It’s a knockout...and more peril will raise the intensity

Those in charge of the Champions League have forgotten what made it special in the first place, writes Miguel Delaney

- Miguel Delaney

There are a lot of elite footballers who still have the Champions League theme as their ringtone, and some will be actively playing it on the way to stadiums. Familiarity hasn’t dulled excitement. It’s fair to say that isn’t really from the relative laboriousness of the group stage, but rather the exquisite energy of the knockouts.

This week is where football history starts to be made, partly because of how visions of glory can be instantly consigned to the past. It is tension and tantalising opportunity all at once. Through that, there’s a distinctive thought, one even more striking than the sense many players will feel this week of stepping out into great stadiums. A good chunk of this season’s stars were children when watching Barcelona’s comeback against Paris Saint-Germain in 2017, the kind of game that made them first realise the unique magic of these nights.

That was obviously the case for Camp Nou’s current talents like Lamine Yamal, Pedri and Gavi but also stars like Jude Bellingham, Jamal Musiala, Ryan Gravenberch and arguably even William Saliba and Bukayo Saka. Such grandeur and mystique is what Uefa and all of football’s major stakeholders at least think they are striving for.

It’s why during this week it’s hard not to wonder what the competition would be like if it started with a straight knockout. There’d certainly be no debate about formats, or victories that seem formalities.