Champions League – where dreams become reality, fantasies become reality and legends are born. Or something like that.
Unless you are Dinamo Zagreb, Red Bull Salzburg, Celtic, Red Star Belgrade, Slovan Bratislava or Young Boys, nightmares become reality and careers are ruined in the Champions League, where fear runs rampant.
Okay, maybe not. that It’s bad, but fans of the above clubs can be forgiven for feeling uneasy when the UEFA national anthem is played on matchday three tonight (Tuesday) and tomorrow.
These are teams accustomed to dominating their domestic leagues and winning 60% or 70% of their league games (up to 84% for Red Star last season) to win titles every year.
Over the last seven domestic seasons, Dinamo, Salzburg, Celtic, Red Star, Slovan and Young Boys have won 38 of the 42 league titles. Dinamo won both Croatian championships, while Red Star did the same. Serbia and the rest of the world have won 6 out of 7 matches.
They are superior in their homeland to the point of being almost boring. Nevertheless, in the opening two rounds of this season’s Champions League, six teams scored 12 goals and gave up a whopping 49 goals. That’s a combined goal difference of -37 over 12 games.
Translating domestic happiness into European success is not easy. Especially when the budget is a fraction of the spending power available at Manchester City, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich.
According to transfer website Transfermarkt, Slovan have spent a total of £2.6 million ($3.4 million) on new signings over the past three seasons, with their squad worth a total of £24 million. The same source records that City have spent £365m over the last three years (which, let’s be honest, feels pretty frugal for City), and their squad is estimated to be worth just over £1bn. So City have spent roughly 139 times more than Slovan since 2022, and their squad is worth 43 times more.
When the two teams faced each other on Matchday 2 three weeks ago, the odds for Slovan to win at home were 40/1. They may have a monopoly on the Slovakian league title but are expected to be no match for City, who have a budget similar to clubs in Ligue 1, the third tier of English football.
“We dreamed that one day the best team in the world, or one of the best, would come (here),” Slovan coach Vladimir Weiss told reporters before the game. But the reality was less romantic. City had 28 shots, scored 4 goals, had 3 shots on target and had an expected goals (xG) figure of 3.8. Slovan had 24% possession and had no shots on target.
“Honestly, it was what we expected,” said Thomas, a Slovakian fan who attended the game. athletic. “Slovan haven’t played in the Champions League for 32 years (they failed to qualify 11 times) and just being there is a huge success.
“When we beat (Danish champions) Midtjylland to qualify (having won the previous three ties in a campaign that started four days before last season ended with the Euro 2024 final on July 14), it was our best performance of last season. That was one of the results. For years it was like a European final for us.
“We then drew against Manchester City, Bayern Munich, AC Milan and Atletico Madrid (out of eight league stage matches). This is a match we haven’t played in many years, so even if we lose, it’s still a big prize. Celtic’s loss (Slovan lost 5-1 in Glasgow on matchday 1) was bad, but even clubs like Celtic have a lot more money than us.
“We have Dinamo (Zagreb) at home (November 5). It’s a game where you can look for a draw or a win, but mostly I want the eight games to be a lesson for the players and owners. “We need to invest the entire TV and stadium into developing the team.”
Slovan has a unique “I’m glad I went” vibe, but that doesn’t apply to all Champions League minnows.
Salzburg, who are set to qualify for next summer’s revamped Club World Cup in the United States after consistently reaching the Champions League group stages in recent years, are adjusting to life under a new manager in Pep Lijnders, Jurgen Klopp’s long-time Liverpool assistant. Perhaps thought of as a kind of dark horse going into the league phase.
Instead, they lost comfortably 3-0 at Sparta Prague, before surprisingly losing 4-0 at home to French newcomers Brest. They are fourth in the Austrian Bundesliga at the start of the season, six points behind leaders Sturm Graz, but with two games remaining.
Pep Lijnders thanks Salzburg fans after defeat in Prague (Michal Cizek/AFP via Getty Images)
“I don’t want to make excuses and I take full responsibility,” Lijnders said at a press conference after the Brest defeat. “This is a group of enough caliber that something like this should not happen. I’m a little worried about that.
“We expected a completely different start to the Champions League, especially in the qualifying stages (we beat FC Twente 5-4 on aggregate and Dynamo Kyiv 3-1). I’m tired of people calling us a young team. There is no excuse. “We have enough quality to win football games in the Champions League.”
Young Boys, whose Swiss Super League ranks at a similar level to the Austrian Bundesliga, also remains atop the 32-team Champions League table after suffering two defeats (3-0 at home, 5-0 at Aston Villa and 5-0 at Aston Villa). I would have expected something better than it did. Barcelona).
Like Salzburg, the Bern club is struggling domestically and sacked summer-appointed coach Patrick Ramen a week after the Barcelona defeat. They are 10th in the 12-team domestic league. A visit from Serie A champions and three-time European Cup/Champions League winners Inter Milan awaits on Wednesday.
Dinamo also parted ways with their manager after suffering one of the biggest defeats in Champions League history in a 9-2 defeat at Bayern last month. Sergej Zakirovic led Dinamo to a Croatian league and cup double in 2023-24, but Bayern’s loss was deemed unacceptable and he left by mutual consent two days later.
The harsh reality of Dinamo Zagreb’s European competition was revealed on Bayern Munich’s scoreboard (Sebastian Widmann/Getty Images)
A 2-2 draw at home to Monaco on the second matchday under new coach Nenad Bjelica suggested the right decision had been made. What’s next? On Wednesday we visit Lijnders and Salzburg.
And then there are the Celts. Unlike many of the teams mentioned above, the Scottish club are regulars in the Champions League and have achieved remarkable feats over the years, beating Barcelona, Juventus, Manchester United and AC Milan (and winning the competition in 1967). But all those wins have come at Celtic Park, backed by one of the loudest atmospheres in European football and could be matched against anyone.
Outside the home, it’s a different story. This season’s competition is a European microcosm of Celtic, who beat Slovan 5-1 at home before being humiliated 7-1 by German side Borussia Dortmund, conceding five goals before half-time. This was the first time an English club had done so. They have won major European competitions since 1997-98. This was their 31st defeat in 37 Champions League group/league stage away games, and in those 37 matches they have conceded a whopping 100 goals.
But manager Brendan Rodgers had no regrets about not changing his team’s approach for the Dortmund game, despite facing familiar criticism in his first game for Celtic. His team lost 7-0 to Barcelona at Camp Nou and 7-1 to Paris Saint-Germain. Or the 6-0 win away to Atletico Madrid in his second spell last season.
“We play in a way that allows us to dominate domestically,” Rodgers said. “We know that at times it will be difficult to do so. But we still have to show what we can do with the ball. Should we sit, camp and wait? No, we won’t do that.”
Things might look different for Celtic supporters who paid thousands of pounds to travel across the continent to see their team win just two of their 37 away Champions League games. You can’t blame Celtic fans for not making the most of their international travel, but if anyone had attended all 37 games, they would have traveled more than 70,000 miles – almost three times around the world – to achieve those two wins.
“I haven’t played that much, but I’ve never seen them win overseas,” said Alasdair, a Celtic season ticket holder. athletic. “There is always a good atmosphere on the road and no one takes for granted the privilege of being able to visit some great cities and stadiums. But this is quite demoralizing.
Celtic fans enjoy a trip to Europe until football kicks off (Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)
“There may be unrealistic expectations at the club that we need to do better, but when you consider our resources compared to the Premier League or the big clubs in Spain, Germany or Italy, we are on a different planet. We will see that the new format will only distort the imbalance further.”
We’re working with an incredibly small sample size after two rounds, but early results from the expanded 36-team ‘league phase’ suggest the scale is tipping even further. We saw scorelines of 9-2, 7-1, 5-0, 5-1 and four 4-0s. After 36 games, this has proven to be one of the most goal-prone editions of the Champions League, with 3.19 per game close to the highest on record (3.24 in 2019-20).
This has been the most one-sided Champions League season to date, with an average winning margin of 2.57 goals, comfortably surpassing the next best winning percentage of 2.37 in 1993-94.
Expanding the competition may dilute quality, but considering they only need around 10 points from eight games to at least reach the knockout rounds of the playoffs, this bigger first step could help teams play more broadly. there is. This is where you can secure a spot in the round of 16.
Expect more as the rich get richer and financial imbalances across Europe increase. And expect fans of the relative Champions League minnows to fear rather than enjoy their continental adventure.
(Top photo: Getty Images)
