FC Basel vs Manchester City: 5 Talking Points

#2 Should the team from Switzerland have made it this far?

It turned out to be a long night in the end for the home team.

Despite Basel giving a decent account of themselves, the gulf in class between the two sides was as broad as daylight. City never really needed to get out of second-gear and were handed the initiative by the home team.

All of which begs the question, "Is the process of deciding the last sixteen the most efficient?"

As we have seen over numerous Champions' League campaigns, there are sides from the lesser known leagues across Europe, that often take up a berth that could've been filled by a much stronger team. It only takes away from the experience and quality of the competition. Just because the League is for all of Europe, doesn't necessarily mean that every country with a League has to be given a certain amount of weightage.

We aren't saying that we want to only watch teams from England, Spain and Germany, or having Neymar. We're saying we want to see the best come up against each other. If the teams from the lesser leagues match up, we'd love to watch them too. But we've seen it way too often to still be optimistic about the prospects of an FC Basel or a Panathinaikos or even an Olympiacos for that matter, in Europe's elite competition.

We'd much rather watch Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig, Atletico Madrid, Villareal, AC Milan, Napoli, Lazio, Lyon and Marseille, all of whom will be scraping it out in the wretched Europa league.