In a lot of ways this season's Champions League passed me by, because I really only started watching it at the semi-final round. On the other hand, that's actually earlier than I started watching either of the two previous seasons, because with WFH I've been finding it oddly harder to tear myself away from work to check out matches in the middle of the day (and because I didn't have Paramount Plus until last summer).
Yet it's been a weird one. Not in the sense that Real Madrid won it, because this is the fifth time in a decade that Real has won the tournament, making it probably Real's most dominant period since the 1950s. But it's weird because Real's path to the final involved beating the champions of France and England (PSG and Manchester City), and the current Champions League holder (Chelsea), in addition to Liverpool, who came in second in the Premier League just the weekend before. As the football podcasts and pundits noted, everybody made a big deal of Real losing in the group stage to Moldovan minnows Sheriff Tiraspol, but then they fought their way through to win the whole thing.
As I noted on social media before the final, the last time a Spanish team lost in the Champions League final was 2016, when Atletico Madrid lost to Real; the last time a Spanish team lost against non-Spanish opposition was 2001; and the last time Real Madrid lost in the final was 1981, against Liverpool in Paris. You wonder how important a stat like that is, but there does seem to be some feeling of ownership that Real has over the Champions League, which no other team seems able to match.
The verdict is also that Liverpool appeared out of sorts, not just in this final, but in the two domestic cups that they won and for the last few weeks of the league campaign. You could argue that when Real beat Liverpool in 2018, it was the triumph of skill vs will, where the cohesion and dark arts of Real won out over what English pundits like to call Jürgen Klopp's heavy metal football. By now, Liverpool have calmed down their style of play, but this time it was Real whipping themselves up into a frenzy to win.
There was also a sense that Liverpool were outplayed, despite having put more shots on target than Real. It seemed clear to me that there'd be a second goal at some point, likely from Liverpool, given how many attacks they mounted on Real's goal, but it wasn't to be... and in fact, Real could have been two goals up by the end, given that weird disallowed goal that bounced around a bunch before being overruled for offside.
In terms of dominance by the top countries, this was business as usual. In fact, despite Bayern Munich winning in 2020 against PSG, you kind of wonder if it's not time to start talking about Spain and England being the Top Two in Europe, while Germany and Italy get relegated to the second tier with France. At the very least, fifth-place France's coefficient is closer to fourth-place Italy's than third-place Germany's is to England's. More to the point, no team from Germany, Italy or France made it to the quarter-finals, while the only team not from England or Spain in that round was Portugal's Benfica, though they still lost to Liverpool.
In a season or two, the Champions League will switch to a new format, which will further entrench the main countries and add a couple of places for teams based on coefficients rather than actual league performances. This is expected to let in teams like Manchester United or someone if they have a bad season or two, though in the short term it looks like it'll benefit Dutch or Portuguese teams.
I've aired my dissatisfaction over this state of affairs on Facebook, but been reminded that no one really cares to watch the Belgian champion when they can watch Real Madrid vs Barcelona or Juventus or Manchester City. These are fair points, and it feels like King Cnut ordering the sea not to come in, but I can't help thinking that a more democratic European league system would mean that Belgian, Portuguese or Eastern European sides could afford to hold onto star players and make for better competition with the big teams.
Also, as exciting as it is to see the absolute giants of European football play each other, ratings have declined for anything before the knockout stages, because it's clear that such match-ups aren't special anymore. Real Madrid and Barcelona already play each other twice in the league each season, plus usually in the Copa del Rey, and then potentially in the Champions League. During their pomp, there were seasons when they met five times, thanks to various super-cups and so on.
I always say it'll be interesting to see how the competition shakes out next season, but let's face it, we'll get another match-up like this one, between two fabulously wealthy teams from the richest leagues. The only hope will be that at least we get wild nights like when Real beat Manchester City in the semi-final at the last minute, having been behind across both legs.
No comments:
Post a Comment