May 18, 2012  Print Email | European football kicks off as Champions League returns
A feast of football
Posted by Derek Wilson at 09:46 AM GMT on Feb 24, 2009 | THE CHAMPIONS League returns to football pitches and television screens this week, giving both casual fans and diehards cause for celebration.
It could be argued that the modern day European Cup has been tainted by the huge sums of money involved, but there is undeniably a feast of football coming up.
The group stage is, more often than not, little more than an appetiser before the main event, which is the knock out phase. As great as the group clashes between big clubs can be, it is hard to generate true excitement when both will almost certainly progress anyway.
But now the knowledge that 180 minutes of play will decide who progresses to the quarter finals and who falls into the abyss makes the ties delicious. This is when the European football season really kicks off, rather than back in August.
 As always, there are intriguing sub-plots to go along with the ties, such as the meeting of Manchester United and Inter Milan, allowing Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho to lock horns once more. Inter has underachieved in the Champions League for a long time but believes that Manchester United are beatable if it plays its best.
Jose Mourinho knows just what is needed to win at Old Trafford, having led Porto to victory there en route to glory in 2004. Claudio Ranieri will return to Stamford Bridge with Juventus and would no doubt take great pleasure in knocking out Chelsea and Roman Abramovich, who sacked him in 2004.
The England versus Italy theme continues with Arsenal taking on Roma as both clubs look to save their respective seasons. Neither Arsenal nor Roma can win their domestic leagues and the Champions League now offers them the perfect chance of salvation.
And that is both the strength and weakness of the present day European Cup.
Clubs like Roma and Arsenal are obviously not small in domestic terms, but by European standards they fall some way short of the big boys. Yet almost every season they get excitement and vast riches from the 'Champions' League - despite never finishing better than runners-up at home.
However, they are still capable of beating the top teams on the day, and that is now what makes the competition special. It has now become something like a pan-European FA Cup with all the thrills and spills that can provide.
But at the same time that is what has devalued the competition beyond repair. Previously every team that won the European Cup could genuinely claim to be true champions of Europe.
Winning a domestic league was the price of entry that proved Manchester United was the best team in England or Steaua Bucharest was the king of Romania. If they then came out on top in a tournament consisting only of champions, then indefatigable schoolboy logic meant the best team had won.
But now a side that scrapes into the Champions League and can win a few knock out games – no easy feat admittedly – can take Europe's big prize. No one forgets Liverpool's glorious win over AC Milan in 2005 but how many remember how it reached the competition in the first place? It did not win the English title or even finish runners-up in 2004. Instead, it finished fourth, 15 points behind Manchester United, 19 behind Chelsea and an astonishing 30 behind league champions Arsenal.
If there was any doubt about Liverpool's quality, it was that despite winning the Champions League when they did, it only qualified for the tournament the following season due to UEFA changing the rules.
It is laughable to laud a club as the best in the continent when it is by some way clearly not the best in its own country. But any complaints about the format of the competition vanish as soon as the actual play starts.
European clubs pay the highest wages in the world, so it is no surprise that the best players from around the globe choose this stage to display their skills. And if a club like Liverpool does manage to upset the odds and triumph then it simply makes the competition all the more enthralling.
After all, one of the joys of sport is that the best team does not always win.
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