Villas-Boas will pit his precocious coaching skills against the cream of Europe for the first time on Tuesday night when the Blues kick-off their Group E campaign against Bayer Leverkusen. It is unthinkable that Chelsea will fail to make the knockout stages in a group that also contains Valencia and Genk. But should they somehow manage to finish only third, Villas-Boas claims they should be eliminated from Europe altogether and not be parachuted into the Europa League as they would currently be. The 33-year-old was in Nyon last week to attend UEFA's Elite Club Coaches Forum, where he had hoped to propose a change to the transfer window that would see it close before the start of the season. Instead, he returned to London with support for an idea that would see the teams beaten in the last 16 of the Champions League handed Europa League knockout stage places. "The teams dropping from Champions League to the Europa League shouldn't be the teams that qualify third in the group," said Villas-Boas, who won Europe's second club competition with Porto last season. "It should be the teams that go on to the last 16 of the Champions League. "Because it looks like you are promoting the unsuccessful teams in the group phase. "Most of them, they want to qualify as one of the two top teams. "A lot of people agreed." There was no consensus among the coaches who attended the forum, with Shakhtar Donetsk's Mircea Lucescu concerned about the impact any change might have on eastern European teams, who often benefit from the current arrangement. Villas-Boas was also thwarted in his attempt to raise formally the issue of the transfer window, although his view garnered informal backing. "Most of them agreed but it wasn't a raisable question in that sense," he said. "It's FIFA-related. UEFA has to take it on to FIFA. "It's a pity because I think it's one thing that should be implemented." The forum was Villas-Boas' first, and was a good chance for him to mingle with other top coaches, such as Pep Guardiola and Sir Alex Ferguson. But the Portuguese was at pains to point out his invitation to attend did not make him part of an elite. He said: "We are not elite coaches. We are elite clubs' coaches, which is something very, very different, and we don't consider ourselves the elite of football. "We just are the coaches of the elite clubs and we are happy to be there as representatives. "It was good because it raised a lot of different questions." The big question Villas-Boas faces this week is how will he take to Champions League management. Chelsea should top their group on paper but he said: "It's an extremely difficult group in my opinion. "We all saw what Valencia did last season and they are very, very regularly in the Champions League. "The Belgian champions (Genk) have lost a couple of talents that they had with (Thibaut) Courtois, who joined us and went on loan to Atletico (Madrid), but have some good talent available." He added of Tuesday's opponents, who reached the Champions League final in 2002 and have former Chelsea star Michael Ballack back in their ranks: "Leverkusen have this strong emotional impact of being present in the Champions League final and always wanting to perform well. "They lost (Arturo) Vidal, of course, to Juventus but have again good quality players."
