Themes from this season’s Champions League: Germany’s rise to Man City’s stumble | Champions League
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A supremely true rule
Francisco Gento’s record of six European Cup wins was one of those seemingly invincible records belonging to the era of soccer lexicons. Yet Dani Carvajal, scorer of Real Madrid’s first goal in the final, and Luka Modric equaled the legendary winger’s tally with Madrid’s 2-0 win over Borussia Dortmund on Saturday. Toni Kroos, in his final club game after winning five with Real to add to his 2013 Champions League title with Bayern Munich, joined them.
Real Madrid reigns supreme again, and if there is a complaint that a weak, underpowered Champions League will be won by the Spanish club as a fait accompli, it ignores the infrastructure at the club. Carlo Ancelotti may be a formidable figure, but he heads a highly technocratic organisation, with his son Davide just one of the many forces behind the throne.
June Calafat is the chief scout which brought in Rodrigo, Vinicius Junior, Eduardo Camavinga, Federico Valverde, Aurelien Chuameni and Jude Bellingham. Such talent is subsequently ingrained in the winning mentality that is an indelible part of the fabric of the club. The likes of Carvajal, hardly the best footballer in the world, and Nacho, the ever-reliable utility defender, add backbone and authority to the dressing room. The importance of such players in their model has been misled by a number of clubs aiming for the heights of Madrid.
The stars of the season
If Vinicius continued his inexorable rise to the Ballon d’Or, this season’s Champions League stars are an odd mix of newer names and reliable perennials. Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappe finished as joint top scorers. In Porto, Pepe, aged 41, showed all his old tricks and became the competition’s oldest goalscorer, while Ukrainian goalkeeper Andriy Lunin was outstanding for Real Madrid before being dropped in favor of Thibaut Courtois for Wembley. Dortmund goalkeeper Gregor Kobel has also had an outstanding campaign.
For the champions, Kroos struck in style, showing the likes of Bellingham that they have something to emulate in midfield. To find some more unlikely heroes, Joselu’s two goals in the semi-final against Bayern maintained Stoke City’s iron grip on the competition, while Niklas Fühlkrug’s performances reminded us that big centre-forwards still have their place in the modern game. Marcel Sabitzer, rejected by both Bayern and Manchester United, has had an outstanding season in Dortmund’s midfield.
Mats Hummels rolled back the years, while his Dortmund counterpart Julian Ryerson excelled as an attacking full-back and Julian Brandt also showed his attacking talent. If Manchester City disappoint, Phil Foden has stepped up from Kevin De Bruyne’s shadow with five goals and three assists. And of those who left early, Antoine Griezmann graced the group stage in an Atlético shirt.
Goodbye to the group stages as we knew them
Bye then, Tuesday and Wednesday night as the 32 competing clubs aim to reach the final stage by reaching around 10 points. Goodbye too to the glamorous group stage draw, carried out with the great and good sitting in an airless room as master of ceremonies Giorgio Marchetti took the floor from Pedro Pinto. Giorgio’s game will have to wait for the draw for the knockouts. All hail the Swiss systemwhere algorithmic vagaries mean the supercomputer has to pull fixtures out of a hat lottery machine style.
Goodbye hot balls, hello Dominion-like conspiracy theories about conspiracies against your club. And all this after a season in which the group stages did produce some decent games and bloodied the noses of Manchester United, AC Milan and Newcastle, all of whom exited the competition. Shakhtar Donetsk, the club without a home, almost made it out of a group that included Barcelona and Porto, beating Barcelona on an emotional night in Hamburg.
See you back, PSG
with Mbappe headed to Real Madridtogether with Brazil’s next star, Endric, perhaps ushering in a new era of Galacticos. It also signaled the end of PSG’s vain attempt to replicate Madrid’s early 2000s constellation of Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo, Brazil’s Ronaldo and David Beckham by pairing Neymar and Lionel Messi with Mbappe.
With the first two gone and largely unmourned, Mbappé’s last dance saw PSG make a decent attempt to finally caught Champions League. Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele hammered Barcelona into the quarter-finals and Dortmund looked like a semi-equal, only for the great man to reverse his positions in the second leg. There was also some bad luck: Warren Zaire-Emery, Nuno Mendes, Mbappe and Vitinya hit the frame. There was some terrible finishing, along with some bad luck, with Gonzalo Ramos perhaps the most culpable.
Mbappe now heads to Madrid to try and win the trophy he most desires. But PSG, with players like Zaire-Emery, Vitinha and Lucas Beraldo, and under the skillful management of Luis Enriquecan now try to build a different team that no longer relies on a star system.
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If the likes of Karim Adeyemi and Fühlkrug had been more adept in front of the Wembley goal, German football could have signed off a great Bundesliga season in the best possible style. He finished with both Bayer Leverkusen – the unbeaten champions – and Dortmund lost in their respective European finals but German football prevailed hosting Euro 2024.
If Bayern Munich disappointed at home, they came close to denying Madrid in the semi-finals; an untimely save by Polish official Tomasz Listkiewicz spoiled a move that should have ended with Matthijs de Ligt’s equalizer at the Bernabeu. German football has recently been seen as a talent factory for coaches and players, but its clubs have shown that they are not to be underestimated. Dortmund were the much better side in the Wembley final until Madrid stepped it up.
The Premier League’s supremacy is taking a hit
Our league, this league, the EPL, whatever you want to call it, got a shot at the Champions League this season. Having won two of their last three and with Manchester City in their imperial phase, the expectation was that the Wembley final would host one, if not two, Premier League clubs.
Then came the dreadful performances of Newcastle and Manchester United – both of whom crashed out of Europe completely. Erik ten Hag’s side have been involved in a string of games in which they have been on the end of barely credible comebacks from FC Copenhagen and Galatasaray twice. Arsenal boasted confidence in England and Europe while the revival of their Bayern Munich hoodoo.
What about City? Real Madrid showed that when it comes to the Champions League, one empire rules the rest – and the importance of taking risks when they really matter. Revenge was served coldly and the failure against Madrid was another instance where Pep Guardiola abandoned simplicity for an advanced tactical plan. Here they were two legs for Erling Haaland to regret. The result: all Premier League clubs are eliminated by the quarter-finals. Before that, it was widely believed that only Liverpool were capable of stopping City from defending their crown. Still, they’ll just have to win the Europa League, won’t they?
It could be worse though. Or better? Italy will have six teams in the Champions League next season due to performance ratios in the three European competitions, but they have only fielded two teams in the last 16.
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