AFC Champions League 2018

[Carns]

1 hour ago, Paul01 said:

Perfect results

Smurfs out

Al Hilal out

Melb Vic out

Roar fail to get into the group stage 

I'm happy with Smurfs and Al Hilal out for obvious reasons. But Australian teams performing poorly in the comp is not a good thing. It means we'll be at a higher risk of losing automatic qualification spots for future years.

[hawks2767]

I'm at the Victory ACL match, the crowd is about 50/50. Don't need these ****s who don't support the A League, they were near crying with happiness about 10 minutes ago when shanghai scored.

The Chinese football fan is a strange creature.

[Carns]

11 minutes ago, hawks2767 said:

I'm at the Victory ACL match, the crowd is about 50/50. Don't need these ****s who don't support the A League, they were near crying with happiness about 10 minutes ago when shanghai scored.

The Chinese football fan is a strange creature.

Are they a rent-a-crowd? Or paid for their own tickets?

[hawks2767]

Hard to say. Only about 10% have merch.

[Prydzopolis]

 

[Davo]

1. Extra foreigners will help the rich Chinese clubs who can afford superstars but get let down by their local players. Will increase the gap between the rich and the poor, although the games between the rich will be better.
2. Makes sense, like in Europe when they drop to the Europa League, although if A-League clubs already fail to take the ACL seriously they'll send the U12's to the AFC Cup.
3. Based on recent winners it would hurt the west Asian countries. Would mean too much travel unless 4 happens.
4. Not a fan. Sure some clubs have crap atmosphere at ACL games but there are plenty who use the home ground advantage. Also how much do we trust the AFC to make the venue truly "neutral"?

Seems like the Chinese clubs would gain the most out of these changes.

[Unlimited]

Why 5+1 for A-League? Is that so it is in line with our own league rules with five foreigners?

[Carns]

I like some ideas, and not others. Would prefer to still see games at home. Like the AFC Cup thing and the no East/West separation.

[sonar]

Get rid of the East/West separation.....tick

AFC Cup.......tick

No Home and Away games......A big no.

I would be disappointed if we make the ACL and could not see us play.

I know we got smashed in our last appearance but as a fan you have to be prepared take the pain as well as the pleasure when you go to watch your team. It would be a shame if the AFC went down the path of not giving fans a chance to see their club(s) compete at home.

[btron3000]

At first I thought no home and away was ridiculous, but if they are going to have all 3 games in a week and a half period, that could be ok.  You could travel there like a tournament. Could be cool.

Having neutral venues is definitely the only way joining east and west could work. Otherwise the travel will kill teams.

[billybob]

I agree that the no home and away is not a great idea. I do think it will help the a-league clubs with travel costs. But the down side is that the fans wont get to experience some of the bigger teams when they come to town. 

Also how neutral can the venue be? I mean it will also be closer to one of the participating nations, giving that team an advantage. Plus, in a neutral venue, what would the atmosphere be like?

[tardotz]

It would be better to have home and away in the group stage and a " tournament" in the knock out stages.

Smaller teams will still get the big teams to visit and having the tournament in one place means it it easier to visit for the final games.

[btron3000]

Not really. Knockouts mean that you don’t know how long your team will be there, making it hard for fans, clubs and the schedulers of national competitions. Having the group games as a tournament means everyone knows the teams will be away for about a week or so.

I’m not saying they should do it, I just don’t think it’s that bad an idea.

And fans have brought this on themselves. If more than 3-5k turned up at Campbelltown for ACL nights, then the AFC mightn’t be looking at this. I’m as “against modern football” as the next person, but at some point people have to show up to make a tournament worth it.

If your team qualifies for the knockouts (or you host some group games), then you still get to see some big teams.

In fact, I don’t think it’d be that horrendous to have one of the four teams from each group host all the games. Sure, they’d have an advantage, but so what? World Cups have advantage, knockouts that don’t have home and away legs (like most national cup competitions) have home advantage. Fly all teams in a group to one spot, then have the entire group done and dusted in 12 days.

[mack]

5k is good compared to some teams in Korea or the Middle East. The ME in particular, for some reason they often have games played in the middle of a weekday and get crowds below 100.

What countries would even be considered "neutral" for a west vs east game? India? Thailand? Western China? Malaysia maybe.

If the travel costs are so huge I'd just keep the group stages split east/west and then remove it for the KO stages. Making fixtures one off, I guess there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

[btron3000]

oh yeah I wasn't specifically pointing the finger at us, was just an example. Clearly the crowds are not good enough across the whole competition.

[StringerBellend]

I love the midweek ACL games leave them alone! 

Hopefully we get them again next year at parra 

breaks up the monotony of playing the same 9 teams over and over. Ace to see clubs FC Seoul etc

as for our low crowds Campbelltown is a nightmare to get to post work for a lot of people and as per the other thread getting bummed 5-0 etc doesn’t exactly people to come out on a wet Wednesday night 

Edited September 5, 2018 by StringerBellend

[Smoggy]

1 hour ago, StringerBellend said:

I love the midweek ACL games leave them alone! 

Hopefully we get them again next year at parra 

breaks up the monotony of playing the same 9 teams over and over. Ace to see clubs FC Seoul etc

as for our low crowds Campbelltown is a nightmare to get to post work for a lot of people and as per the other thread getting bummed 5-0 etc doesn’t exactly people to come out on a wet Wednesday night 

Midweek ACL games were awesome. Some of my fave ever WSW home games have been midweek ACL games. The one straight after the GF defeat up in Brissy will always stay in my mind and the mind of the 10k (has 10k ever made more noise that that!) that were there that night.. The game against Evergrande was amazing also, Awesome midweek memories that I hope to see again one day soon at the new stadium.

Edited September 6, 2018 by Smoggy

[Edinburgh]

So, let me get this straight.  The AFC is worried about the low attendances at ACL games and their solution is to move each group to one neutral venue each where there will be less fans of each of the participating clubs therefore resulting in lower crowds!?  I think they've been infiltrated by the FFA.

[btron3000]

1 hour ago, Edinburgh said:

So, let me get this straight.  The AFC is worried about the low attendances at ACL games and their solution is to move each group to one neutral venue each where there will be less fans of each of the participating clubs therefore resulting in lower crowds!?  I think they've been infiltrated by the FFA.

I would say it’s got more to do with travel costs.

They get money from tv, and having all teams at one venue for a few games in a row makes it easier and cheaper for tv companies and less travel costs.

But it couldn’t happen if there were 20k packing out home legs each time.

[Sithslayer1991]

WOW thats some radical stuff being presented, although I get it change has to be made to the comp to make it viable