Aidan Smith: How bloated Champions League refound its lustre

Published on Saturday 20 March 2010 20:11

INEVER CEASE to be amazed by football's capacity to surprise, confound and – at the end of the day, Brian – not let you down. Sometimes all it takes is one brilliant match. Last week all it took to restore my faith in the Champions League was one stunning back-heel from Wesley Sneijder.

I wasn't looking forward to Chelsea v Inter Milan, having been left underwhelmed by the world's top club tournament for most of the season. There were some nights when I hadn't watched any of the eight games available to me and yet I was still forking out 50 quid a month for the privilege. Something had to give on Tuesday and the portents weren't good: ugly Stamford Bridge, ugly Chelsea, Inter – the often-thuggish team of catenaccio, Facchetti, Burgnich and now Materazzi – and, first, the inevitable extended interview with Jose Mourinho, moody black background to contrast with his grey locks, about his King's Road legacy, his legend.

Pundit Graeme Souness complained about this, saying the focus should be on the teams. It's the cult of personality. David Beckham totally dominated the build-up to both Man U-AC Milan games. But I've never got the cult of Mourinho (I've never got the coat of Mourinho either, all that drooling over his fashion sense, so I used to love the counter-chant to his "song", started by Man City fans: "That coat's from Matalan!"). I've never got any of it – until Tuesday.

Look at the Champions League now; who's left and whose bums are oot the windae. Beckham – gone. Real Madrid and their next generation of galacticos, failing to learn the lessons of the first disastrous experiment, overstuffing the team with show-players, rendering Kaka impotent – gone. Chelsea – with the usual denouement of Didier Drogba psycho-drama and John Terry jabbing at officials like a CCTV lager-lout and "Was that Michael Ballack even playing?" – gone.

Some of the richest footballers are now free on Tuesdays to fly to Rome for wristwatch commercials; the Champions League, just when it was starting to take on the tediously familiar complexion of Anglo/Spanish dominance, has found new heroes. Bordeaux have never reached the quarter-finals before and this season France has as many teams in the last eight as England with its over-hyped Premier League.

Lyon are there. They always are but they're always welcome. Teamwork can overcome amalgams of watch-flaunters and they're an enduring example of that. Each season they have to regenerate after losing a top player, usually to one of the giants. Maybe scientists scour the pitch at the Stade de Gerland for toe clippings from the exalted right foot of their great Brazilian Juninho and use them to construct new line-ups. Last summer Lyon lost Karim Benzema to Real; this month they dumped the Spanish ponces out of the competition. Fantastic!

Thrillingly, the complexion of this Champions League is more reminiscent of the years when it first captured the imagination and I was persuaded to hand over all that dosh to Sky TV – when Monaco charged to the semis and even less glamorous Bayer Leverkusen to the final.

Leverkusen's scorer at Hampden eight years ago was another Brazilian, Lucio, who was no longer wanted by Bayern Munich (and not much fancied by Souness in the studio). Mourinho took him to Inter and over two legs against Chelsea he totally dominated Drogba. Monaco's hero was Fernando Morientes, cast out by Real to make way for Ronaldo at the outset of the first galactico project. Chumps at the Bernabeu didn't insert a clause in his loan switch to the French team barring him from playing against them and he scored home and away as Monaco triumphed.

Last Tuesday, the hero was another player ditched by Real to make way for a so-called bigger name. Sneijder was sensational and threaded half a dozen killer passes from a midfield packed with Chelsea galoots before one was eventually despatched. Inter may never have played with more grace; not since I started watching them, and that was way back in '67 in Lisbon.

Redemptions, shocks, big-shots being taken down – I'm loving the Champions League again. Rupert Murdoch's 50 quid is safe and as for that Mourinho, he's obviously a genius. Now, I wonder where he gets his coats?