On Sundays, no-one has time to watch the Premier League. Work, sports matches, and hangovers all seem to get in the way. Chelsea vs. Manchester United trickles by largely unnoticed, with the exception of the occasional exclamatory cry after refreshing the BBC Sport web page every 15 or so minutes. Yet when Tuesday evening comes around in mid-February, the ritual remains unbroken. Domino’s (other pizza delivery services are available) is ordered, the laptop is propped up, and everyone gathers around to bask in the blaring Champions League anthem.

The Champions League remains a special occasion, even during the sadomasochism of exam term. Nothing can quite live up to the excitement it provides and the disappointment that inevitably comes with it. Why can’t we have the Champions League every week?

Well, the suggestion has been bandied around over the last few years, and has risen to the forefront again.

The extension of the Champions League into weekly football would most likely lead to the creation of a football Super League, in which the best 20 or so clubs in Europe play each other week in, week out, to determine a winner over a season filled with epic heavyweight matches and the superest of super sundays. Barcelona vs. Bayern Munich followed by Juventus vs. Chelsea and PSG vs. Real Madrid, anyone?

In principle, it sounds glorious. What more could you want than the world’s best players and the world’s best teams slugging it out every week? The implementation of such a plan would mark the fulfilment of the transition from the ancient European Cup system to a modern commercial league. Once only the European league and cup winners slugged it out in a straight knock out competition. The competition then expanded in the early 1990s to form the Champions League; procedural changes to qualifications meant nations like Spain could field five teams, as they did this year; teams like Chelsea could lose a series of inconsequential matches and still lift the title.

There is a reason why the Champions League remains so exciting, and that is because it is so special. Matches between the titans of European football have an olympian feel to them not only because these are great players and teams, but because it’s so unusual for them to play against each other.

Moreover, matches between Bayern Munich and Barcelona will still actually mean something; rather than being solely a cold, wet windy Monday night clash to decide on who finishes third (which, of course, would no longer have the bonus of Champions League qualification), it becomes a match in which an entire season of drudgery, hard work, and mid-week matches against Darmstadt reaches its zenith.

José Mourinho has asserted multiple times that the Champions League is the greatest competition in football, trumping even the World Cup. Perhaps it’s because he has never won the World Cup.

But maybe it’s because the competition encapsulates the excitement and tension of football like no day-to-day league can. Like Christmas, Barcelona vs. Bayern Munich only comes once a year.

That is why it’s so special.