Not-quite-champions league
Liverpool latest finalists to not have qualified as winners of national league
And so there were two. We now know who is going to win the Champions League this season. It will either be a sixth crown for Liverpool or a third title in a row and a 13th in total for Real Madrid after they overcame Roma and Bayern Munich in their respective semifinals.
It’s now 25 years since the European Cup became the Champions League and it is 20 years since the Champions League changed the rules to allow teams that were not the champions of their national leagues into the tournament.
Real Madrid are going through to their third final on the bounce but this is the first one where they finished the previous season as Spanish champions – although they would have earned a spot in the Champions League as holders.
But the holders are not going to retain it and become the first side since Bayern Munich in the mid-1970s to win it three times in a row if Liverpool have their way. Liverpool, of course, did not qualify as champions and the once dominant domestic force have not won the English title since
1990.
Back door
It’s actually quite common now for teams who did not win the league to qualify for the Champions League to end up lifting the trophy at the end of the season. Back-to-back winners Real are the most recent example but Barcelona were not the champions when they won the Champions League in 2015, although they did win the league that same season, which is also quite common. And again Real Madrid were not the champions when they won in 2014. Of the teams Real have beaten in their last three finals, only Juventus last season had qualified as champions – Atletico Madrid had not qualified as champions ahead of reaching the final in either 2014 and 2016. It was the same with Bayern Munich in 2013, the Germans having not qualified as Bundesliga champions. The team they beat in the final, Borussia Dortmund, had won the league the season before. Chelsea, in the year before, had also not qualified as champions of England and the losing side Bayern were not the German champions. Barcelona had qualified as champions when they beat Manchester United at Wembley in 2011. United had not won the Premier League the season before. Qualifying
Inter were the champions when they won the Champions League in 2010 – although the team they faced, Bayern Munich, were not.
The 2009 final was the same as 2011 though this time United were the champions but Barcelona were not. The Catalans won in Rome.
In 2008 when United played Chelsea, only one of them could have finished as champions the season before and it was United. They won in Moscow.
Neither Milan nor Liverpool were champions when the Milanese won in 2007 but when the teams met in Istanbul in 2005, Milan were the reigning Italian champions. Liverpool won that evening after coming back to take the game to penalties. It ended a season that had started with them playing Austrian side Grazer AK in the third qualifying round.
Barcelona and Arsenal met in between. The Catalans were champions and the North Londoners were not but it was Barcelona who triumphed in Paris.
Jose Mourinho’s Porto side were champions of Portugal and Monaco were the champions of France when they met in 2004. Porto won. Disappointment
Milan and Juventus contested a rather forgettable final at Old Trafford in 2003. Milan were not the champions – Juventus were. It was Milan who edged the final.
Real Madrid beat Bayer Leverkusen in Glasgow in 2002 when Zinedine Zidane scored one of the greatest final goals. The Galacticos were the champions of Spain and Bayer were not German champions – they have still never won the league.
Bayern, the German champions, beat Valencia, not the Spanish champions, in 2001. Valencia made the final the year before, too, when they lost to Real Madrid. Neither side were the champions of Spain the season before.
In 1999 when Manchester United came back in the final minutes at the Camp Nou to leave Bayern Munich’s players deflated, the players ended a campaign that had begun in the second qualifying round with home and away fixtures against Polish side LKS Lodz.
All change
Juventus were champions as were Real Madrid when they met in the 1998 final. The Spanish side won the Champions League.
The 1997-98 season was the one where it changed that teams other than the champions of each league and the holders of the Champions League competed.
As a side note, the year before Borussia Dortmund were the German champions when they met Juventus in Munich in 1997 while the Turin side were not the Italian champions, they had beaten Ajax in the previous final.
Does this mean that it is destined to be Liverpool to win in Kiev on May 26? Perhaps not but it does show that the Champions League should probably rebrand. What they have is in many ways a fine soccer tournament and one that guarantees the best teams from the best leagues in Europe and the best players in the world take part every season. But as we can see, many of them are not actually the champions.