Early Doors - Your morning briefing blog

How to save the UEFA Cup

Wed May 20 08:48AM

The last UEFA Cup final before its latest rebranding exercise should be an occasion to savour. Only it isn't.

Without the Rangers fans to drink a large metropolitan area dry and scrap amusingly with police, few Britons are even aware there is a 'major' European final tonight.

Of its many problems, the UEFA Cup's most serious is that its current format is so arduous it virtually guarantees that no team worth their salt is able to take it seriously.

Finalists Bremen have long been heading for a mid-table finish in the Bundesliga, enabling them to pick a full-strength side in every match.

Compare that to Aston Villa, whose manager Martin O'Neill decided he was simply unable to juggle the club's bid for a top-four Premier League finish with a European campaign that could have stretched to 19 games. And it turned out he was right.

UEFA, in their wisdom, have reacted to this fixture constipation by making the group stage even longer and cementing the competition's status as the Champions League's dowdy, unglamorous sibling.

The newly minted UEFA Europa League is so rubbish it is not even Dannii Minogue to the Champions League's Kylie.

Or Nicky Hilton to the Champions League's Paris. Or even Paul Ross to the Champions League's Jonathan.

Basically, if Brad Pitt had a younger brother with a face like the rear end of a rhinonerous who lived in a bin around the back of the Brangelina mansion, that would roughly sum up the relationship between the two competitions.

Bremen and Shakhtar Donetsk are not very glamorous at the best of times, but any exotic mystique has been well and truly exploded by both teams' frequent appearance in, and elimination from, the Champions League group stage.

Both finalists have already proven not up to scratch in Europe this season, having dropped out of the Champions League after coming third out of four teams.

We have already established that Bremen are worse than Internazionale and Panathinaikos, and that Shakhtar cannot hold a candle to Barcelona and Sporting Lisbon.

The parachute system is a blatant admission that there are too many decent sides in the Champions League and not enough in the UEFA Cup.

Sides patently unsuited to competing with the top dogs are ushered out at Christmas and told: 'Thanks for coming, here's a goody bag, now off you go to a competition where you actually belong.'

Michel Platini's plan to reduce the number of Champions League places for the biggest countries is a good one.

Only England can regularly provide four genuine contenders, and even in the Premier League's case it wouldn't exactly hurt to see one of the Big Four suffer the angst of missing out on the occasional massive payday.

The tournament proper should start with 128 teams (roughly the number who are still in contention at the present second qualifying round) and take the form of a straight two-leg knockout.

The winners would still have to play plenty of football, negotiating seven rounds and 13 matches.

Nevertheless, the main consequence of this would be a lot less games, which is why it would probably never fly in real life.

But the bean counters might consider that, under ED's system, every match counts. How does it help revenues to have deserted stadia and uninterested broadcasters?

British audiences cannot get enough football. Premier League rights are worth hundreds of millions of pounds, while ITV happily shunt their prime time schedule out of the way to accommodate a dead group stage game between Manchester United and Aalborg.

Yet at the same time, UEFA Cup matches involving decent sides like Aston Villa and Manchester City are shunted onto obscure digital channels - if they are lucky.

The public indifference to the UEFA Cup is profound, and here is ED's six-point plan to put things right.

1 - Reinstate a 128-team, two-leg knockout tournament played over seven rounds. No group stage.

2 - No away goals rule.

3 - No places for losers from Champions League group stage.

4 - Champions League allocation trimmed by one for major leagues, ensuring better teams in the UEFA Cup.

5 - UEFA Cup winners awarded with Champions League place.

6 - 'Europa League' name abolished and erased, Men In Black-style, from everybody's memory.

- - -

The calls for Arsene Wenger's head from some Arsenal fans after four trophyless seasons are as boneheaded as they are barking. As ignorant as they are impetuous, and as mad as they are moronic.

Wenger has obviously made mistakes. His lack of love for players over 30 is baffling, as is his seeming inability to sort out his defence. And the less said about Franny Jeffers the better.

But you could also quiz Alex Ferguson on why he once considered Roy Carroll a worthy successor to Peter Schmeichel, and spent £28 million on Juan Sebastian Veron. The point is, all managers make mistakes.

Third and fourth place finishes in the Premier League and 'only' reaching the Champions League semi-finals might not represent the glut of silverware Gooners desire.

But imagine what would happen with a manager with less ability to unearth gems for minimal cost, less authority to stand up to the board, and without a reputation that makes Arsenal the preferred destination for youngsters around the world.

Do you honestly think they would stay in the Big Four for long? Could they really stay ahead of a youthfully exuberant Aston Villa, a superbly disciplined Everton and a filthy, filthy, FILTHY rich Manchester City?

Wenger has not yet discovered the new Patrick Vieira, but has anyone? ED would suggest there is not a player in his early 20s anywhere in the world with the Frenchman's combination of physical strength, technique and intelligence.

And if Vieira mark II ever does appear, ED would back Wenger above every other manager in the game to bring him to his club. It is not Arsenal who attract outstanding youngsters, it is Wenger.

If Arsenal fans really want to see how they would get on without him, there are plenty of clubs willing to take him off their hands.

- - -

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Dimitar Berbatov: "I am still nervous but, when you play for the biggest club in the world, you are sometimes shaking before you go on the pitch. Sometimes I show it with my hands or by screaming on the pitch." Dimitar Berbatov Screaming on the pitch? When?

FOREIGN VIEW: Marca are up to their usual tricks. A Portuguese bank has used Cristiano Ronaldo to front its publicity campaign in Spain, so he must be about to sign for Real. And David Villa was spotted in Madrid yesterday, so he must be about to sign for Real.

COMING UP: See above for ED's world-weary take on proceedings, but it is a European final so you'd do well to follow it. Bremen v Shakhtar Donetsk from 19:45 UK time.

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