Why this could be an English club’s year in Champions League
With no clear favourites for the big prize, it now all depends on Monday’s draw, writes Jason Burt By Alistair Tweedale
Is this the most open Champions League for years? When the holders lose home and away to a side who do not even get out of the group stages, it would appear to suggest the winner could come from a larger field than usual. And that may open up the possibility of a Premier League club triumphing for the first time since 2012.
Real Madrid’s 3-0 defeat by CSKA Moscow at the Bernabeu may have been in a dead rubber but it was their heaviest at home in a European competition. They did not play the kids. It was embarrassing. Real are vulnerable and are not alone in that. Plus, with all four Premier League teams in the last 16, the evenness – reflected across all the European giants – should mean that England has a greater chance.
Except, there are some significant caveats to that theory – and not least that three of those teams finished as runners-up in their group. It now all depends on Monday’s draw.
“That three of the English sides came second in the group will probably hurt their chances,” said Omar Chaudhuri, head of football intelligence at 21st Club, a football consultancy working with many leading clubs.
“The odds of an English winner will swing quite a lot on the draw, too – last year, Spurs and Chelsea got very tough ties, while Liverpool [who drew Porto] and City [Basel] got straightforward routes.”
That was until they met each other in the quarter-final, with Liverpool going all the way to the final, losing to Real in Kiev.
But Liverpool, in particular, have significantly strengthened. The same cannot be said across Europe – with maybe the exception of a Cristiano Ronaldo-bolstered Juventus. Even so, on the same night that Ronaldo’s former team Real were losing, so were Juventus. They suffered the shock of a 2-1 away defeat against clearly the weakest team in their group, the Swiss club Young Boys, although they still finished first because Manchester United failed to take advantage in Valencia.
From the 16 teams seeded in the top two pots, Lokomotiv Moscow, Shakhtar Donetsk, Napoli and Benfica failed to get through. Porto were the only group winners to claim five victories, but are seen as weak. Bayern Munich were the only other group winners not to suffer a defeat. Four runners-up progressed despite collecting fewer than 10 points. What does it
Even though some of the best teams are weaker, some of the weaker teams are a bit stronger
mean? “It is a tough competition. Napoli lose one game, Liverpool lose three games and Liverpool goes through,” City manager Pep Guardiola said. “Little details. I am happy that all four English teams are through and hopefully we will see them all in the quarter-finals.”
England, for the second season in succession, has the largest representation in the last 16. Last season, it was five, with United having won the Europa League.
“I would argue last year was a better chance of winning the Champions League, to be honest,” Chaudhuri said. “England had five teams in the knockout stages – so by that very basis alone, the odds of an English winner was higher – and Borussia Dortmund, albeit not as good as they are now, and Atletico Madrid were knocked out in the group stages.
“This year, virtually all the good teams made it through, and obviously there’s one fewer English team in the knockouts. So, even though maybe some of the best European teams are slightly weaker, some of the weaker teams are a bit stronger.”
It does, therefore, appear more uniform. There is no doubt that the English clubs are stronger, although the more significant difference in a competition where experience matters more than any other could be the fact that, in Guardiola and Jose Mourinho, two of the four have managers who have won the Champions League, and more than once, while Jurgen Klopp has reached two finals.
Mauricio Pochettino is the least experienced, although his Tottenham Hotspur side appear to be better equipped than Mourinho’s United.
In season 2007-08 three of the four Champions League semifinalists were from the Premier League. That came in the heyday for English clubs, between 2003-04 to 2011-12 when the most English defeats in a group stage was five – this season it was eight.
Alongside the English quartet are the big guns, but there is an unusual fallibility to many of them, summed up by the problems faced by holders Real and by Bayern Munich, whose coach Niko Kovac has failed to convince and whose team is ageing.
It means that Juventus, Barcelona and Paris St-germain should be regarded as the imperfect favourites outside any Premier League contenders, led by City, while the danger posed by Atletico cannot be dismissed.
Dortmund are convincingly top of the Bundesliga, while the re-emergence of Ajax has been exciting, even if there is the expectation that any tilt deep into the competition will be followed by the break-up of the young team.
The others in the last 16 – Schalke, Porto, Lyon and Roma, who are not the force they were last season when they reached the semi-finals – will not strike fear. It appears up for grabs.