Red Star Belgrade or PSV Eindhoven or Celtic are now treated as plucky underdogs at best or cannon fodder at worst, and yet these are giant, historic clubs, ones that once produced teams that thrilled the world. Now they are seen as an encumbrance by fans who find the group stages boring, blaming the victims for the greed of Europe’s self-appointed super-elite.

But deep down, those who yearn for a return to life before the European Cup became the Champions League in 1992 are, of course, wrong. There is a reason the Champions League is a global cultural phenomenon, and has displaced the World Cup as soccer’s gold standard, and it is basically that people want to watch it.

That is not to say that all nostalgia is misplaced. This week, UEFA announced the name of its new club competition, to be introduced in 2021. It will be called the — deep breath — UEFA Europa Conference League. Quite how a Conference League differs from a conference or a league, I’m not sure, but doubtless there is a fascinating work sheet in the works to clear it up.

It’s a shame the name is dreadful, because the idea itself is not entirely absurd. It will be a sort of Europa League II, I suppose, contested exclusively by club teams from Europe’s lower-ranked nations. UEFA has, essentially, noticed that its new Nations League worked because games between equally-matched smaller teams are better than seeing Germany beat San Marino by 13-0, and is rolling that model out to club soccer.

What is frustrating about it, though, is that UEFA is now having to solve a problem of its own creation. It used to have three club competitions: the European Cup — why’s it even called the Champions League? — for champions, the UEFA Cup for sundry others, and the Cup Winners’ Cup, for, well, domestic cup winners.