Can stale Champions League group stage be revived?
PARIS: The Champions League group stage, which reaches its conclusion this week, has once again largely served to emphasise the gulf between Europe’s haves and have-nots.
As a reminder, here are just a few of the scores from the competition this season: Maribor 0 Liverpool 7; Paris Saint- Germain 7 Celtic 1; Chelsea 6 Qarabag 0; APOEL 0 Real Madrid 6.
Going into this final matchday, 11 games have been won by a margin of four goals or more. A further 15 matches have seen three- goal victories, meaning almost exactly a third of the group games to date have been decisively one- sided.
The Football Observatory at the International Centre for Sports Studies in Switzerland recently found that the group stage was the most unbalanced competition in Europe behind the top divisions of Cyprus and Austria.
What is happening is nothing new, though, and Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho summed it up in September when he called the group stage a “warm-up”.
“I think for... Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern, the Champions League starts in February,” he said.
We already know that nine of the teams who will feature in the last 16 come from Europe’s leading five leagues — Spain, England, Germany, Italy and France — and Mourinho’s aforementioned trio wi l l be among them.
Indeed, it may turn out that only two qualifiers come from outwith that elite, with Turkish champions Besiktas already through in Group G and only one of Basel or CSKA Moscow likely to advance in Group A.
The only outsiders to make it past the group stage last season were Portuguese giants Benfica and FC Porto. Going further forward, the last time a club from outwith the ‘Big Five’ reached the semi-finals was PSV Eindhoven in 2005.
PSV won the European Cup in 1988, while Celtic lifted the trophy in 1967.
The current Celtic have not lost in 67 domestic matches, a British record, with Brendan Rodgers undefeated on home soil since becoming manager 18 months ago.
But Rodgers has also overseen the club’s heaviest European defeat, 7- 0 in Barcelona last season, and heaviest home loss, a 5- 0 reverse to PSG that preceded the 7-1 hammering at the Parc des Princes.
“We’re having to make up a huge gap in terms of quality, but we’re going to try to progress each year,” Rodgers said after the match in Paris.
“It ’ s always going to be a challenge for us, you cannot get away from it.”
The only solution to throw the tournament open again would probably be to reintroduce a straight knockout system, with no seedings, like it was before the Champions League era began. — AFP
I think for...Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern, the Champions League starts in February. Jose Mourinho, Manchester United manager