>>149305211Whether the fans care or not, the teams and their dirigents absolutely do. It's too much money on the table to not try your best.
European teams clearly *are* playing their best. They're just failing. Turns out the disparity isn't as bad as market trends say it is, especially when the Brazillian teams aren't the ones bearing the burden of the End of Season debuff on top of the economic disparity.
Also - if the teams didn't care, then they should have. Palmeiras cared, and almost sacrificed it's Paulista campaign to rotate players to keep them fresh for this tournament. PSG could have done the same. Real could have done the same. If European teams failed to account for the most important tournament of their lives in the calendar - well that's just another facet of the sport. The technical, the mental.