The UEFA Europa Conference League and the UEFA Nations League are quite similar. They’re both competitions that those who seem to love them, find them refreshing, and a welcome sense of difference from the continuous tedium of the other tournaments that are in place. But another striking similarity they have is the fact that they were basically established to keep the ‘little guys’ sated, while the top clubs cart away all the top prizes and revenues.
It’s great to see Estonia and Faroe Islands play each other in the Nations League, and it’s better to see San Marino and Gibraltar lock horns for supremacy in a group other than travel to face a monotonous heavy defeat against a top-ranked side. But the Nations League still gives the smaller nations a ceiling: enjoy your great wins in Group D and your promotions, and maybe a place in the European Championship, but you’ll never win the tournament in itself. There’s a farcical sense of equity that’s presented here, and it’s a similar case with the Europa Conference League.
A third club competition was fashioned to keep the small clubs content, and little more. It has brought forth arguments like ‘it’s great to see Obscure Club X finally participate in European football’, but that also reinforces the notion that the clubs with greater wealth have a divine right to the greater prizes. It’s very much throwing the littluns a bone, and telling them to know their place.
But still, amidst the finger-pointing about the state of continental football in Europe, and apt inequality alarmism over what it’s become, the Europa Conference is still a welcome tonic in football. No matter what reason for which it was established, or what flaw it’s trying to mask, it really is great to see Obscure Club X finally participate in European football.
That’s because the aforementioned tedium over the other competitions is obvious. There’s only so many times you can watch Shakhtar Donetsk lose to Manchester City in the Champions League, or see Inter make a mess of their group phase games. Europe’s top club competition is getting more and more stale, and it looks to be on its romantic deathbed. So, enter a worthy spin-off.
There’s a sense of the unknown in football that funnels the romance. It’s one thing to watch Liverpool and Manchester City, and understand their game plan, with rotating front men and advanced and inverted full-backs. But it’s another to watch Iraq and South Korea meet each other in an Under-20 World Cup quarter-final, in which you don’t quite know what to expect, or who Farhan Shakur was, and it’s much more enjoyable.
On a personal front, a lot of the Europa Conference League clubs are quite unknown. You can keep the Inter v Real Madrid at the San Siro, and give me Anorthosis Famagusta and FK Partizan Belgrade duking it out at the GSP. Or Union Berlin taking their wonderful fans to Prague, or Omonoia going to Kazakhstan and playing guest to Kairat. Throw in Estonian side Flora, and or Finnish club HJK, and watch it become a party. Where the camera and pre-match and post-match talk doesn’t fixate on one manager or player, or even one team. Where football feels soulful again.
The Europa Conference League also offers a greater chance at success. It was great watching Sheriff Tiraspol beat Shakhtar in their first ever Champions League group game, but it usually goes downhill from there. Soon, their Champions League campaign might be over after Matchday Four. But contrast to Austrian side LASK, who have to battle HJK, Alashkert, and Maccabi Tel Aviv. The joy of winning is great, but in this case, it’s unlikely to be followed by constant ennui and competitive nihilism.
Of course, there are still a couple of known names in the tournament; not least Tottenham, who have spent the past three months acting like the competition’s equivalent of Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game, despite not being half as smart. Or Roma, whose manager might not have rated the competition when it was first being talked of, but will definitely rave about it if he wins it. Not to mention the continuing and absurd trickle-down economics which will send Europa League teams here and rob the sides in this competition a straight shot at the Last 16.
But the Europa Conference is still the best of a flawed bunch. A combination of the novelty of it, and the clubs in the competition, makes it one to watch. Scheduling won’t help Europe’s third club competition, but when has romance ever wanted to have it easy?
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