Champions League final: Real Madrid as plucky underdogs shows how broken football is
Paul Macdonald
- Updated: 26 May 2022 14:13 BST
- 4 min read
It takes a truly warped situation to make the entire football world see Real Madrid as an underdog and to root for their success in the Champions League, but that’s the environment we’re now in.
The Champions League hasn’t delivered excitement this season - Real Madrid have. Their exploits will be the only highlights package necessary when 2021/22 is said and done and that’s a stark indication of where the competition is heading.
The 13-time winners of the competition, so clearly the most dominant side in the tournament’s history, transformed into plucky underdogs by the nature of the Premier League’s financial chasm to the rest.
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Finalists Liverpool and beaten semi-finalists Manchester City reached their position of power, as the two most complete sides in the world, in very different ways; one strategised, the other spent money, then strategised. But it’s not a coincidence that in the league with all the money, the element of doubt is removed from much of the drama.
We were minutes away from the third all-Premier League Champions League final in four years. Yes, it didn’t happen, but that fact simply clouds the inescapable future of the competition, one dominated by English clubs away with money, while established names fight as the David to their Goliath.
European football's future is bleak
Just look at the landscape. In France, PSG’s future is uncertain after Qatar hosts the 2022 World Cup and, in any event, their model doesn’t look capable of being cogent enough to win this competition.
In Germany, Bayern face a situation where they are untouchable domestically, but unable to match unfeasible Premier League salaries in order to compete on that level, while Dortmund do business smartly but their players are transient, utilising the stepping stone to where they truly want to be.
In Italy, Juventus gambled their future on Cristiano Ronaldo and ultimately failed, and while Inter and Milan are somewhat rejuvenated, it’s all relative - their total squad values are worth about two Jack Grealishes, respectively.
And in Spain, Barcelona’s current predicament is well known; they can talk positively and sell the heirlooms such as the sacred stadium naming rights, but that only helps to right some of the previous financial wrongs. They are operating in a post-Messi world and their return to the top will take far longer than they imagine it will. Atletico Madrid feel like they are reaching the end of a cycle, leaving Real Madrid as the sole European challenger able to take on the Big, Bad, Premier League.
The Champions League is broken
It’s not a xenophobic battle against English clubs, but rather a desire to keep the competition inherently a European one, and merely not an additional play-off involving the best teams in England, as it is increasingly shaping up to be.
The group stage is already a total procession, one that can be easily avoided as the seeded teams are grouped apart and they win games so early they can field their B teams later. Add in the extension of this group stage - which is in place from 2024 - and you can have more meaningless games in the build-up to the inevitable English language battle.
And the size of the financial chasm is now so vast, it’s extraordinarily difficult to see a switch in direction. It’s been noted by statisticians on numerous occasions that the clubs with the highest wage bills are the ones that achieve the most success. These teams will almost always reside in England now, with Real Madrid likely to be the notable exception.
Real Madrid, quite literally of the establishment, redrawn as inferior in the face of inflated wealth.
And so to all those who feel that the competition is not broken and does not need to be changed, and how this season highlights that; Benzema and Real Madrid have provided a nice sheet of paper to sit over European football’s cracks, to the point where cheering for Los Blancos - against City in the semis and again in Saturday's final against Liverpool - amounts to a win for the little guy.
If that doesn’t show how the system is broken, what does?
