It may be the pinnacle of sport – but the Champions League before Christmas is one big disappointment

We’ll all hear the music, feel the sense of occasion… and then watch a series of entirely predictable games. Until the knockout stage that is

Liverpool lift the trophy in Madrid last season (Reuters)

In modern sport, there’s really nothing like the Champions League. Even that famous theme music – based on Handel’s Zadok the Priest – adds to its gravitas. So much history, so much quality, so much drama. We are genuinely talking about the pinnacle of sport, since it is by far the most popular sport, and a competition in it that concentrates the best talent so intensely. Except maybe too intensely.

One of the problems with the modern Champions League is we have to wait until February for all that. There is a select group of about seven to 10 modern super clubs who are so much wealthier than everyone else, hoard so much of the talent, that the group stages are just far too easy for them. It makes most of the first three months of the competition entirely predictable. In that sense, too, there’s really nothing like the Champions League.

It is not just the pinnacle of football, but also the greatest illustration of the problem with its distribution of wealth. It is effectively a two-tiered competition, in a double sense. The fact those clubs are so much richer than the others means far too many of their games this side of Christmas are too easy, something that instantly changes with the sudden death of the knockout rounds. That is when there is peril, there is a set of huge fixtures that really mean something, there is consequence, and therefore exquisite excitement.