Champions League 2022: Barcelona fail to keep up with the frugal neighbours

Let us not forget that Barcelona are still spending and behaving as though they are one of the elite and Joan Laporta, the club’s president, is clinging ever tighter to the notion that they will be a leading club in the mooted European Super League (ESL). The concept may well be rekindled in a different guise but for now it comprises, in theory, only Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus - all of whom cling to it like diners in tuxedos aboard The Titanic refusing to leave their cigar-laden card table.

Juventus and Barcelona dropped into the Europa League with Massimiliano Allegri, the Juventus head coach, claiming his team should be “satisfied” that they did not fall out of European competition altogether. How the mighty-minded have fallen. At least Real, the reigning champions, retain an aura of grandeur and they topped their group by a point ahead of the impressive RB Leipzig.

The question remains, though, over whether Spanish clubs have entered a downward spiral given that Atletico Madrid, usually so hard to beat, finished fourth in group B and Sevilla picked up only five points from six games to finish third in group G. A shift has occurred at Atletico. Where once we envied the stability they had with the long-serving Diego Simeone at the helm, of late they have looked at best stale and at worst outdated.

Where Juventus and Atletico failed, Portuguese clubs triumphed, with Benfica topping Allegri’s group and Porto winning Simeone’s.

If there is much licking of wounds in Spain, next door there is justifiable preening. The big story of the group stage was the success of the Portuguese clubs, especially as Benfica topped a group including Paris Saint-Germain. The Portuguese media are enjoying the fate of the clubs who originally backed the ESL.

Paulo Anunciacao, a correspondent with Expresso who has also written for the sports paper O Jogo, says the key to their success lies in the quality of the academy talent at Benfica, Porto and also Sporting Lisbon, who fell into the Europa League but have been unlucky with injuries.

“The clubs are able to reinvent each year even after selling so many players,” he says. “Benfica played with three academy players against Maccabi Haifa on Wednesday, plus two from the bench, for their 22nd competitive game without a defeat.”

Roger Schmidt, the Benfica head coach, has arguably been as influential as Sven-Goran Eriksson was when he joined the club in the early 1980s. “Schmidt brought a new philosophy,” Anunciacao says. “He brought gegenpressing, which all Germans do, but he also plays very positive football, very brave, a bit like Eriksson. Another factor is the quality of the scouting. All four players bought by Benfica this year are of amazing quality.”

Schmidt, who joined Benfica six months ago, said this week he was surprised by the high quality of Liga Portugal given it lacks big budgets. “The cost of the Benfica starting XI this year is euros 84 million [about pounds 73.2 million],” Anunciacao says. “That’s well below Nottingham Forest or Brighton or Brentford. That shows the gap in economic power.”

The Portuguese model of running B teams who compete in the league below has also been highly successful. Former Benfica B players, such as City’s Ederson, Ruben Diaz and Bernardo Silva, are strewn around the top clubs in Europe.

Other notable performances came from Napoli and Club Bruges. The Italians adopted a near-brazen approach, with Luciano Spalletti’s fearless team setting the tone in the opening game against Liverpool when they dismantled Jurgen Klopp’s side to win 4-1. Liverpool recovered to finish second to the Italians, with all four English clubs progressing in varying degrees of angst.

Manchester City appeared to almost sleepwalk through group G, Chelsea sacked their head coach after their opening defeat by Dynamo Zagreb in group E and Tottenham Hotspur left it late to seal progress from a tight group D.

Those looking in from abroad would have been intrigued by Graham Potter taking the helm at Stamford Bridge with no experience whatsoever of Champions League football and by the inconsistency of Liverpool, who had a lot of fun in their 7-1 win at Ibrox but otherwise appeared less majestic than usual.

Bruges made it through the group stage for the first time in their history. They are managed by Carl Hoefkens, a 44-year-old former Stoke City and West Bromwich Albion defender, and his attack-minded approach would appear to be the underlying theme for those clubs who have shone and will be in the pot for Monday’s draw.

-The Times

Originally published as Champions League 2022: Barcelona fail to keep up with the frugal neighbours