There’s good news and there’s bad news. The bad news first. The 2024/2025 European Champions League’s first phase is complete. This means that if you’re a Liverpool fan or you support one of Europe’s smaller teams that were given an opportunity by the competition’s new format but have failed to progress, your competition is over.
Which brings us to the good news: the quarterfinals roll into action in April. There are four mouth-watering ties. And, with Inter Milan, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), Real Madrid and Barcelona all looking perky as we go into the last eight, it’s anyone’s title.
For this reason, you wouldn’t bet on holders Real keeping their grasp on the cup. There’s too much quality elsewhere, ranging from the industrious Borussia Dortmund to stealthy Inter, who are top of Italy’s Serie A and making a determined blindside run in the Champions League.
And let’s not forget freewheeling Arsenal, the “close but no cigar” title-holders of the English and European game. The Gunners, after all, have done a fine job in the past 20 years of playing attractive, deft football — remember Thierry Henry and Robert Pires? — without bringing home the bacon.
With Henry in the side, they lost 2-1 to Barcelona in the 2005/2006 final at the Stade de France in Paris, the closest they’ve come to becoming European champions in the past 25 years. Might this be their season?
Some think so. In the round of 16, Arsenal gave PSV Eindhoven a 9-3 aggregate drubbing, including defeating the Dutch team 7-1 at home. In that tie, the Gunners were increasingly cheeky, unfurling a series of audacious back-heels and flicks to unlock the ponderous PSV defence.
It was a fluid, fluent performance by Arsenal but it was also a muscular one. Their opening goals against PSV came from a thumping near-post header by Jurriën Timber and a drive from close range by Ethan Nwaneri. Last week Nwaneri was rewarded for his Arsenal form with an England cap.
Yes, Arsenal are saucy. They are also suave and full of style. But are they sufficiently hard to progress beyond the quarters? Do they have the intangibles — will to win, composure, guts — that no-one ever discusses? In a phrase, do they have big match temperament (BMT)?
They will need sauciness and BMT in abundance because they’ve been drawn against Real Madrid in the quarters, with the first leg being played at the Emirates in London. Carlo Ancelotti’s side squeaked past Atletico Madrid on penalties in the round of 16, after having lost the second leg on a single goal following a 2-1 win in the first.
There was harrumphing about Real’s win on penalties because many neutrals felt Atletico deserved more. It wasn’t to be. Atletico are out, Real are in. The rest is carping and bile from Diego Simeone, Atletico’s coach.
Whether we’re talking Vinícius Júnior, Kylian Mbappé or Jude Bellingham, Ancelotti has high-end firepower at his disposal. He also has high-end fire-stopping ability in his Belgian goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, who was strong between the posts against Atletico, not to mention the defensive capabilities of the largely unsung German central defender, Antonio Rüdiger.
Arsenal might not play as well again all season and still not win against Madrid. It’s probably the tie of the round, possibly the tie of the tournament so far. Arsenal’s coach, Mikel Arteta, will have taken heart — and pointers — from Atletico’s second-leg performance against Real and believe he can unpick the Real lock.
Now that Liverpool look set to run away with the English Premiership (at the time of writing, they are 12 points clear of second-placed Arsenal), it is the biggest game of Arsenal captain Martin Ødegaard’s career. It is the biggest game of Arteta’s managerial career too.
It was the Italians, after all, who invented ‘catenaccio’, which means ‘bolting the door tight’
The second spiciest tie of the quarterfinals is Bayern Munich against Inter Milan, a clash of the European heavyweights. Inter are European football’s Scrooges. They conceded only one goal in the first eight matches of the competition’s opening phase, which, in a sense, is no surprise.
It was the Italians, after all, who invented “catenaccio”, which means “bolting the door tight”. Italian football has often been predicated on a miserly defence. Without a Scrooge-like back four, the Italians reason, games cannot be won.
Then again, we need to be careful. Inter’s coach, Simone Inzaghi, tends to favour a three-man defence with five in the midfield anchored around their Turkish captain, Hakan Çalhanoğlu. There are many methods by which to bolt the door.
Inzaghi is the younger brother of the better-known Filippo, who had a bigger professional career and won more European and Italian titles, but has lately come out of his brother’s shadow. Simone served his managerial apprenticeship with Lazio, before becoming Inter’s coach in 2021. He is highly regarded, known for his tactical flexibility and good player management.
So don’t bet against Inter, but there is a caveat: as much as they dislike conceding them, scoring goals might just be a problem.
Scoring goals for Bayern, Inter’s opponents in the last eight, isn’t an issue. This is largely due to Harry Kane, who scored two in the first leg against Bayer Leverkusen (one of them a penalty) and a third in the second leg as Bayern marched to a 5-0 aggregate victory over the two legs in the last 16. “I think we took the moments well,” said Kane after Bayern’s first-leg victory.
The former Spurs forward has transitioned well to European football. His thirst for a goal remains as keen as ever and his decision to give his career a fillip by moving to Munich has been spot on. On the other hand, no-one really knows what to make of Bayern Munich any more.
There was a time when the Bavarians were the aristocrats of the European game
There was a time when the Bavarians were the aristocrats of the European game. Now, with a revolving door of managers — four in the last five seasons (Hansi Flick, anyone? Or Thomas Tuchel?) — they seem to have lost their way. A good way to find out if they’ve regained it would be for Belgian coach Vincent Kompany to steer them into the Champions League semifinals.
In the third of the four quarterfinal ties Barcelona take on Borussia Dortmund, with the first tie at the Camp Nou. Dortmund first, as they were last year’s Champions League’s beaten finalists. Unlike Barcelona — with the peerless Brazilian striker Raphinha in their midst — Dortmund are a feisty bunch of Swiss, German, and Austrian professionals who no-one much knows or cares about other than Dortmund fans themselves.
They went 1-0 down in their second-leg last 16 tie against Lille before scratching out two goals in reply to catapult them through. They’re quick and immensely hard-working, and they know each other well. It was evident against Lille that they wrestled their way back into the match by snapping at Lille’s heels. No-one will relish an encounter with the hustlers of Dortmund.
Dortmund, however, are not all bite. In Serhou Guirassy, who grew up in France but plays his international football for Guinea, they have the competition’s second-highest goal scorer along with Bayern’s Kane. Both are a goal behind Raphinha, who has been hitting the headlines rather than the back of the net recently.
Last week, ahead of Brazil’s World Cup qualifier against Argentina, Raphinha told the world that Brazil would beat their arch-rivals both on and off the pitch. The prematch comments returned to haunt him because Brazil were thumped 4-1. Worse still, Raphinha isn’t 21, he’s 30. You might have thought he’d outgrown such bombast. Clearly not.
The criticism Raphinha received has doubtless stung. The best way to soothe that sting is to do what he does best: score goals. If he can’t do that for Brazil, he can do that for Barcelona in their last eight clash.
Though Barcelona are top of Spain’s La Liga over second-placed Real Madrid, their European form in the past 10 years has gone in a markedly different direction to Real’s. Real have won the Champions League title five times in the past 10 years, Barcelona have won it once. Real are European football royalty, while Barcelona have mislaid their robes. There’s never a bad time to get fully dressed.
In the final tie, Aston Villa, the tournament’s surprise package, play PSG, whose Champions League run last season was ended by Borussia Dortmund. Will Villa set up house in this season’s semis? It’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely.
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