The Champions League group stage is complete and we can all look forward to the knockout stages which begin in February. Here we wrap up the main talking points from the group phase.
Leicester
The fairy tale story continued for Leicester as last year’s surprise Premier League champions went on to win Group G, winning four, drawing one and losing one of their six games. The manner of their 5-0 capitulation away at Porto will be of concern though, with some woeful defending throughout. They did make a number of changes for that game however and the team will revert to type come the knockout stage in February. They’re more than capable of producing a shock and winning the tournament, but their league form is a major issue and the Champions League could end up being an unwanted distraction.
Arsenal
An unbeaten Champions League group campaign for the Gunners is no mean feat, although they weren’t totally convincing. They topped the group, thanks to PSG’s failure to win away at Ludogorets in the final game. Mesut Ozil’s goal against the Bulgarian side was undoubtedly the highlight of their campaign, but the main worry for them is who they get in the last 16 stage. In previous years, their second place finish has seen them drawn against European heavyweights such as Barcelona and Bayern Munich, but their advantage in topping the group this season hasn’t counted for much. Potential opponents include Bayern and Real Madrid, and Wenger and fans alike will be hoping that these are avoided.
Competition Format
UEFA’s pandering to European heavyweights has been to the detriment of the competition and competitiveness itself. This year’s group stage was exceptionally tedious and threw up little in the way of surprises. You could predict which teams were going to progress before a ball was even kicked; such was the disparity between some of the sides in the groups.
To put this disparity in context, 14 of the 96 group games played were decided by a four goal margin. In contrast, there have only been 11 games in the Premier League decided by that scoreline, despite there being 46% more games.
Had you predicted that the two wealthiest sides in each group would progress, then you’d have successfully predicted 15 of the 16 teams who qualified. The exception being Spurs. And if the least predictable thing from the group stages was Spurs being eliminated, then you know that the competition is in need of overhaul.
The competition has almost been targeted away from passionate football fans, intent on seeing a fiercely competitive game. Instead it’s aimed towards fans, maybe even tourists, who happen to be in a particular city, say Madrid, at the time. The fan buys a ticket for the game and would rather see Ronaldo or Bale score a hat-trick in a 5-0 win, than see Legia Warsaw come and grind out a draw. In terms of competitiveness, the tournament doesn’t really get going until the knockout stage. But as last year showed, if a side plays away in the first leg and scores three goals in the first 20 minutes of a game, the tie is effectively over.
There were six teams who went unbeaten in this season’s group stage. Two groups featured two unbeaten sides progressing to the knockout stages, those being Group A and Group F, while Bayer Leverkusen were the only side to go unbeaten, but not top their group, courtesy of four draws.
In contrast, seven teams went through the group stage without winning a game. Dinamo Zagreb and Brugge did the worst and lost all six games. Brugge’s group didn’t feature a European heavyweight and they finished on a goal difference of -12. In contrast, Celtic who were hammered 7-0 by Barcelona in week one, finished on a goal difference of -11 and also managed two draws against Manchester City.
There will always be teams who are superior to others in the group, but to have such condemning figures to reinforce this shows how much the competition requires change. UEFA have identified this, but instead have decided to give the bigger clubs more money to appease them and hope that they maintain parity with the Premier League.
Ronaldo/Messi
European football’s most prolific scorers both featured in this year’s group stage, but with very different results. Lionel Messi made five appearances for Barcelona, scoring 10 goals and assisting two others. He also netted a sixth Champions League hat-trick in the 7-0 rout of Celtic. His reputation was tarnished slightly following his altercation with a Manchester City player in the tunnel after Barcelona’s 3-1 loss at the Etihad.
Ronaldo’s group campaign was slightly different as he made six appearances, but found the back of the net just twice. He did assist more goals however, providing four for his teammates.
Guardiola vs. Barcelona
As soon as the draw for the group stages was made, all eyes were on Manchester City and Pep Guardiola’s fixtures against Barcelona. The tie at the Camp Nou ended with Barcelona winning 4-0, following a calamitous piece of judgement from City keeper Claudio Bravo. The reverse fixture however was a completely different story. City produced arguably their greatest ever performance, albeit against an injury-depleted Barcelona team, and won 3-1.
Race to the Europa League
The Champions League knockout qualifiers were predictable and you’d be forgiven for thinking that the whole of the final match week was meaningless and there was nothing to play for. But there was! Spurs returned to the Europa League, courtesy of their third place finish in the group, but some sides qualified for the Europa League at the expense of more traditional members of the European football order. FC Rostov beat PSV Eindhoven to third place in Group D. Legia Warsaw finished above Sporting Lisbon in Group F, while Ludogorets became the first ever Bulgarian side to make it out of the group stage in European competition with their third place finish in Group A.