A Quick Shout-Out

I am working on a game preview as we sort-of-speak, but for now, I want to lay praise at the feet of The Offside’s new UEFA Cup blog. I’m not unbiased, since I moonlight as a Tottenham fan and therefore have just a slight interest in the tournament. But as Ian, the blog’s author, writes:

Though the Champions League is clearly the more prestigious and lucrative of the two, I love, and in fact prefer, the UEFA Cup. I think it’s one of the great football tournaments in the world, and a much more wide-open tournament than the CL. The “little guy”, whether it’s a team from a small league, or one of the mid-range teams in a big league, can succeed here. Last year’s runner-up, Espanyol, came in as the 15th-ranked team in Spain’s La Liga, having qualified, as many UEFA Cup competitors do, by winning a domestic cup. It really is a tournament where almost any team can win on any given matchday, and that makes it, in my opinion, one of the great ones to watch.

I don’t agree with his preference (since UEFA Cup may as well be played on Jupiter for those us with basic cable and bad internet), but he’s spot on on all other counts. If Champions League is something like the NBA Playoffs, interesting if over-processed and largely predictable, UEFA Cup is March Madness, retaining much of the charm and randomness that its big brother sold to corporate sponsors long ago. And in case you didn’t see at least the highlights from this year’s final, it doesn’t yield much in the way of football quality, either.

Ian appears to be a prolific writer, and he’s chosen a fantastic topic. Everyone go check him out.

Category: Completely Off Topic

Tags: Completely Off Topic, football, General Soccer, soccer, uefa cup

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