Big matches already in the Champions League ‘super group’, Eastern European ‘knockout’ fixtures in Europe and the Conference League

It is uncertain how many Inter supporters are still lamenting Tuesday evening’s Champions League defeat against Mourinho’s Real Madrid in Madrid, repeating the familiar refrain about ‘keeping our heads held high’, but it is likely that in a few months’ time very few will recall the result of that match – as much of a ‘blockbuster’ as it was, ultimately pointless. The same applies to Porto v Manchester City, Liverpool v Atlético Madrid and the other upcoming fixtures that were once reserved for the knockout stages but are now repeated without any surprises (the Nerazzurri and the Merengues have met five times in the last six years) and at points in the season when they matter less than a small beer (you need roughly sixteen points from eight matches to advance to the next round; it doesn’t matter against whom you earn them)..

It is understood that football is increasingly about entertainment, that every match has to be peddled as an event, and that young people only watch the highlights between a porn video and a bet, but the bloated nature of the ‘new’ Champions League format has drained much of the drama from the matches played during the week. This is true both when the results are a foregone conclusion—such as City’s victory in Porto with two goals from Haaland that seemed ‘generated by an AI language model’ (to quote Thom Gibbs in The Telegraph)—and when a run-of-the-mill Bødo Glimt ‘pulls off a stunning upset’ at the Metropolitano (an upset that, apart from the Norwegian fans, almost no one remembers anymore). TV broadcasters, ownership groups and sponsors parading about in the VIP boxes are, of course, only interested in clashes between prestigious clubs, because that way they can sell even their own mothers to the highest bidder, and UEFA’s solution has been to multiply these fixtures, rendering them harmless – or almost so – in terms of progression in the tournament. It is true that three points are always three points, yet there remains the sense that the Real Madrid–Inter match could easily have been an August friendly played in Saudi Arabia – and not just because of the ‘summer’ errors by Bisseck and Martínez. The paradox is that matches such as Brugge v Aston Villa and Lille v Real Betis were far more exciting, but with that raw, authentic excitement that has the flavour of the Europa League, not the Champions League.

It is evident that if you open up the competition to just anyone and everyone, you end up acting like the sort of person who will sleep with anyone – “as long as they’re breathing” – just so they can bump up their body count. As a seasoned, conservative, and unabashedly monarchist observer, I consider fox hunting among the nobility acceptable when undertaken sparingly; however, by the tenth Bayern Munich versus Real Madrid match in a few years I am thoroughly bored; if they play it in the single-group stage, I fall into an apathetic stupor from which only a well-poured blonde can rouse me. With the exception of the last dazzling round, it is becoming increasingly difficult for fans to take the matches in the Champions League’s mega-group stage seriously on an emotional level—not to mention the hollowing out of the unlucky sisters, the Europa League and the Conference League, now mainly frequented by Eastern European cut-throats, colossal flops and crumb-like teams that have fallen off the table of the major leagues. If you are happy, Ceferin is happy.