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It Is Time to Admit the Champions League Has Become Boring and Predictable
- Updated: December 5, 2016
The Champions League group stage will reach its climax this week with the final Round of 16 matches.
How do you feel about this? Excited? Intrigued? Or not really that bothered?
Despite the relentless hype, it is actually fine to admit the Champions League has now become a little bit stale, and yes, even boring.
Ahead of the final group fixtures, 12 of the 16 places in the next round have already been taken, meaning the vast majority of the games this week will be played with nothing riding on them.
This will see 11 dull and drab games played out by weakened teams in front of disinterested and often half-empty stadiums.
Elsewhere, Sevilla, Lyon, Napoli, Benfica, Besiktas, Porto and FC Copenhagen will play for one of those remaining positions in the next round.
Whoever triumphs will live to fight beyond Christmas, but history tells us they will not survive for much longer, for the latter stages of the Champions League have become a private party for Europe’s elite teams and leagues.
Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Juventus and all of the others have all navigated their way through the group stages, which are designed to limit any upsets and safely usher them through to the next round.
The Champions League has become that film you have already watched countless times; you know the cast, the plot and exactly what will happen, and above all, you know it will have the same ending.
In the last five years, the leading European leagues, England, Spain, Italy and Germany, have taken every Champions League semi-finals place.
Real Madrid and Bayern Munich have been there every year, Barcelona three times, Chelsea and Atletico Madrid twice each, with one appearance each from Manchester City, Juventus and Borussia Dortmund.
It should come as no surprise that all of these teams, with the exception of Chelsea, are on course to reach the semi-finals yet again this season.
A team from outside the top four leagues has not been to the last four since Lyon met Bayern Munich at this stage in 2010.
Overall, even relatively strong leagues, like France, the Netherlands and Portugal have been pushed to the margins of the Champions League.
It wasn’t always like this and as recently as 2004, Monaco and Porto actually contested the final, with the Portuguese triumphing in Gelsenkirchen.
During this era, between the 2001-02 …
