No Football cup competition splits opinion amongst fans more than the Europa league. It can seem that some clubs view the competition as a bit of a hindrance even though they battle through a long domestic season to reach this reward. Over the last few years we have seem many English clubs use this competition to play their reserves or to blood young players - and I think this is great, however by under estimating this competition, clubs are throwing away the chance to win one of only two Europe wide club competitions.
Aston Villa, Liverpool, and Tottenham have all featured in the Europa league over the past few season - all without much success due to not taking the competition so serious - for me this was strange move as these three clubs should be taking every opportunity they have to collect a trophy. Last season also saw the two Manchester clubs drop into the Europa league after failing to quality for the later stages of the Champions league - only to then fail to make the later stages of the competition even though they undoubtedly have the squad to mount a serious challenge. Obviously Sir Alex and Roberto see no merit in winning this competition.
The English mentality towards this competition is holding back many clubs - however this is not the case on the continent where winning the Europa league is high on the list of priorities. This can be seen in the recent quotes from Spurs boss Andres Villa Boas, "The profile of the competition is raised in other countries, but not England. I don't understand it."
"I respect the competition. I certainly think it is viewed as a punishment in England and I cannot understand why. It is a traditional trophy."
For me NUFC spent all last season battling hard to make a European competition for the first time in 8 seasons. In a ideal situation it would have been the Champions league, however a good run in the Europa league can be viewed as a stepping stone to bigger things. The truth is the Europa league is far and away our best chance of winning a piece of Silver wear this season.
Along with respecting a competition that we have a serious chance of winning I also see the huge benefit of having the extra European games to blood the young members of our squad. Already this season we have seen how much Rob Elliott and Shane Feguson, to name just two, have benefited from the extra games. Now that we have been dumped out of the Capital One cup we have the Europa league to allow our squad to gain massive experience that can only be a positive for the future of NUFC.
No comments:
Post a Comment