Champions League winners and losers

Champions League winners and losers

Winners

Monaco
On July 27, Monaco lost 2-1 at Fenerbahce in the first leg of their Champions League third qualifying round. Having finished 31 points behind Paris St Germain in 2015/16 and having little chance of challenging this season, their campaign was in danger of underwhelming before August.

Since then, Monaco have played eight Champions League games, winning six and drawing two. Not only are they unbeaten in the competition, but are one of only four teams to secure top spot in their group before the final round of games. Leonardo Jardim’s side have achieved this with a verve and swagger that accounts for any deficiencies in defence. In Thomas Lemar, Bernardo Silva, Tiemoué Bakayoko and Fabinho they have a seriously impressive midfield comprised of players aged 23 or under.

The current group position of each of the eight fourth seeds this season: 4th, 4th, 4th, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 1st. One of these things is not like the other.

FK Rostov
Leicester City ruined the chance of any other football underdog story gaining column inches in 2016, but the small club from Rostov-On-Don deserve almost as much praise. Last season, FK Rostov overcame cataclysmic financial problems to finish second in the Russian Premier League and qualify for the Champions League, having survived relegation via a play-off the previous season.

Rostov’s debut European campaign has predictably been far more difficult than Leicester’s, but on Wednesday evening they earned the most famous victory in the club’s history. This was Europe’s 114th-ranked club beating No. 2 on that list. In doing so, Rostov gave themselves a chance of qualification for the Europa League knock-out stages. A draw in Eindhoven will be enough.

Leicester City
They were our early winners. Every bloody one of them. As the final line says, just imagine telling a Leicester supporter two years ago that the King Power Stadium would be hosting Champions League knock-out football. Sometimes it’s worth taking a step back to appreciate the enormity of the achievement.

Besiktas
After 55 minutes of their home game against Benfica, Besiktas were three goals down and in third place in Group B, two points behind Napoli and four behind their opponents. Their astonishing second-half comeback means that victory in Kiev will be enough to see Besiktas qualify from the group stage for the first time in their history. 

Dynamo Kiev
Dynamo Kiev’s run of games without a Champions League win has been stretched to seven, but Sergiy Rebrov’s team finally enjoyed a positive result in Naples. Sadly a case of too little, far too late.

Ousmane Dembele
He’s 19 years old and coping with leaving his home country to move to a new league, so you’d forgive Ousmane Dembele for taking his time to settle at Borussia Dortm…okay, forget that. In just over 1,000 Bundesliga and Champions League minutes, he has nine assists and three goals.

Of the 441 players to have started more than one game in this season’s Champions League, only six are younger than Dembele. It is not enough to say that Dortmund have a star on their hands; they have the most exciting young talent in world football. And the Dembele of the week.

Yannick Ferreira Carrasco
I’ve watched this 14 times, and I’m still sure that Carrasco magics a third leg to perform the skill. Which must be cheating.

Carrasco caught a body pic.twitter.com/5tXLZsSpkR

— Zito (@_Zeets) November 23, 2016

Manchester City
Winners for confirming their qualification from a group that screamed banana skin, losers because there is plenty more improving to be done if Pep Guardiola is to match Manuel Pellegrini’s semi-final achievement of last season. Now’s the time to pray for a favourable draw. At least they can’t get Barcelona until the quarters.

Hugo Lloris
How many teams in Europe boast their goalkeeper as their best player? ‘Not many’ is my unhelpfully vague but probably quite accurate answer. Tottenham’s Champions League campaign was disastrous enough, but without Lloris’ safe hands it would have been humiliating. Does one of the top five goalkeepers in the world really want to be battling every season to participate in the Champions League group stage?

Legia Warsaw
The only away team to score four times in the Westfalenstadion since February 2013. One of only three teams to score three goals against Real Madrid in the last 12 months. It truly has been a bonkers Champions League campaign for Legia.

Juventus
After the draw at home to Sevilla in September, Juventus looked to have carelessly passed up the opportunity to top their Champions League group. On Tuesday evening, they more than made amends. No team will want to face Massimo Allegri’s team in the next round.

Ricardo Quaresma
Oh Ricky you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind.

Olha a assistência do Quaresma… pic.twitter.com/woJsG7NOLy

— Futmais (@futmai5) November 23, 2016

Shinji Okazaki
In a list of 100 things I love about modern football, Shinji Okazaki’s smile would comfortably break into the top 30.

Cenk Tosun
Woof!

GOL!!! Incredible strike from Cenk Tosun! One of the finest volleys you will see this season 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/CAOQJ1OkB1

— Turkish Football (@Turkish_Futbol1) November 23, 2016

Losers

Tottenham
Dross. Utter dross. And I said so here. Never let it be said that I repeat myself. This time.

Mauricio Pochettino
I wrote plenty enough scathing words about Tottenham’s Champions League campaign on Tuesday evening, but it’s worth lingering on just how depressing Mauricio Pochettino’s team selection was for the defeat against Monaco. There are plenty of things that get football supporters’ knickers in a twist unnecessarily, but players rested in a competition in favour of a game at the weekend which will help decide whether your team qualifies for that same competition provokes justified anger. If the complexity of that last sentence doesn’t give you a migraine, Pochettino’s logic should.

The decision to leave Jan Vertonghen on the bench ahead of the trip to Chelsea reveals plenty about the psychological damage done by the draw in the same fixture in May. To play with a central defence of Kevin Wimmer and Eric Dier when Vertonghen was available backfired spectacularly and Pochettino must take that blame.

This week, Danny Rose spoke about the mood in the camp after that 2-2 draw:

“The feeling after the Chelsea game last season is one that I never want to feel again. There were people upset, crying in the changing room after that game. It’s a feeling that we never want to feel again as a football club. I hope everyone has learned from that and we are going to try and push on this season.

“If we don’t win, it looks like we are out of the Champions League. We have worked so hard for years and years to get this opportunity. We know if we don’t win on Tuesday then we are more or less out of the competition so the manager will put out a strong team, I am sure, and we will go out to win that and then again on Saturday against Chelsea.”

As FourFourTwo’s James Maw tweeted on Tuesday evening, obsessing over a league game against Chelsea in November because you completely lost your discipline five months earlier is ludicrous, but even more so when it cost them their progress. A young squad will takes its lead from its manager. That has worked in Pochettino’s favour for much of the last two years but, on Tuesday, it contributed to their defeat.

Granit Xhaka
I know we live in a footballing age where transfer fees hardly matter, but that doesn’t make them immune to questioning. When Arsenal made Granit Xhaka one of the most expensive central midfielders of all time, supporters hoped that they finally had the answer to a question plenty were getting fed up of asking.

Xhaka’s legacy at Arsenal will not be decided by his first four months in England, but it’s certainly true that he’s already playing catch-up. Of Arsenal’s 19 matches this season, Xhaka has started only eight. That’s five fewer than Francis Coquelin. Upgrade has become understudy.

It’s hard to know quite what Xhaka has done wrong. Before the north London derby earlier this month, Arsene Wenger spoke of his concern that his midfielder’s aggression might boil over in such a heightened atmosphere.

“I’m a bit concerned yes because the discipline is important,” Wenger said. “He’s quite normally a composed and calm guy – sometimes he has a reaction that is a bit impulsive. He has to work on that and keep control of his reactions in the game.”

Xhaka’s response was to produce a man-of-the-match display during which he not only kept his temper in check but failed to even concede a foul – 14 other players in that game did. Wenger’s reaction to that performance was to leave Xhaka on the bench for both Arsenal’s next two games. Arsenal fans have not taken kindly to that, and you can see their point. Arsenal’s record when he starts is six victories and two draws. They have conceded six goals across those fixtures.

Xhaka’s place on the fringes of the first team is particularly odd given Wenger’s usual treatment of his expensive purchases. The other members of the top four (Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil and Shkodran Mustafi) have each been in the starting line-up from day one and never lost their places. 

Whatever the reason, Xhaka is unlikely to be content with being the third option in central midfield. If the injury to Santi Cazorla created an unexpected gap, Xhaka has not been the beneficiary of another’s misfortune. You suspect that he did not envisage being Coquelin’s back-up.

Arsenal
Some of the reports on Arsenal’s draw with Paris St Germain on Wednesday praised Arsene Wenger’s team for their resilience in holding on for a 2-2 draw despite being outplayed for large periods at the Emirates Stadium. That’s all very well, but counts for sod all when that result was a virtual defeat. Having beaten Ludogorets 6-0 in October, Arsenal are left hoping that the Bulgarians get an unlikely point in Paris. Don’t waste your time worrying on that one.

This was Arsenal’s big chance, and they blew it again. Having been gifted several second chances by Edinson Cavani’s profligacy in the return fixture, victory would have been enough for Arsenal to top their Champions League group for the first time since 2011/12. As the final whistle blew, you could pencil in PSG’s name on the end of a list that includes Schalke, Borussia Dortmund (twice) and Bayern Munich. At least it’s not another German team pushing Arsenal into second place.

The most galling thing for Arsenal supporters is that their team did respond to adversity, rebuilding after Cavani’s early goal to take command of the match and thus the group. Rather than close out the game, Arsenal were guilty of leaving a marker free in the box. A lack of communication between Alex Iwobi and David Ospina did the rest. Their defending across both games against PSG has been poor.

The mitigation to the disappointment is that finishing top of the group may be just as likely to end in tough last-16 assignment as ending in second. Yet that should not absolve Arsenal of the questions that Wenger himself pondered post-game (and Matt Stead did too).

“We have not lost, but we have lost a winning momentum a little bit but we played against a good team,” Wenger said. “Sometimes you go through spells when you win a bit less. But we have to continue without losing and transform draws into wins. There’s no reason to panic.”

Wenger is right on avoiding panic, but let’s not pretend this was anything other than bitterly disappointing end. “I think we are ready to compete,” he said on Tuesday. “I feel that the English clubs are closer again. We saw Man City winning against Barcelona. We have an opportunity to show it against Paris Saint Germain.”

And that opportunity was spurned. Having been given the chance to prove themselves against the best Ligue Un has to offer, Arsenal fell short. Even the most optimistic of supporters could not pretend that they merited victory in either game. Cue Barcelona in the last 16?

Basel
A 15-point lead after only 15 games of their domestic league campaign, and two defeats in all domestic competitions the last 12 months, but Basel have truly stunk the place out in the Champions League. To take only two points off the Bulgarian champions should leave anyone with some serious Ludo-regrets.

Benfica
The first team to blow a three-goal lead in a Champions League game since Arsenal against Anderlecht in November 2014. That cost Arsenal first place in their group; only victory over Napoli will ensure that Benfica avoid the same fate.

Celtic
Celtic were always likely to finish fourth in Group C, but that doesn’t change the mood when predictions of disappointment are subsequently realised. Outside of a good half-hour against Borussia Monchengladbach and a good hour against Manchester City, Brendan Rodgers’ team barely even flattered to deceive. Only Dinamo Zagreb have had fewer shots on target than Celtic’s 11.

Napoli
Another chance spurned. Napoli won both of their Champions League matches before Arkadiusz Milik’s serious injury on international duty, and have drawn two and lost the other since. They must surely avoid defeat at Benfica in a fortnight’s time to avoid slipping down into third place.

Edinson Cavani
I really hope that Edinson Cavani is brilliant in all the games I don’t watch him play. In two matches against Arsenal this season, the Uruguayan has had 11 shots, scored twice, but been solely responsible for Paris St Germain not winning both games. Of his 22 shots in the entire group stage, only seven have been on target.

Carlo Ancelotti
He was our early loser, for enduring as many defeats in his first four months as Pep Guardiola did in his first ten. For the first time in a while, Bayern are in a spot of bother.

Porto
For a more detailed review of Porto’s failings you should read this tremendous piece by Andy Brassell, but this really is a club living in the shadow of its former self. Having not won the Primera Liga for three years, they are in danger of being eliminated from the group stage for the third consecutive season having been given the easiest possible opponents. In five games against Copenhagen, Club Brugge and Club Brugge, Porto have scored four goals.

Legia Warsaw
They have already equalled the worst-ever defensive record in Champions League history, level with BATE Borisov in 2014/15, and there’s still a game to go. That’s not pretty.

Franco Vazquez
Just as it looked like Sevilla might beat Juventus and take hold of top spot in their Champions League group, two yellow cards in five minutes cost them dear. Silly boy.

Kevin Wimmer
The Wimmer doesn’t take it all, as it happens. He’s just not good enough.

Daniel Storey – Please help us out and vote for Daniel in the FSF Writer of the Year award.