Big changes are afoot at some of the biggest clubs in Europe next season and the landscape of the Champions League could be about to change...
The Champions League title has been claimed by Real Madrid - their 11th in all.
The success of Zinedine Zidane's side against their city rivals Atletico delivered a glorious end for Los Blancos but there are plenty of intriguing storylines left for next season...
CAN GUARDIOLA FIX THE AIRPLANE WHILE IT'S FLYING?
Pep Guardiola is not a magician. He could have fooled us from the successes he enjoyed at Barcelona – a club whose culture he transformed totally. However, when expected to deliver the Champions League as Bayern Munich coach – where the structures were perfect and impediments removed as far as possible – he met a brick wall three times at the semi-final stage.
It is tempting to describe Pep’s style of play as looking a little outdated given the recent upturn in fortunes for teams favouring a counter-attacking approach first and foremost. He has learned that the hard way, three times in a row.
It is a major drawback of any footballing philosophy that a game plan can be so decisively outdone by one direct pass over the top of a high line of defence. The type of goal that Antoine Griezmann scored for Atletico Madrid in the semi-final second leg – a dagger of an away goal – has undermined Pep’s fine tuning three years running.
So now he has got to consider that as an existential threat to his entire regime. And, crucially, he has got to do it with a new club who have a chequered history in this competition. There is the weight of history to overcome and a major task at hand.
It is unclear how much contact Pep has enjoyed thus far with Manchester City’s key players but between the end of the Copa America and the European Championship and the kick off of the Champions League play-off round, he’s not going to have long to get acquainted with this team.
Not only that but there will be changes on the playing side. Never before has a side with so much money invested in such a relatively short period of time looked as in need of major reconstructive surgery. Plenty of players are out of contract and plenty simply will not be preferred by Pep. To a core group he must add well in the summer transfer market – an area in which he has not always excelled.
This is the toughest assignment of Guardiola’s coaching career bar none. It’s one thing winning when expected to do so and of course that type of job comes with its own demands. This is another thing altogether. Pep must demonstrate he can fix the airplane while it’s flying.
...AND CAN ANCELOTTI DO WHAT PEP COULDN'T?
There will be no continuation of the Guardiola era at Bayern. Initially signed to give the Bavarians a clear football identity for generations to come – like Johan Cruyff at Barcelona – Guardiola departs after only three years and one contract.
Had Bayern intended to perpetuate the processes put in place by the Pep-ification around the Allianz Arena then a genuine successor could have been sought. Barca went for Tito Vilanova once Pep decided to leave Camp Nou in 2012 – the two men shared a deep connection in their footballing strategies. One continued and worked on the methods of the other.
At Bayern’s great domestic rivals, there was a clear plan in following Jurgen Klopp with Thomas Tuchel. Not only do the two share similar career paths but Tuchel is actively seeking to rework and improve the ideas of his predecessor. Standing on the shoulders of giants, it is called in the scientific realm.
At Bayern, no such case. They have gone for the anti-Pep. Carlo Ancelotti is no ideologue. Guardiola sees a system and works players around it, Ancelotti is exactly the opposite. On day one at Bayern he’ll walk in, assess the troops and put them in a formation that suits their strengths best. Ancelotti is no devotee to Tiki Taka. He is no devotee to any one system of play.
He is first a people person and a coach second. It is this crucial factor that Bayern have now identified as the golden ticket. The Bayern players were left somewhat cold by the relationship they formed with Guardiola, under Ancelotti it will be a warmer affair.
Pep, too, seems to have lost the momentum in the Champions League – losing his last three semi-finals. Ancelotti was a champion as recently as 2014 with Real Madrid and has two more to go along with that one from his AC Milan days. He’s got the knack.
He has added Renato Sanches and Mats Hummels to the Bayern squad for next season and stands a good chance to do what Guardiola couldn’t. Namely, win the Champions League for Bayern.
Congratulations are due to Real Madrid and Zinedine Zidane for their Champions League win at the weekend. It is hard to shake the near certain thought, however, that they are simply not the best team in Europe. That is what the Champions League is about, ultimately, and that is exactly what Real are not.
They were reliant on star quality to bail them out against Wolfsburg – three of Cristiano Ronaldo’s 16 competition goals came in the second leg of that quarter-final tie. They were reliant on the gentlest passage to the Champions League final in recent history. To Wolfsburg we can add the names of Roma and Manchester City – no great shakes.
There were mistakes on the part of the coach Zidane in the final. His disastrous substitutions can be a minor footnote now that the Undecima is secured but that again proved that while the Frenchman is a proper champion of one to one coaching, as a tactician he’s got a lot to learn.
Los Blancos proved that they are unable to sustain a league challenge with Barcelona and Atletico Madrid over 38 matches. That is where the key qualities of consistency and innovation truly kick in.
The Champions League instead is a competition more a hostage to fortune. A cleared ball here, a suspension there can make all the difference. Zidane has done terrific work in unifying a squad following the unpopular and damaging tenure of Rafael Benitez. He gave the players back the confidence and belief that they belonged in the company of Barca.
He is looking less to me however like a six-month coaching prodigy than he is a Roberto Di Matteo figure. The former Italy international galvanised Chelsea and got them over the line in the Champions League but has gone on to enjoy a not so stellar full-time coaching career.
Zidane will be defined as a coach by whether or not he can avoid that pitfall and prove this wasn’t a one-season wonder.
We cannot but be intrigued by the prospect of English champions Leicester City taking part in the Champions League for the first time. They played the Premier League season with a reckless abandon of sorts – enjoying the acclaim as they cruised towards their relegation-defying 40 points before turning to the serious business of clean sheets in the run in.
There was an admirable versatility in what Claudio Ranieri asked his outsiders and an admiration too for the manner in which his players responded. Not many teams worked as hard, collectively, as Leicester and if the lessons of Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid have taught us anything it’s that a strong collective mentality and a rigid defensive resolve can carry a team far even in this rarefied atmosphere.
The summer is young and there might still be the prospect of losing N’Golo Kante, Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy. However, if Ranieri can keep the band together then Leicester will give the Champions League a serious shot.
Football fans fell in love with Leicester for their exploits last season, a story all the world could get behind. Now though Leicester will be the fairy princes no more. They are a threat. It takes a good team to win any title, let alone the Premier League.
And now Ranieri will also have the dilemma of which competition to prioritise. Liverpool came within a whisker of winning the league title in 2014 and then Brendan Rodgers faced criticism for fielding a half team against Real Madrid at Santiago Bernabeu. He clearly felt the league was more important than consistency in Europe.
All eyes now on Ranieri and that select group of players he worked with most often. Do they have the fitness? How will they cope with the travel demands? How will Ranieri rotate? If their league form tails off, will he survive?
This Premier League title win raises as many questions as it answers.
Team from the Spanish Primera Division enjoy about a 90 per cent recent success rate in knockout matches in European football against clubs from other leagues. Before Villarreal’s two-legged defeat to Liverpool in the Europa League semi-finals, Spanish clubs won 47 of 50 knockout ties against foreign teams. Sevilla then went on to eliminate Shakhtar Donetsk and Jurgen Klopp's men to not only avenge but improve that record.
Villarreal were the only La Liga team to be knocked out by a foreign club in Europe this season and if they had overcome Liverpool it would have been a clean sweep of four Liga clubs in two European finals.
Valencia and Sevilla were of course put out of the Champions League at the group stages and that created a unique situation in the Europa League. Athletic Bilbao eliminated Valencia before they themselves were undone by eventual winners Sevilla.
In the Champions League, meanwhile, no Spanish team was eliminated by a foreign team. Barcelona were put out by Atletico Madrid before Real Madrid overcame their city rivals in the final. It is an extreme situation where Spanish teams are more or less the only threat to one another.
The Spanish league was the only one to provide at least three quarter-finalists in each of the two European competitions. It was also the only league to have at least two teams in the semi-finals of each too. There have been five Spanish Champions League victories in eight seasons. Sevilla have won three Europa Leagues in succession. Eight of the last 13 Uefa Cups/ Europa Leagues have been won by Spanish teams.
Spain is so far clear in first place of Uefa’s co-efficient rank of member associations that it would probably take half a decade of underachievement for its league to be overcome. Not only that but in Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Barcelona, Spain boasts three of the best four statistically ranked teams in Europe. Bayern Munich are the other team in that list.
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