players than Spain.

So the competition was much more even back in the old days and you could lose in any round. Nowadays, you have it fairly easy as an elite team until the quarterfinals.

sportsczy wrote:do you know how good the USSR teams were in the 50s, 60s and up to the 70s.

do you realize Austria made it to the 1954 WC semis? Switzerland made it to the quarters of that same WC.

Sweden was a finalist at the 1958 WC.

And most of these players stayed with the top clubs in their home countries. And there wasn't 10 top clubs. There was 1-2 great clubs in each country.

So please, you stop.

Also he conveniently forgets that Hungarian clubs were some of the strongest in Europe in the 50s.

sportsczy wrote:it works the other way actually. You cannot go out there and buy the best team. All the teams were competitive for the most part from round 1. Spain has only been a top NT for the past 6 years... before that, Spain was a middle of the road NT.

Italy, England, Russia, France, Germany, etc all produced much better players than Spain.

So the competition was much more even back in the old days and you could lose in any round. Nowadays, you have it fairly easy as an elite team until the quarterfinals.

While that is true, it is still harder to win.

sportsczy wrote:

How NTs played was directly correlated to the quality of the top domestic clubs in the old days.

1958 world cup top 4 european teams - france, germany, sweden, wales
1958 european cup semis - champions of spain, hungary, england, italy

1962 world cup - czechoslovakia, yugoslavia, ussr, germany
1962 european cup - portugal, england, spain, belgium

1966 world cup - germany, ussr, england, portugal
1966 european cup - spain, italy, england, yugoslavia

wow, the direct correlation is killing me...

che wrote:

sportsczy wrote:

How NTs played was directly correlated to the quality of the top domestic clubs in the old days.

1958 world cup top 4 european teams - france, germany, sweden, wales
1958 european cup semis - champions of spain, hungary, england, italy

1962 world cup - czechoslovakia, yugoslavia, ussr, germany
1962 european cup - portugal, england, spain, belgium

1966 world cup - germany, ussr, england, portugal
1966 european cup - spain, italy, england, yugoslavia

wow, the direct correlation is killing me...

I said that the playing field was even and spread across many more countries, not just the top 4-5. Talent stayed local. There weren't any super teams that had huge talent advantages. Any club could win the European cup and a lot of nations could win the WC.

Your facts actually strengthens my point on it being a much more even playing field back then than today. Semifinal participants in each competition were from all over the place.

Anyhow, i'm going to stop commenting on this thread because most of you don't know a thing about footy prior to 1995 (being generous too).

yes, level playing field of crap, and when a team like madrid, ajax, germany or brazil came along with a solid group of players they were sweeping everyone else for several tournaments in a row

very nice job ditching the "direct correlation between good teams and good national teams" argument though

After seeing some of the posts in this thread one of these three must be true:

a) You didn't read my post.
b) I wasn't clear enough in explaining my point.
c) You are just dumb.

In the past the English, Spanish and Italian leagues weren't above the others like they are now, they were better, but not by much, not nearly as much as now. The best players in the world didnt gather in those leagues. Rather, the best players of each league gathered in the 1 or 2 teams best teams of their league. That's why almost every european country had a very strong team at some point in time. Spain had Madrid, Portugal had Benfica, Scotland had Celtic, England had Man Utd and Nottingham (followed by Liverpool), the Netherlands had Ajax, Germany had Bayern, Italy had Milan and Inter (followed by Juventus), Romania had Steua, Serbia had Red Star Belgrade, etc etc. These are all teams that reached CL finals and at their prime were the best in europe. And there are many other great teams that never reached the finals.

You can find many examples in the past of these so called weak teams from smaller countries beating the so called stronger teams from the bigger leagues, why? Because they weren't actually better.

Many of these teams still play in the CL nowadays. Now tell me, why the heck don't they ever reach the finals like they used to? Because they are not as good as they used to be! Because nowadays all the talent agregates in the big three (or big five). In the past it wasnt like that.

sportsczy wrote:Anyhow, i'm going to stop commenting on this thread because most of you don't know a thing about footy prior to 1995 (being generous too).

Agreed. Absolutely nothing. It is unfortunate.

stunt wrote:

Many of these teams still play in the CL nowadays. Now tell me, why the heck don't they ever reach the finals like they used to? Because they are not as good as they used to be! Because nowadays all the talent agregates in the big three (or big five). In the past it wasnt like that.

that's irrelevant whether their talent left or not, the only thing they needed to get to the latest stages of the european cup was being better than everyone else IN THEIR COUNTRY and then fluking their way past one or two opponents, which happens these days too

I can't understand how a level playing field makes it tougher to win a competition? It is retarded logic at best.

Not sure about the harder considering the variables that this discussion contains but it certainly was harder to qualify for. In a distant past, you needed to be either the champions or runners up to qualify.

teams like strum graz may sound easy now since they are crap currently, but 50 years ago, who knows how good they could have been lol ..

kiranr wrote:
I can't understand how a level playing field makes it tougher to win a competition? It is retarded logic at best.

Yeah a level playing field is an argument for the competition being easier to win, not harder...

no one on this forum was around to watch cl back then so all knowledge gathered is off of secondary resources.

vanDEEZ wrote:no one on this forum was around to watch cl back then so all knowledge gathered is off of secondary resources.

Yeah but i actually was a teenager when the European cup was in the old format... i.e. only league winners and some of the runner-ups qualified and no pool play. i also grew up in the era where clubs in Europe were only allowed 3 international players total. When Liverpool played Juventus, it really was England v. Italy as most players on each club were nationals.

I remember the ties where western european clubs travelled to eastern europe and how brutal it was.

Really great competition. Nothing was granted.