Mythos of Champions League Still Alive
Despite the future of the competition being in question, Saturday’s final proves the mythos of it should live on through any hapless format.
Pep Guardiola is a great manager, one of the best in the history of football. However, despite having all the resources he could need he hasn’t won a Champions League title since 2011.
The last 10 years have seen the Catalan come close so many times, and on Saturday he failed at the final hurdle.
The word used to describe Guardiola’s ambition to win another European Cup has been “obsession.”
Lionel Messi was also said to be “obsessed” with winning another Champions League immediately following Real Madrid’s three-peat of 2016–2018.
Messi, like his former manager, was part of a side that capitulated right when it seemed they were on the cusp of that glory. The humiliating defeats of Rome and Liverpool were the consequence of what makes the Champions League so special.
For both of these men, winning another European Cup was seen as the only way to truly cement their legacy as the absolute greatest. That is the power the competition holds.
It holds this neurosis over those most obsessed by it.
This adds to the mythos of the competition that separates it from any league title or domestic cup tournament.
Guardiola and Messi are all-time greats and their failure in the Champions League doesn’t diminish that in any particular way, but it adds to the greatness of the competition itself.
But the days of that glory are slowly being killed by those with the power to change it.
Last week UEFA’s club competition committee voted in favour of abolishing the away goals rule, which is set to be approved on July 9 by the UEFA executive committee.
The away goals rule is a large part of the aura around the Champions League. It encapsulates so much of what makes the competition special and is tied to many fantastic memories of dramatic last minute goals that swung ties around completely.
As recently as 2019, Tottenham completed a 3-0 second leg second half comeback against Ajax. When Lucas Moura’s last minute goal equalised the tie but gave Spurs the lead on away goals it sent them through having been on the cusp of elimination seconds prior.
It was virtually the last kick of the game and in one motion Ajax went from having one foot in their first final in over 20 years to being eliminated by Mauricio Pochettino’s side.
This wasn’t the only proposed change to the competition in the last week. It has also been reported that UEFA are considering moving the semi finals and the final to one city and having a one-legged mini tournament to crown the winner.
This will be a similar format to the 2019/20 edition, which was heavily impacted by the pandemic. The quarter finals onwards all took place in Portugal as Bayern Munich capped off their season, completing the treble with victory over Paris Saint-Germain.
However, the semi finals are usually the most exciting round of the entire competition. Many legends have been forged in the fire of the tension of these two legs. It is also the home crowd’s last chance to push their side towards the glory of the final.
The other semi final in 2018/19, at Anfield, is a prime example of this. Despite being 3-0 down from the first leg, the Kop End still had their role to play in helping Jurgen Klopp’s side overturn the deficit.
In a year in which fans have been sitting at home, unable to attend these biggest games, it has been made obvious just how important their presence is to the spectacle of these matches.
The group stage, too, which already needed fixing, is set to be altered completely for the 2024 season with the introduction of the “Swiss style” format.
This change will have teams play 10 games against 10 opponents in one big 36-team group with the top eight securing knockout round passage and the next 16 moving into a play-off to face those eight in the Last 16 round.
If that sounds complicated, it’s probably because they’ve moved away from the most simple and perfect format any football competition could have — much like how the World Cup is increasing from 32 teams to 48 in 2026, another example of a great competition being ruined by bureaucrats who don’t understand the game.
At any point were any of the fans consulted about these changes? Not a chance.
The Super League debacle folded like a house of cards within 48 hours with fan pushback seen as the biggest reason for its downfall. Were the fans of the 12 breakaway clubs consulted as to their demand for such a competition? Not a chance.
The Champions League should still survive as a great competition despite these changes, but that sums it all up.
It will be in spite of these ideas that football will still prevail. Ultimately it will still be two top teams playing each other to prove who is the best. However, no one can be blamed for wanting to switch away.
It will be a shame that in 10–15 years those who made these decisions will ask why the sport isn’t so popular anymore, but they will only have themselves to blame. It is a total failure of the system that fans were never once consulted about these changes.
Perhaps the glory days of the amazing knockout ties we’ve seen in the last five years have now passed, only time will tell, but the European Cup has seen many format changes and still thrived.
That is the mythos that makes it so good. It makes even the best look fallible. The neurosis it induces on the greats who crave it the most will always exist because winning the Champions League is what everyone dreams of and it always will be.
