After the draw for the Champions League quarter-finals, a bracket graphic circulated on social media, sparking a question that had been brewing for a few years.
Has the Champions League become boring?
Since 2006, the first European tournament has been won by one of its best teams. In the last 10 years, Real Madrid have won five and Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Barcelona have won one each – all teams that have won the tournament before and frequently reach the last eight of the tournament. Even Manchester City, who have failed to cross the finish line in Europe despite being arguably the best team in the world since Pep Guardiola’s second year in charge, have laid to rest any suspicion of capriciousness of the Champions League by lifting the trophy last season.
This is how the most interesting story in European football reaches its dramatic conclusion.
This year, four of the top five European leagues were represented in the quarter-finals: three from Spain, two from England, two from Germany and one from France. Of the last 10 winners, only Liverpool and Chelsea have failed to reach this stage, failing to even qualify for the tournament.
You might say there’s no room for an improbable fairy tale at this stage of the competition, but we all love to back an underdog.
This is one of the many reasons why Borussia Dortmund reaching the Champions League final would be a great result for the season.
OK, so it’s not like they’ve never been there before. It’s more like the time Jose Mourinho led Porto to victory in 2004 after winning the UEFA Cup in 2003 than Greece winning the European Championship. Dortmund are regulars in the Champions League round of 16 and won the tournament in 1997 before reaching the final again in 2013. But of the eight teams who qualified for the quarter-finals, they were ranked as the least likely to win by most UK bookmakers. . And if an outsider wants to win the famous “big ears”, this may be the last year he can do it.
As AthleticismAs Michael Cox pointed out in February, two things must happen for an underdog to win a major football tournament. First, the underdogs themselves must be better than usual, and second, the bigger teams must be weaker. Strangely, Dortmund are at their lowest level domestically for at least five years.
After a strong campaign last season, in which they lost the league title on the final day, Dortmund have sold their star player Jude Bellingham to Real Madrid, and there doesn’t seem to be another young player like him. caliber waiting to replace it. They have fought their way through the league season, currently sitting in fifth place in the table, 15 points ahead of sixth-placed Frankfurt.
Thanks to their and Bayern’s performance in the Champions League, a fifth place will be enough to reach Europe’s premier tournament next season, but their domestic performance in 2023-24 has hardly been convincing. The era of superstars in the Ruhr is over; rather, it’s a mix of legends and castoffs from fading clubs.
The second point in Michael’s article – that the greatest sides must be the weakest – rings true. Real Madrid are a titan in the latter stages of the Champions League, and they are coming off another La Liga title, but they too are in relative transition. Without an elite striker, Bellingham often plays at the forefront of Carlo Ancelotti’s attack, and his brilliant scoring streak before the start of the year has slowed recently. Luka Modric, the only Ballon d’Or holder currently playing in Europe, is 38 years old and is not a regular holder.
GO FURTHER
Real Madrid title celebrations: early return, training the next morning, focus on Bayern
Madrid have an air of inevitability going into this tournament, but their return leg performance against City in the quarter-finals, where they faced 33 shots and were lucky to progress via penalties, demonstrated that they are not not as formidable as during their three-phase era led (figuratively and literally) by Cristiano Ronaldo.
Bayern are Dortmund’s eternal older brothers in German football, but they lost their first league title in 11 years to Bayer Leverkusen this year, and their head coach, Thomas Tuchel, is leaving at the end of the season. They also failed in their attempts to appoint Unai Emery and Ralf Rangnick to replace him.
For Dortmund fans, who are among the best in Europe and have seen many of their best players leave the Westfalenstadion for Munich in recent years, this could be the revenge they crave. This will prove Marco Reus right, one of the unluckiest men in modern football, who remained at Dortmund while his star teammates won trophies elsewhere. After 12 years, he left Dortmund at the end of the season, aged 35.
Paris Saint-Germain, Dortmund’s semi-final opponent, should be synonymous with chaos. They have the best player in football, but dysfunction and controversy are only ever one loss away. After winning the first leg 1-0 at home, Dortmund may never have a better opportunity to reach another Champions League final.
GO FURTHER
How to stop a player like Kylian Mbappé?
That they do it with their weakest side in years is all the more impressive. In defense, they are led by an aging Mats Hummels, 35, who left for Bayern in 2016 then returned in 2019 after collecting three league titles at the expense of Dortmund. To his left is Ian Maatsen, who was loaned out in January after struggling to play at Chelsea. His parent team is not participating in any European competitions this season and is trying to climb the Premier League in order to qualify for Europe next season.
Up front is Jadon Sancho, once considered one of Europe’s brightest young talents at Dortmund before a disastrous spell at Manchester United. He looked like he was reborn in the first leg. Ahead of him is Niclas Fullkrug, who had to fight his way through the divisions in Germany before a stellar season for struggling Werder Bremen earned him a move to Dortmund last summer. It was his fine goal at the Westfalenstadion that gave Dortmund the lead ahead of Tuesday’s match in Paris.
Isn’t the image of Erik ten Hag and Mauricio Pochettino watching from their sofa as Sancho and Maatsen line up together for a Champions League final at least a little funny?
To make it more palatable to Chelsea fans, imagine Dortmund haunting Tottenham legend Harry Kane by beating Bayern in the final and extending his wait for a trophy.
Or, some of you might like Bellingham, England’s golden boy, leaving Dortmund only to lose to them in the Champions League final the following year.
Nobody is saying you should have these terrible thoughts, but Dortmund beating PSG (and ruining Kylian Mbappe’s farewell story) and winning the tournament offers something for everyone.
Unless of course you’re supporting Dortmund’s fierce rival Schalke.
(Hendrik Deckers/Borussia Dortmund via Getty Images)