The week gave us two jewels: an unforgettable one (Manchester City 4 – Real Madrid 3) and another of excellence (Liverpool 2 – Villarreal 0). The fans in the stadium roared, the viewers were in a state of excitement. The Champions we are used to that. The first was a fast-paced, exceptional, extremely clean game that ennobles football and ratifies it as the greatest spectacle in the world. There is no other activity or sport that even comes close. It promised to give the highest level of play and emotion, that fascinating combination that this sport has. And he gave it. Beyond the seven goals, the extreme heat of the actions, the physical dedication and the volcanic climate of the stands must be counted. Also some memorable individual performances such as that of Benzema -once again-, Modric -once again-, De Bruyne -once again-, Vinicius… In case something was missing, the clash of styles: possession and preciousness (City) versus counterattack and pragmatism (Madrid). “It was like a game from 1950″, praised it, for the offensive spirit, the magnificent Caleño journalist Marino Millán. Yes, but with a hundred times more intensity, pressure, speed and aggressiveness. Any matchup from the ’60s would look ridiculous next to such a sensational display of football.
The brilliance of City-Madrid was not an island, week after week the star club tournament prepares us delicious dishes. You expect a great match and you have it. It is the summun. For this reason, in the Win Sports program Conexión, a debate was generated: is the Champions League comparable to the World Cup…? Let’s start from the basis that both competitions are wonderful. Our opinion was that, football-wise, yes, they are comparable, even the Champions League is superior. We talk about the game. For the taster of great football, there are no doubts.
We carried out a survey on Twitter and, out of 1,682 voters, 70.5% responded that the World Cup is more attractive than the European Champions League. The remaining 29.5% answered the other way around. The reality is that there have been quantities of discreet or bad World Cups. The Champions League never disappoints. We feel that a Bayern-Barcelona will be a great match and it is. The same for a Juventus-Atlético de Madrid or an Inter-Manchester United. Almost no game is bad.
“In Europe, without a doubt, the club teams are better than the national teams, in Argentina and Brazil they are not,” says Pablo Nonis, a keen Argentine observer who lives in Tenerife. “The Champions League is as important as the World Cup here.” In addition, the European competition annually allows the confrontation of Germans with English or Spanish, Italians with French or Dutch… The tribal clash keeps expectations high. In a World Cup that happens sporadically.
Obviously, for the English and Spanish, where the leagues are so strong, the World Cup ranks second. And there are places, like in Argentina, where the public is much more a fan of their club than of their national team. Fontanarrosa defined it with his usual genius: “Central is like my old lady, the national team is like my aunt”. For this reason, when the survey/question is made “what do you prefer, that your club win the Libertadores or that the national team be world champions?”, the majority vote for the former.
The World Cup catches because it involves countries, entire nations behind a formation, it has greater universalism, but you don’t see such an extraordinary game. The national teams do not have the assembly of a club team, worked day by day for years. The best coaches in the world (Guardiola, Klopp, Tuchel, Ten Hag, Conte, Ancelotti, Nagelsmann) are in clubs. In turn, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Liverpool, Chelsea, City, Bayern Munich, PSG, Juventus bring together the best talents. Every time a Qualifier or European Championship date arrives, these clubs loan fifteen or twenty players to their different teams, but no team has fifteen or twenty players in Madrid, Barça, PSG or City. Simple example: Zinchenko is the top star in the Ukrainian team, in City he is a worker. Because City is a constellation of English, Belgian, Brazilian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch cracks… The same happens with the other greats in Europe. Almost without exception, all the best ball artists are in Europe. And in the Champions. A team can bring together Salah, Mané and Luis Díaz, a selection no.
Precisely, the World Cup loses Salah, Luis Díaz, perhaps the fabulous winger Andy Robertson, Naby Keita -the four from Liverpool-, Haaland, Mahrez, Alexis Sánchez, Juan Guillermo Cuadrado and Wilmar Barrios, David Alaba, Aubameyang, Verratti, Insigne… The Champions League has them all.
Although there is no way to measure it, due to the number of figures gathered, the longer work time and the quality of the coaches, a club from the greats of Europe should beat any team without too many problems. A selection would not have chances against a team oiled and trained for five years by Guardiola or Klopp.
“The Champions League is the World Cup every year,” says Tito Puccetti, a brilliant colleague and host of the aforementioned television series. The World Cup has the privilege of being expected for four years, with the expectation that this generates. And that all international activity stops for a month to see it, the Champions League doesn’t even need that, during the week, stuck in the middle of dozens of national cup and league matches, Libertadores and others, it magnetizes all the public in the world to see one of these galactic crashes. And the atmosphere that is lived in each duel is fabulous, the stadiums seem to explode. In the Champions League there are fans, in the World Cups, spectators.
Of course, the World Cups involve nationality, the flag, the anthem, topics that reach the soul, but we are talking about the game and, with few exceptions, the World Cup duels do not have the degree of quality or emotion of the Champions, nor the environment .
National team football unites, club football divides, that is another advantage for the World Cups, but Madrid, Barça, Liverpool, Manchester United have hundreds of millions of followers around the world, more than any national team. Speaking of this, it would be good to know the number of viewers in South America last Tuesday, how many this City-Madrid had and how many the seven Libertadores matches played on the same day. Surely there was an abysmal difference in favor of the first, and that is played during working hours in our time zone. The Champions League has managed to universalize sympathy for the big European clubs and that we are more interested in a clash from there than one from here, we must admit it.
With the seven goals of last Tuesday and the 2-0 from Liverpool to Villarreal, the Champions reached a high average of 3 goals per game. The current Libertadores goes for 2.27 and the last World Cup, Russia 2018, reached 2.64.
Of course, when they play the anthem your legs loosen, but in the game itself…
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