The giants decode the Champions League

After the first 3 rounds of this year's Champions League season, there are 5 big teams that have kept a perfect winning record.

Real Madrid did not play convincingly but still won 9 points after 3 matches - Photo: REUTERS

They are PSG, Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Arsenal and Real Madrid. These are also the 5 strongest teams in the top 5 European football leagues at the moment.

Establishing order too soon

It’s a truly iconic piece of news. Barring Inter Milan, who are currently second in Serie A (just one point behind AC Milan), the other four teams are all dominating the race for their domestic league title. And when it comes to the Champions League, they’ve maintained that impressive form.

Not only did the 5 teams above win all the Champions League matches, they also won in an overwhelming manner. It is hard to believe that Arsenal could destroy Atletico Madrid - the team known as the toughest in Europe - with a score of 4 goals to nil. Both Arsenal and Inter Milan are winning all the matches and keeping a clean sheet after 3 matches.

PSG and Bayern Munich have continued to win devastating victories. Only Real Madrid have had a difficult time, with narrow wins against Marseille and Juventus. But this is understandable because Real Madrid are still in the rebuilding phase under coach Xabi Alonso.

Following the above 5 teams are 6 teams from the top 5 European championships, including 4 from England (Man City, Newcastle, Liverpool, Chelsea), 1 from Germany (Dortmund) and 1 from Spain (Barca). Thus, after only 3 rounds, the order of European football has been established with the top 11 positions all belonging to teams in the top 5 European leagues.

If we expand to the top 24 (ie both the groups that directly qualify for the round of 16 and the play-offs), 18 teams are in the top 5 of this major tournament.

Easy task

There are hardly any giants outside the top 24, with Leverkusen and Juventus being the only exceptions. But in fact, neither of these teams are currently considered "big" in Europe.

This is in contrast to last season, when Real Madrid, Man City and PSG all had to fight until the final rounds to secure their ticket to the next round. Overall, after only one season, the giants have completely adapted to the new competition format of the Champions League, a format that is still very unfamiliar to fans.

Of course, elite teams – with their elite teams of analysts, scientists and strategists – will adapt to the unfamiliarity faster than fans. The new format has its advantages and disadvantages for the big clubs.

The difficulty is the long schedule and the need for many big matches in the group stage. The advantage is that they only need to be in the group of 24/36 teams to be able to win a ticket to the play-off round. That is the "path of life" that opened the path to the championship for PSG last season.

There were predictions that Real Madrid would have a hard time playing away against Kairat - a team thousands of kilometers away, located in Asia. But the final result of the match was 5-0 for Real Madrid. And Bayern Munich, when playing away against Pafos from Cyprus (Cyprus island), also won 5-1...

That’s the price of expansion, with the Champions League now filled with teams that are probably on par with the first or second tiers in England and Spain. Just a couple of wins like that are enough to get into the top 24, which boosts the confidence of the giants.

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HUY DANG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/cac-dai-gia-giai-ma-champions-league-20251024092719532.htm