The Champions League proper is back, following the thrills and spills of Arsenal nearly succumbing to Udinese - the group stage and the smorgasborg of 16 games over 2 nights featuring the stars of world and European football. However, whereas the Champions League was a unique idea when it originated in 1992/93, now we have a mish-mash of superior teams mixed with teams who although champions they are not up to standard.
And due to the UEFA co-efficients and rankings and pot seedings, you get some dynamic groups. You need only look at Manchester City's group of death with Bayern Munich, Napoli and Villarreal and then compare it with their city neighbour's snore-fest of Benfica, Basle and Gelati (of Romania, if you did not know).
United are far and away the strongest English side with the largest depth available and yet Alex Ferguson had some problems following an international week and a PL fixture on Saturday evening. He made numerous changes, gave David de Gea a much needed 'rest', Ashley Young is tired and he is still without his trusted central defensive pairing of Ferdinand and Vidic.
United played a 4-3-3 of Lindegaard; Rafael, Evans, Smalling, Evra; Valencia,Fletcher, Carrick; Park, Giggs,Rooney. This side was deceptive, by flooding the midfield and picking Fletcher and Carrick, Ferguson hoped to nullify the emotional Benfica side that would be propelled by the passionate home support. Giggs played off of Rooney who was very much mute all evening, Valencia rarely ventured forward and posed an attacking threat, whilst Park had to do a lot more defending than envisaged.
The team smacked of negativity, and yet Ferguson will believe he got a lot out of the game. Players gained match minutes and if injuries do not clear then they can be called upon for the Chelsea game on Sunday, yet he must have a few questions. What kind of statement does this performance give to the rest of Europe? Contemporaries Bayern Munich and Real Madrid were both away from home and were dominant against lesser opposition, the difference being those two teams have harder groups. United should top their group and will do with 3 home wins; and oddly the Champions League offers Ferguson a chance to utilise his squad options yet but for the weak finishing of Benfica's Nolito in the closing stages the campaign might have gotten off to the worst start.
This complacency might haunt several teams, as it did Barcelona on Tuesday night when they did all the hard work against AC Milan coming back from a goal down to lead 2-1 gain 75% possession and yet concede a late set-piece goal which could be the difference between topping the group and coming second. Barcelona have injury issues themselves - the first choice centre backs Pique and Puyol were out so Guardiola employed Mascherano and Busquets in central defence, and this lack of cohesion led to Alexandre Pato scoring after just 30 seconds. Possession led to dominance and Barca had the lead after 50 minutes, yet they could not find the crucial third, as long as the score remained a goal difference Milan must have believed in one more chance. It arrived in injury time from a corner by Seedorf met by Thiago Silva whose bullet header flew past Valdes who had the whole goal to protect with no markers on the goalposts. That to me smacks of complacency, the last minute at home and you don't defend as if it is your last, The header went to the far post the most obvious post to cover from this specific set-piece.
Luckily, Barca and AC Milan are in a weak group with Bate and Plzen (yep, me neither) providing little opposition to these superior powers.
And that is the problem with the UCL, the group stage is deliberate in keeping all the super-powers apart until the knockout stages in February begin allowing them all a thick slice of television money. Unfortunately, certain big times may not actually start playing their strongest sides until they meet a team they believe to be their equal.
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