The grim reality of following a Champions League minnow: ‘We’re on a different planet’

The Champions League – where dreams come true, fantasies become reality and legends are born. Or something like that.

Unless you are Dinamo Zagreb, Red Bull Salzburg, Celtic, Red Star Belgrade, Slovan Bratislava or Young Boys. In that case, the Champions League is the place where fears prevail, nightmares become reality and careers are ruined.

Okay, maybe not That bad, but fans of the aforementioned clubs could be forgiven for feeling anxious when the UEFA anthem plays tonight (Tuesday) and tomorrow during matchday three.

These are teams used to dominating their domestic competitions, winning 60 to 70 percent of their league games year after year (even as high as 84 percent last season for Red Star) to claim title after title.

Over the past seven domestic seasons, Dinamo, Salzburg, Celtic, Red Star, Slovan and Young Boys have won a combined 38 league titles, out of a total of 42. Dinamo have won all those Croatian championships, while Red Star did the same in Serbia and the rest have won six of the available seven.

They are superior in their homeland, almost to the point of boredom. And yet, in their combined first two rounds of Champions League matches this season, the six teams have scored a combined 12 goals and conceded a whopping 49 goals. That is a combined goal difference of -37 from twelve matches.

Converting domestic bliss into European success isn’t easy, especially when your budget is a fraction of the purchasing power available at Manchester City, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich.

According to transfer website Transfermarkt, Slovan has done so spent a total of £2.6 million ($3.4 million) in new signings over the past three seasons and their squad has a total estimated value of £24 million. According to the same source, City have spent £365 million over the last three years (which, to be fair, is quite frugal for them) and their team value is estimated at just over £1 billion. So City have spent roughly 139 times as much as Slovan since 2022, and their squad is worth 43 times as much.

When the teams faced each other on matchday two three weeks ago, Slovan’s odds of winning on home ground were 40/1. They may have a monopoly on the Slovak title, but with a budget comparable to that of a club in League One, the third tier of English football, they were predictably no match for City.

“We dreamed that one day the best team in the world, or one of the best, would come here,” Slovenian manager Vladimir Weiss told reporters before the match. The reality, however, was less romantic: City had 28 shots, scored four goals, hit the woodwork three times and registered an expected goals rating (xG) of 3.8. Slovan had 24 percent possession and did not register a shot on target.

“Honestly, this was exactly what we expected,” said Tomas, a Slovan fan who attended the match The Athletics. “Slovan hasn’t played in the Champions League for 32 years (failing to get past the qualifying rounds 11 times), so it’s a big success to even be there.

“When we beat Midtjylland to qualify (after coming through three previous games in a campaign that started four days before last season ended with the Euro 2024 final on July 14), it was one of the best results in the past seasons. few years and was like a European final for us.

“Then we were drawn against Manchester City, Bayern Munich, AC Milan and Atletico Madrid (among their eight games in the league phase). These are games we haven’t had for many, many years, so even though we’ll probably lose, it’s still a big prize. Celtic’s defeat (Slovan lost 5-1 in Glasgow on Matchday One) wasn’t good, but even a club like Celtic has a lot more money than us.

“We have Dinamo (Zagreb) at home (on November 5), a match we can aim to draw or win, but above all I want the eight matches to be a lesson for the players and the owners, and that we can make money with it. TV and full stadiums to spend on improving the team.”

There is a clear ‘happy to be there’ feeling at Slovan, but that does not apply to every Champions League ‘minnow’.

Salzburg, who will compete in the new Club World Cup in the United States next summer thanks to their consistent qualification for the Champions League group stages in recent years, are adjusting to life under a new manager at Jurgen Klopp’s old Liverpool assistant Pep Lijnders. and were probably seen as a bit of a dark horse going into the competition phase.

Instead, they were comfortably defeated 3-0 at Sparta Prague before surprisingly beating French newcomers Brest 4-0 at home. They are fourth in the Austrian Bundesliga, six points behind leaders Sturm Graz, but have two games in hand.

Pep Lijnders recognizes Salzburg fans after defeat in Prague (Michal Cizek/AFP via Getty Images)

“I don’t want to make excuses, I take full responsibility,” Lijnders said at a press conference after the defeat in Brest. “This group has sufficient quality that this should not happen this way. That worries me a bit.

“We expected a very different start in the Champions League, especially with qualifying (beating FC Twente 5-4 and Dynamo Kiev 3-1). I’m tired of people calling us a young team. There are no excuses, we have enough quality to win football matches in the Champions League.”

Young Boys, whose Swiss Super League is of a comparable level to the Austrian Bundesliga, will also have expected better than after two defeats (3-0 at home against Aston Villa, 5-0 against Aston Villa, 5-0 against Aston Villa) ranking of the 32 teams in the Champions League. Barcelona).

Like Salzburg, the Bern club is struggling with domestic problems and fired manager Patrick Rahmen, who was only appointed in the summer, a week after the defeat at Barcelona. They are ranked 10th in a twelve-team national league. A visit from Inter Milan, champions of Serie A and three-time winners of the European Cup/Champions League, awaits Wednesday.

Dinamo have also parted ways with their manager after suffering one of the worst defeats in Champions League history when they lost 9-2 at Bayern last month. Sergej Jakirovic had led Dinamo to a Croatian league and cup double in the 2023/24 season, but Bayern’s thrashing was deemed unacceptable and he left by mutual consent two days later.

The harsh reality of Dinamo Zagreb’s European struggle is laid bare on the Bayern Munich scoreboard (Sebastian Widmann/Getty Images)

A 2-2 draw at home to Monaco on matchday two, under new boss Nenad Bjelica, suggested the right decision had been made. Next? Wednesday a visit to Lijnders and Salzburg.

And then you have Celtic. Unlike many of the teams mentioned above, the Scottish club are a regular in the Champions League and have achieved some incredible success over the years, beating Barcelona, ​​Juventus, Manchester United and AC Milan (and in 1967 they won the competition). But all those victories have come at Celtic Park, where, backed by one of the loudest atmospheres in European football, they can be a match for anyone.

Outside the house it’s a different story. This season’s competition was a microcosm of Celtic in Europe, with Slovan beaten 5-1 at home and then humiliated 7-1 by Borussia Dortmund in Germany, conceding five before half-time – the first time a British club did that. in a major European competition since 1997-98. It was their 31st defeat in 37 away matches in the group/league stages of the Champions League – and in those 37 they have conceded a whopping 100 goals.

Yet manager Brendan Rodgers showed no remorse in not changing the team’s approach for that match against Dortmund, despite the criticism he received from his first spell at Celtic, when his side lost 7-0 to Barcelona at Camp Nou and with 7-1 at Paris Saint Germain. or 6-0 away against Atletico Madrid in his second spell last season.

‘We play in a way that allows us to dominate domestically’ Rodgers said. “We know that sometimes it will be difficult for us to do that, but we still have to show what we can do with the ball. Are we going to sit inside and camp out and wait? No, we are not going to do that.”

Celtic supporters who have paid thousands of pounds to travel across the continent to see their team win just two of their 37 Champions League away games (beating Spartak Moscow in 2012/13 and Belgian side Anderlecht in 2017/18), may see things differently. While no one can accuse Celtic fans of not making the most of their trips abroad, someone who has attended all 37 matches will have traveled more than 70,000 miles, which is almost three times around the world, to achieve two wins.

“I haven’t done that many, but I’ve never seen us win abroad,” says Celtic season ticket holder Alasdair. The Athletics. “There’s always a great atmosphere on the road and no one assumes we have the privilege of visiting some great cities and stadiums, but it’s quite demoralizing.

Celtic fans are enjoying their European travels – until the football starts (Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)

“There may be an unrealistic expectation at the club that we should do better, but given our resources compared to the Premier League and the big Spanish, German and Italian clubs, we are on a different planet. We will notice that the new format will only shift the imbalance further.”

We’re working with an incredibly small sample size after two rounds, but early results in the expanded 36-team ‘competition phase’ suggest the scales are tipping further. We’ve seen scorelines of 9-2, 7-1, 5-0 and 5-1, plus four 4-0s. After 36 matches, this is proving to be one of the most goal-rich editions of the Champions League, with 3.19 per match close to the highest ever record (3.24 in 2019/20).

So far it has been the most one-sided Champions League season to date, with an average margin of victory of 2.57 goals, well above the second highest of 2.37 from the 1993-94 season.

Expanding the competition will reduce quality, while this larger first phase could lend itself to teams playing more extensively, given the likely need for only around 10 points from your eight matches to at least reach the knockout round of the play -off to reach. where places in the last 16 are up for grabs.

As the rich get richer and financial imbalances widen across Europe, expect more of the same. And expect fans of relative Champions League minnows to dread rather than enjoy their continental adventures.

(Top Photos: Getty Images)