Biggest surprise in the renewed Champions League? Eliteclubs Real, Juve, Bayern, PSG and City still have to work full in February

It is the promises of the European top football that it can show it this January found. The 19-year-old PSV midfielder Tygo Land makes, with its fine passing, a great basic debut against Liverpool FC. Where his peer, the Liverpool -born striker Jayden Danns, is standing out with his technique and physical strength.

It is nice to see PSV coach Peter Bosz and Liverpool manager Arne Slot, two of the most progressive trainers in the Netherlands, at work a few meters apart. Bosz often the arms over each other, lock his hands relax in his pockets. Their progressive attacking playing method is unmistakably visible, which translates into an open, attractive duel.

The class can be seen at PSV striker Johan Bakayoko. The tranquility in his hood movement, then the placed shot in the far corner at the 1-1 halfway through the first half. Just as the finish of Ismael Saibari is beautiful at the 2-2 shortly before half-time.

But there is also a lot missing, Wednesday evening at PSV-Livelpool (3-2). Rarely is the tension of a classic ‘big’ European evening felt in the Philips Stadium. The high back numbers at Liverpool’s basic players – from 62 (the goalkeeper) to 84 (the right back) – tell the story of the many absent stars. With attacker Cody Gakpo-maker of the 0-1, from a penalty kick-the last regular basic player disappears five minutes after the break. Bosz also gives a few determining players with Luuk de Jong and Jerdy Schouten.

The enthusiasm among family members for competition tickets dropped when Slot said she would travel to Eindhoven with a thinned selection, he said on Tuesday. His team was already certain of the first or second place in the group stage, so this was a good time to save basic forces.

Where PSV could hardly go wrong the so -called intermediate round – in which teams are linked to each other in the group stage. On the one hand, PSV-Liverpool brought one of the most surprising results of the evening, but it was at the same time a refined practice game.

Meaningless competitions

It is precisely this kind of situations that UEFA wanted to prevent in the new Champions League setup. Every European match had to matter, said Football Affairs Director Giorgio Marchetti when he explained that new format last March. Something that was not always the case in the old design. There clubs played in groups of four: six games, two against each opponent. If the differences between group members were great, it could be that after four rounds it was already clear who went on and who did not. That yielded “meaningless and useless competitions”.

By throwing all 36 participants in one large group, UEFA hoped to tackle that. Everyone had to become each other’s competitor, and the eighth and last day of play the most exciting of all. A spectacular denouement, in eighteen European stadiums at the same time, “where every score and every goal has consequences for the final score” and “every team has something to fight”.

Wednesday January 29 had to be that day. That such a climax would not go everywhere for a long time was already clear before the last round. If only because after seven games, nine clubs (a quarter) no longer have a view of the next round.

And with duels such as Sturm Graz – RB Leipzig and Young Boys – Red Ster, in addition to the win premium, was at most the honor at stake. At Bayer Leverkusen – Sparta Praag and Bayern Munich – Slovan Bratislava, only the home clubs are still concerned about the ranking.

That is not bad: the last group evening of the Champions League still has a lot to offer. Perhaps so much that it is impossible to follow it all well. On television, Ziggo Sport shifts from one goal to another, but it is nevertheless impossible to see the impact of that one result in Stuttgart, Zagreb or Barcelona is on the whole.

Only a handful of competitions can be followed in itself, because the outcome is not influenced by the results on three or four other fields.

Losc Lille against Feyenoord, for example, two teams that both still have a chance to win a place in the top eight. Or Stuttgart against PSG, two teams that both still need points to get the interim round.

In Manchester, the stars of City have to win Club Brugge to be able to continue in the Champions League. It is a competition that, despite the enormous interests, approached City coach Pep Guardiola ‘very relaxed, without emotion’, he says in advance.

Discharge at Guardiola

A stunt appears to be on the way. Bruges plays extremely defensively, but after more than forty minutes through a quick outbreak against the relationships take the lead. As also a surprise in Zagreb: for Dynamo, the intermediate round seemed virtually unfeasible, but because the club leads 1-0 against AC Milan and competitor Sporting Portugal, Dynamo is briefly 23rd in the group. The first 24 will continue.

Yet it is not an evening of stunts, unlike the continuous flow of highlights sometimes suggests. At the end of the evening, Sporting equals the Portuguese dynamo again.

The most surprising is that superpowers Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain have to qualify for the eighth finals via the interim round. The interim round is subtly the UEFA knockout phase mentioned, but is in fact an extra dividing line between the group phase and the final phase of the tournament.

There is another elite club that has to travel this route: Manchester City knows how to turn the backlog in just ten minutes. Shortly after the break, Mateo Kovačić can steam and score unprecedently from his own half, shortly thereafter a hard cross from Joško Gvardiol ends up via the leg of a defender in the Bruges goal. Rest and relaxation is not noticeable with trainer Guardiola. Out of pure discharge, he kicks a crate full of water bottles twice. City wins 3-1 and therefore barely continues-as 22nd.

Feyenoord, one of the most unpredictable teams in this new format, shows its changeable side again. Half an hour the club has a good result, until first striker Santiago Giménez and then goalkeeper Justin Bijlow injured the field. Without those two determining players, Feyenoord in Lille, a week after the power tour against Bayern (3-0 win), will be completely overflowing: 6-1.

Lille, in the French league fifth at a great distance from PSG, qualifies as number seven immediately for the eighth finals. Aston Villa, the ambitious Premier League club that qualified for the first time for the ‘modern’ Champions League (since 1992) is also surprising. Villa can also skip the intermediate round as number eight.

Late in the evening in Eindhoven, Bosz and Slot in the corridor already speak about the continuation of the Dutch clubs in the Champions League. After eight rounds, Feyenoord and PSV await the interim in February. In the draw, which takes place on Friday, there are only two options for PSV: Juventus or Feyenoord. Slot: “How are it possible, you would almost say.”

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