So – the question after the best final for ages is: should Liverpool be allowed to defend their title. I have seen acres of guff about this, but the answer, surely, is “NO”.<br />
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First off, Everton can’t be sacrificed. That would be a massive injustice.<br />
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Assuming there are a limited number of teams that can be in the Champions League, a place for Liverpool means sacrificing a team from somewhere else, a “lesser” country. Not so bad, perhaps, from an English perspective, but is it really fair? A qualifying round for Liverpool would be a compomise, but it surely forces a team that didn’t initially require a qualifying match to play one, which again seems unfair.<br />
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Essentially, any plan to include Liverpool upsets another team somewhere else. But really, why do we stick to this notion that the holders of a trophy have an inalienable right to defend their prize? If they can’t make it up to the mark to qualify, bad luck. <br />
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Over time, our notion of defending the title has changed anyway. In the past, Wimbledon champions got a bye to the final in what was know as the “challenge round”. Not such a good idea. And things have changed in football too. World Cup winners Brazil will have to qualify for Germany 2006.<br />
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And was the competition so enhanced by having Porto in it this year? Hardly. What extra interest do the champions bring? Very little in football terms. <br />
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Liverpool should stop complaining. They won the title – most fans, players and managers would swap that for a year out of the tournament. If they are such a good team, they will get back in for 2007.
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