Aidan Smith: Variety spices life as English flop in Champions League

WITH a minute remaining of the Basel vs Bayern game in the Champions League a couple of weeks ago, the score was 0-0 and I couldn’t have been more excited. The column was sorted: I was going to write about the greatest no-scoring draws in history, of which this was one. OK, so the second half had been a bit drab compared with the white-hot first 45 but, as we like to say, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Then Basel grabbed a winner and the column had to be scrapped. But it was still a good night – and here’s why. I wasn’t watching Man U and Man City, I was watching their conquerors.

We don’t hear so much this season about England’s Premier League being the world’s best, the reason football was invented, the meaning of life, etc. Not with the Manchester clubs dumped out of the Champions League at the group stages and Arsenal and Chelsea in serious danger of being able to spend more time with their familes before even the quarter-finals.

I don’t know about you but I’d got a bit fed up of English clubs dominating the Champions League – three out of the four semi-final places three years running – and turning the latter stages into a private contest, complete with all the attendant boasting. This is not an anti-English rant, merely an anti-boredom one. I don’t have a vested interest in the Champions League and never will. So I watch it for drama and excitement but, perhaps above all, variety. Different teams, different grounds, fallen giants stirring again, bright young things spurning deference, a Lyon, a Leverkusen, snowbound pitches, tickertape-strewn ones, a quirky stand hoving into view – anything, indeed, that isn’t “the Bridge on a European night”, as if that’s really a football occasion rich in history and tradition.

One of the things those of us who don’t support them can’t stand about Chelsea is that they’re arrivistes. Until relatively recently, the Stamford Bridge “heritage” was wrapped up in big galoots like Micky Droy, wee Scottish radges such as David Speedie, psycho skinhead fans, a notorious FA Cup final against Leeds which, if refereed today, would result in six red cards and 20 yellows – and an admittedly not bad club song. So, when Roman Abramovich threatens to sack another manager because Chelsea’s top-four status is in doubt, we can only laugh. Chelsea have no divine right to Champions League qualification, having only become regulars in the continent’s top club competition in 1999. It’s not as if we’re talking about Real Madrid, a club steeped in its lore until they tried to buy back the prize through the ill-fated gallacticos project. Learning nothing from that, Abramovich splashed £50 million on Fernando Torres, expressly to shoot the Blues to Euro glory. But it is teams who win the Champions League, not collections of expensive individuals.

This season English clubs have been caught, and overtaken, by Italian, German and even Swiss sides, because they’ve spent too much (Chelsea), too little (Arsenal), tried to cruise through the groups with squad players (Man U) and simply lost their nerve (Man City).

After playing most of last season with three holding midfielders and being criticised for it, Roberto Mancini went all expansive in the Premier and City duly hammered in the goals. But in Europe he reverted to his old ways, played too cautiously and, despite their obscene wealth, City were outsmarted by the more cohesive Napoli and better-balanced Bayern, both assembled for a fraction of the price. Now City and Chelsea are coveting Napoli’s Edinson Cavani and Ezequiel Lavezzi and Chelsea must also be getting nostalgic for the buccaneering wing-play of Arjen Robben, these days of Bayern, because they’ve lacked width from the moment he left. Robben was deemed a failure at Real Madrid, as is anyone who doesn’t win them the Champions League (countryman Wesley Sneijder, who would later dominate Chelsea on his way to winning it with Inter, was another). Zlatan Ibrahimovic, left, was deemed a failure against English sides until he scored against Arsenal last and gave them such a torrid time in Milan’s 4-0 win. Serie A was deemed a sad and boring old league as the Premier stole its lustre, but now two Italian teams are on the brink of ending English interest in the big pot. And, from here on in, I’m supporting Basel.