Marcelo Bielsa has stood shoulder to shoulder with Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp in criticising the Champions League’s bloated new format. The new format will see 36 clubs qualifying for an expanded first phase, where all clubs will play against 10 opponents of varying strengths. The Argentine feels UEFA’s flagship club competition should have fewer teams with fewer matches and an altogether higher standard for those who do make it.
Marcelo Bielsa said: “In this time we talk so much about the European competitions. From my point of view, there is an error being committed. It’s not about more games or that more teams are reaching these European competitions. There should be less games and less teams that arrive to these competitions, but the teams that do arrive are deserving due to the quality of their play. Sometimes more teams, the only thing that does is to debilitate the competition because they arrive into places of privilege with teams who have not demonstrated the hierarchy to be there. For me, the fight has to be to create teams of more hierarchy.”
Last month,
Pep Guardiola said: “We demand, the managers, to reduce the calendar, protect the players and they do the opposite. I’m not the guy to tell them. Premier League, UEFA, FIFA, we give our opinion and we cannot do anything. If they decide more games then there are more games, the show must go on. My business is this club, trying to make players better and win titles. Then in the World Cup if they want 56 teams then we’ll have it.”
Jurgen Klopp said: “They showed it to me, they called me and I had an hour with UEFA to show the whole idea and I said, ‘I don’t like it’, because there are 10 games instead of six and I have no idea where we shall put them and we will see what happens then. Maybe UEFA will ask the cup competition in England gets cancelled or whatever or we have only 18 teams in the league or stuff like this. You tell that to the Premier League and they will say no wa, tell that to the EFL and they will say no way. The only people who never get asked are the coaches, the players, and the supporters. I know the supporters think, ‘They can play more games, they get paid a lot of money’, but we are already on the edge. Believe me, all the coaches think the same, the coaches of the teams who play international football. So, if they all think the same, there must be something in it that it could be a little too much. Again, UEFA didn’t ask us, the Super League didn’t ask us, nobody asked us, it’s always just play more games. We said before, that’s not possible; in this structure at the moment, it’s not possible. You cannot have 20 teams in the league, two cup competitions, playing 10 international games before Christmas. These things are all impossible.”
