This article has been updated after Dortmund beat Paris Saint-Germain to reach the Champions League final
Following the Champions League quarter-final draw, a graphic of the bracket circulated on social media, prompting a question that has been simmering for a few years.
Has the Champions League become boring?
Since 2006, Europe’s premier tournament has been won by one of its biggest clubs. In the last 10 years, Real Madrid have won five and Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Barcelona have won one each — all sides who have won the tournament before and frequently reach the tournament’s final eight. Even Manchester City, who could not get over the line in Europe despite arguably being the best team in the world since Pep Guardiola’s second year in charge, put pay to any suspicions of a Champions League hoodoo by lifting the trophy last season.
With that, the most interesting story in the upper tier of European football reached its dramatic conclusion.
This year, four of the top five European leagues were represented at the quarter-final stage: three from Spain, two from England, two from Germany and one from France. Of the last 10 winners, only Liverpool and Chelsea did not reach this stage, having not even qualified for the tournament.
You might argue there’s no room for an unlikely fairytale story at this level, but we all love to get behind an underdog.
That’s one of several reasons Borussia Dortmund winning the Champions League final would be a great outcome for the season.
OK, so it is not like they haven’t been there before. This is more like when Jose Mourinho led Porto to victory in 2004 after winning the UEFA Cup in 2003 than Greece winning the European Championship. Dortmund are regulars in the knockout stages of the Champions League and won the tournament in 1997 before reaching the final again in 2013 — but of this season’s eight quarter-finalists, they were ranked the least likely to win by most British bookmakers.
If a genuine underdog is to lift the famous ‘big ears’ trophy again, this might be the final chance.
As The Athletic’s Michael Cox pointed out in February, two things are required for an outsider to win a major football tournament. First, the outsiders themselves need to be better than usual and second, the bigger sides must be weaker. Strangely, Dortmund are at their lowest ebb domestically in at least five years.
After a strong campaign last season, during which they lost the league title on the final day, Dortmund sold their star player Jude Bellingham to Real Madrid, and there does not appear to be another young player of his calibre waiting to replace him. They have muddled their way through the league season and sit fifth in the table, way ahead of Frankfurt in sixth but more than 20 points behind winners Bayer Leverkusen.
Jude Bellingham after Dortmund finished second in the Bundesliga behind Bayern Munich last year (Alex Grimm/Getty Images)
Thanks to the performances of German teams in Europe this season, including their own, fifth will be enough to enter Europe’s premier tournament next season, but Dortmund’s domestic form has not been convincing. Gone are the days of superstars in the Ruhr; this is more a mashup of fading club legends and castoffs.
The second point of Michael Cox’s piece — that the bigger sides must be weaker — rings true. Real Madrid are a titan in the latter stages of the Champions League, and they have just secured another La Liga title, but they, too, are in comparative transition. Without an elite striker, Bellingham often plays at the point of Carlo Ancelotti’s attack, and his stellar goalscoring run before the turn of the year has slowed recently. Luka Modric, the only Ballon d’Or holder currently playing in Europe, is 38 and not a regular starter.
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Madrid have an air of inevitability in this tournament, but their second-leg performance against City in the quarter-finals, where they faced 33 shots and were fortunate to progress via a penalty shootout, demonstrated they are not as formidable as they were in their three-peat era headed (figuratively and literally) by Cristiano Ronaldo.
Bayern are Dortmund’s perennial older brother in German football, but they lost their first league title in 11 years to Bayer Leverkusen this year, and their head coach, Thomas Tuchel, is departing at the end of the season. They have also failed in attempts to appoint Unai Emery and Ralf Rangnick to replace him.
For Dortmund supporters, who are among the best in Europe and have watched so many of their best players depart the Westfalenstadion for Munich in recent years, this could be the retribution they crave. It will vindicate Marco Reus, one of modern football’s unluckiest men, who stayed put in Dortmund while his star team-mates won trophies elsewhere. After 12 years, he will leave Dortmund at the end of the season, just after his 35th birthday.
Paris Saint-Germain, beaten by Dortmund in the semi-final, should be a synonym for chaos. They have football’s best player, but dysfunction and controversy are never more than a defeat away.
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That Dortmund have reached the final with their weakest side in years is all the more impressive. In defence, they are marshalled by an ageing Mats Hummels, 35, who left for Bayern in 2016 and then returned in 2019, having collected three league titles at Dortmund’s expense. He scored in the second leg to seal a 2-0 aggregate victory. To Hummels’ left is Ian Maatsen, who joined on loan in January after struggling for game time at Chelsea. His parent side are not in any European competition this season and are trying to climb the Premier League to qualify for Europe next season.
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In attack is Jadon Sancho, once considered one of the brightest young talents in Europe at Dortmund before a disastrous spell at Manchester United. He looked reborn in the first leg. Ahead of him is Niclas Fullkrug, who had to work his way through the divisions in Germany before a stellar season for strugglers Werder Bremen earned him a move to Dortmund last summer. His fine goal at the Westfalenstadion gave Dortmund their advantage going into the second leg in Paris.
Isn’t the image of Erik ten Hag and Mauricio Pochettino watching from their sofas as Sancho and Maatsen line up together in a Champions League final at least a bit funny?
To make it more palatable for Chelsea supporters, imagine Dortmund haunting Tottenham legend Harry Kane by beating Bayern in the final and extending his wait for a trophy.
Or, some of you might take pleasure in Bellingham, England’s golden boy, leaving Dortmund only to lose to them in the Champions League final the following year.
No one is saying you should think these terrible thoughts, but Dortmund beating PSG (and ruining Kylian Mbappe’s send-off) and going on to win the tournament offers something for everyone.
Unless you support Dortmund’s fierce rivals Schalke, of course.
(Top photo: Hendrik Deckers/Borussia Dortmund via Getty Images)