The Champions League is entering crunch time — and the stakes couldn’t be lower | OneFootball

In the buildup to Arsenal’s trip to Inter last week, those at their London Colney training base couldn’t help notice a shift in mood. There was no tension, it was all rather relaxed. A largely second-string team then carried that onto the pitch by breezing through a 3-1 away win against last season’s finalists. Long-time club insiders couldn’t help contrasting to 20 or even 15 years ago.

“No pressure going to the San Siro for a Champions League game – imagine that.”

Needless to say, it wasn’t like that for the Premier League games either side of that win. And while some of that may be distinctive to Arsenal’s first place and a complex about winning the title, it is actually a common feeling.

Liverpool’s many problems have been much less pronounced in the Champions League, where they can still stamp on Real Madrid or go to a stadium as intimidating as Olympique Marseille’s Velodrome and pick off a win.

Manchester City may admittedly have more angst after Bodo-Glimt, but they’d probably have taken a home match against Galatasaray to secure automatic qualification before this began. Newcastle United have meanwhile been much less inconsistent, as Tottenham Hotspur have been a force. Most starkly, Burnley and West Ham United posed more difficult challenges than Borussia Dortmund.

And this is where there has been a very definite shift.

One source relates a common view. “The Premier League is now psychologically and tactically more challenging than the Champions League.”

The European games are described as much less tense. Crisis clubs now look forward to the refresh of a Champions League week, a total inversion of 30 years ago.

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Champions League matchdays now offer something of a reprieve for crisis clubs, as seen with Tottenham against Borussia Dortmund (Getty)

Such claims will almost sound sacrilegious to anyone who grew up steeped in the competition’s mythology from that time, as this really isn’t what the Champions League is supposed to be about. It’s cast as the pinnacle of the sport.

Clubs that properly have qualification in the balance – like Antonio Conte’s Napoli – will obviously feel different, but that points to another major factor.

One is a long-term structural issue that these pages have discussed so much over the years. The Premier League has so much more collective wealth, as can be seen with how Marseille’s total revenue is lower than that of 14 English clubs, and close to half of Villa’s wage bill. Such forces have created a talent drain from everywhere else. Essentially, any time anyone starts to do anything good – and this is especially true as regards coaching – they are snapped up by an English club.

The only exception seems to be with the majority of truly elite stars. In what looks like a necessary counterbalance, such players – from Kylian Mbappe to Khvicha Kvaratskhelia – are still attracted to the glamour of the European super clubs, who also tend to accommodate their wage structures accordingly. Some Premier League figures feel this is the one remaining area where the English competition is missing out, as if it doesn’t already have enough.

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The truly elite stars are still attracted to the glamour of European super clubs over the Premier League (AP)

It is very much a coach’s league, though, as recent articles about the effect of pressing and set pieces on goals have illustrated. Many of the major Champions League clubs don’t have to think about this in the same way, repeatedly leading to the bizarre scenes of Arne Slot declaring his delight that European opposition don’t play in a low block.

They might have to start thinking about it if English dominance continues – but the wonder is how far that goes.

As we go into the grand television event that is the final group night – intended to make all of this worthwhile – there is the live possibility that all six of the English clubs qualify as part of the top eight. Arsenal are already all but confirmed as top.

Even if all six don’t qualify, it says enough that it’s a distinctive prospect, to say nothing that six clubs from one country is already too much anyway.

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There is the live possibility that all six of the English clubs qualify as part of the top eight (PA Wire)

There are figures at the top of Uefa who readily complain about how the “European space” was made impossible by Bosman and an economic context that ensures a concentration of wealth to an ever-narrowing area of the game, although questions could then be asked about decisions made and regulation.

This very Champions League model was partly intended to be a regulatory response to all this, but it might well have had the adverse effect.

So much of the competition feels like the stakes are so low. Even this week, Napoli vs Chelsea is one of the few matches that feels “big”, but it’s not like it’s a straight knockout: Chelsea have the safety net.

It’s another contrast with the Premier League. For all the bombast of the competition, there is constant noise and narrative around it; with these Champions League matches, many of them feel like filler with little consequence.

Because, no matter how you try to talk around it, even a Paris Saint-Germain vs Newcastle United that is about automatic qualification won’t feel the same as sudden death.

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Wednesday’s game in Paris is about automatic qualification and won’t feel the same as sudden death (AP)

Take the example of that Spurs vs Dortmund match. Would it have felt quite so forgiving for Spurs if it were a knockout? The energy would have been completely different. Dortmund themselves would surely have looked different, and perhaps prepared a more layered gameplan than something that just felt like it was for a weekly league match.

And yet these strange stakes may also work another way.

It’s been said before, but there is a considerable irony to how the “prize” for the top eight is to avoid an extra two “punishment” fixtures, when the entire point of this expanded Champions League is that the wealthy clubs actively wanted more games. Arsenal badly needed a free midweek, so they played for it.

What does that say about the football calendar and its effects?

Hence, a mere two English winners in this decade so far, despite all that wealth. Premier League teams get to the business end too exhausted, and after so much more competitive tension in their domestic league, where the European super clubs’ greater stars finally have that space to excel.

Look at the fate of last year’s group winners, Liverpool. Arsenal might have to be conscious of that.

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Liverpool react after defeat by Paris Saint-Germain at Anfield last season (AFP/Getty)

PSG’s victory in the final, meanwhile, only fosters the sense that very little of this matters that much, even allowing for changes that mean knockout home games will be dictated by the table.

Wednesday night will, of course, still be fun. Goals will rain in. The table will constantly change, even if that works against any sense of drama, as there’s much to keep up with.

The Champions League is supposed to be about so much more than that, though. And it’s supposed to be about much more than a handful of clubs.