Real Madrid face weakened Juve with eyes on the elusive Champions League title repeat
Somebody, sometime, is going to retain the Champions League title. It's been 25 years since AC Milan, under Arrigo Sacchi, were the last team to defend the European Cup and, for the elite, winning two in a row has become a quest. Carlo Ancelotti's Real Madrid has never been spoken of in the same breath as Pep Guardiola's Barcelona or Jupp Heynckes's Bayern Munich but as it faces Juventus in Tuesday's semi-final, the possibility looms that the tenth Champions League title that proved such a struggle to win could be followed a year later by an eleventh.
Under the old European Cup format, dynasties were commonplace: Real Madrid won five in a row; Ajax and Bayern Munich three; Benfica, Internazionale, Liverpool and Nottingham Forest all successfully defended the title. Back then, when only champions and the previous year's winners were admitted, the hardest part about the competition was getting into it. The free draw and knockout format meant teams could often win the trophy by beating only one or two other potential winners.
Now, the last 16 in the tournament regularly features half a dozen potential winners -- and no minnows. Even if the group can sometimes feel like a procession for the giants, every knockout game poses significant threat: as Barcelona found during its period of dominance, it only takes one side to produce an inspired defensive performance and even the very best can be eliminated. Quality is more concentrated and the high table more congested. When the Champions League, which succeeded the European Cup in 1992, finally is retained, it will be a landmark achievement.
For romantics and purists, the hope is that the side that finally does it will be worthy of the honor, a team that defines an age and redefines football in the way that Inter or Ajax did. Real Madrid, perhaps, do not fit that bill. It's an indication of the values of the modern game that Real Madrid could win two Champions Leagues in a row without winning its domestic league in either season: it finished only third in Spain last season and lies two points behind Barcelona at the top this year. Can a team really be the best in Europe if it isn't even the best in Spain?
In a sense the argument is semantic. The European Cup looked to anoint the best in Europe, but even it had anomalous seasons (in 1975, for instance, Bayern won the second of its three successive European Cups while finishing tenth in the Bundesliga). The Champions League is a lucrative competition for the elite -- despite the branding, it hasn't been about determining the "best" of anything since non-champions were admitted in 1997.
There's no such thing as an unworthy winner of the Champions League: the knockout stage it too hard for that. At the same time, though, it's hard to argue that this Real Madrid team is an all-time great. It remains, as it has all season, a collection of expensively assembled and hugely gifted individuals rather than a fluent team. The flow it had through midfield last season with Xabi Alonso and Luka Modric manipulating possession and Angel Di Maria surging forwards to link with Cristiano Ronaldo has been disrupted by the sales of Alonso and Di Maria and Modric's injury problems. Karim Benzema has been out of sorts, while the difficulties of fitting Roanldo and Gareth Bale into the same side remain.
Benzema and Modric will both miss Tuesday's game in Turin against Juventus and with Bale a doubt with a calf injury, it seems likely Real will start with a loose 4-4-2 with Ronaldo partnering Hernandez up front and James and Isco in the wide positions. That has the advantage of moving Ronaldo away from the attacking right-back Stephane Lichtsteiner, who may have been able to take advantage of Ronaldo's reluctance to track in the way Philipp Lahm did for Bayern in the semi-final in 2012. Ronaldo's game, anyway, has changed with age. At 30, he is no longer the dribbler of his youth but has become more of a penalty-box player, an explosive and highly skilled target man, less mobile but no less of a goal threat.
Juventus' injury problems are far worse with Paul Pogba, Kwadwo Asamoah, Romulo, Martin Caceres and Luca Marrone all definitely out and Arturo Vidal struggling with illness. To lose Vidal as well as Pogba would be a major blow to the heart of Juve's midfield and it may be his availability that determines whether Max Alegri sets his side up in the 3-5-2 it has favored for several seasons or the 4-3-1-2 he has introduced recently.
Those are the details, but the bigger picture is the sweep of history and whether, in the sixtieth season of European competition, Real Madrid can become the first side to retain the Champions League title.
