Is the natural European order about to be over-turned?

Not so easy for Messi and co this year

Usual

Before the competition started nearly everyone thought that the final stages would be fought out between the usual suspects. The four English clubs, the big two from Spain and maybe Jose Mourinho’s Inter, would battle it out amongst themselves.

This week though saw some surprises and some big names come bouncing back down to earth. Of course, the big guns might still dominate the later stages of the competition but isn’t it great that at the halfway point of qualification, nothing is yet certain.

Difficulties

Arsenal drew at AZ Alkmaar on Tuesday evening. The Dutch club are in serious financial difficulties and at the moment they do not look like challenging for the Erividisie title let alone the champions league. Surely Arsenal should be beating them.

Liverpool not only lost at home to Lyon but were totally out-played for large periods of the game. OK, Lyon are a decent team and as we all know, Liverpool were without Gerrard and Torres, but if Liverpool are serious surely they should still be beating Lyon at Anfield.

Shock

The biggest shock on Tuesday evening came at the Camp Nou where Barcelona were beaten by little known Russian champions Rubin Kazan. With Barcelona also being totally out-played in their La Liga game last weekend as well, maybe the current European champions are not looking quite the world-beaters that they were.

On Wednesday Real Madrid hosted Milan. Now Milan used to be a great side but Leonardho now has a group of very talented but largely past their best players who won’t get a look in this season in the champions league or even Serie A. Real Madrid have spent a fortune and they have made their European ambitions very clear. I accept that they were without Cristiano Ronaldo but he would have done little to repair the familiar defensive frailties that saw Madrid lose.

Ambition

Inter have great ambition but three draws in their first three games is simply not good enough. They are bottom of their group, albeit only one point behind the rest, but with trips to Barcelona and Kiev to come, their qualification is by no means certain. They surely should have done better than draw at home to Dynamo Kiev.

The only two teams from the big group who looked good were Manchester United and Chelsea.

Boring

United put in a typical United away performance in Europe to win 1-0 in Moscow on the plastic pitch. They were effective, efficient, professional…well I’m told they were, I fell asleep well before the end of the very boring spectacle!

Chelsea looked really good in winning 4-0 against Atletico Madrid. Having said that, I think my own Wilton Town team might look quite good against that particulat La Liga outfit at the moment. How poor were Atletico Madrid?

Trophy

So, maybe this is the year for the likes of Bordeaux, Porto, Marseille, Juventus, Fiorentina, Lyon, Sevilla, or even Unirea Urziceni or Rubin Kazan, to lift that famous old trophy. I doubt it, of course, and I wouldn’t look too much further than Barcelona, Manchester United or Chelsea, but it is great for the tournament, great for European football and great for football itself that it is all still possible.

I think this season’s tournament may well be the most interesting we have had for a while.