Champions League in Mexico

Yesterday Mexico inaugurated its first female president, so I was off work as the focus was on this historical event. It was thus a good day to watch some Champions League.

There is scant interest for other teams than the Spanish teams in the CL, most of all, obviously, Barcelona and Real Madrid, so the only option to watch in a bar was Barcelona-Young Boys, even though there were so many interesting matches playing simultaneously.

And Barcelona-Young Boys was indeed as boring as expected, as Barcelona cruised to a victory with 5-0, and it comes at a good time after they lost their first match 2-1 to Monaco. That said, with all its crisis, Barcelona is doing great under German Hansi Flick: top of the Spanish League and giving chances to a lot of young promising players appears to be working for now, but is also what Barcelona needs as they are unable to sign super stars. And surely on the long-term it is better for Barcelona (and Spanish football overall) to be promoting so many young players from the outstanding Barcelona youth academy.

The new format of the Champions League is confusing though. As everyone is in a big league, but without everyone playing one another, one cannot study the teams against other teams that you will face, and most annoying for real football fans, adapt the tactics according to other results and new matches in smaller groups. In my personal view it takes away some of the excitement about the planning. As the 8 initial rounds come to an end, the excitement will not be about the top teams, but about the 7th-8th or 23rd-24th, who will snatch the last position for the play-offs. And the top teams will all go through....

 I appear not to be the only one annoyed at the new format. The fans of Borussia Dortmund (a team that incidentally is first in the league after two victories, the latest trashing Celtic 7-1) welcomed the new CL format at home with a huge banner: "UEFA Mafia", protesting against the new format that indeed appears to be a way for UEFA to make more and more money from the ones who love the game.

In Dortmund