Remember when everyone was up in arms about the European Super League? This season it came into being.
The new Champions League format fended off agitations for a breakaway, but it’s diminished UEFA’s flagship competition, until the knockout stage at least. In the six sets of matches before Christmas, I often found myself thinking, ‘Who’s playing who this week? Not sure. And what does it mean if Team X wins this game? Er, not sure’.
I’m not against new formats. When UEFA launched the Nations League and tied it to qualifying for the Euros and World Cup, it was the most confusing thing ever invented – even a manager of one of the national teams involved told me he didn’t really understand what was going on.
