Reds to retain Euro crown? Don't bet on it - The Jewish Chronicle

Next week, Manchester United will recommence their quest to be the first team to retain the modern Champions League. Do not bet on it happening.

Usually, this column is not a natural resource for sports tips. Indeed, if it were, the reader might ask why a man claiming to have such a lucrative inside track at the bookmakers was still finding it necessary to write columns for the JC. And the reader would have a point. So, disclaimer over, here goes: if the past four years of Champions League competition are any indication, the only wager worth having next week is one that favours Inter Milan to progress at United’s expense.

Not because the Italians are a better side. Not because Zlatan Ibrahimovic is superior to Cristiano Ronaldo, as Jose Mourinho, his coach, mischievously suggested last week, and not because Manchester United have tired of global domination. More significantly, they will have been tired by it: as were the four previous champions of Europe.

It barely matters who United play now. The sheer physical exertion of winning the toughest club competition in the world has done for the last four Champions at the second round stage the next season. Porto, Liverpool, Barcelona and AC Milan all went out in the last 16, and not to teams that were anywhere near as strong as Mourinho’s Inter Milan.

Porto lost to a considerably weaker Inter team in 2005, Liverpool were beaten by the very ordinary Benfica, Barcelona were knocked out by Liverpool, beaten finalists that year but a disappointment domestically, while AC Milan were outplayed by basically the same Arsenal side that has been displaced from the top four by Aston Villa.

It is not a matter of sated ambition either because beaten finalists — whose hunger would be all-consuming — fare little better. So, no lavish doubles on Chelsea to overcome Juventus, either.

The fact is: winning the Champions League is too tough. That is why it has not been won by a team in consecutive campaigns when under the old format, the European Cup was retained on 13 occasions in 35 years.

Forget talk of group stage mismatches and the strength of the Premier League elite. The Champions League is a marathon and all but a handful of the 13 games are gruelling tests of stamina and excellence.

Think how Chelsea were made to battle in their group, or how exhausting physically and mentally the knock-out stages were last year. South America’s Copa Libertadores does not compare. Last season’s winners, Liga de Quito of Ecuador gave Manchester United less of a game in the World Club Cup in Tokyo than they got from Stoke City on their return. From United’s perspective, an unlucky pairing doesn’t help. Inter Milan contrived to finish two points shy of Panathinaikos and were a dangerous random factor when the draw was made.

Last year, no English club was eliminated from the Champions League by a foreign opponent and it led to calls for legislation to curb the power of the world’s richest league. This season could be very different and a strong English presence in the quarter-finals would be a huge achievement. United and Chelsea may be exhausted, Liverpool face a tough task at Real Madrid and Arsenal are in unconvincing form. Retain it? This year the Premier League might even be Europe’s second round wipe-outs.