Teams from east see their chances go south in Europe's big club competitions

Western European sides have exerted an increasing dominance over the continent's knockout tournaments

Jose Mourinho's Fenerbahce crashed out of the Champions League qualifiers after losing 3-2 on aggregate to Lille. Getty Images

All but one of the 29 so far confirmed to play in this season’s enlarged 36 club Uefa Champions League are from Western Europe.

Only one, Shakhtar Donetsk, are from east of Austria – and the Ukrainians will probably play their Champions League games in Western Europe, as they did last season in Hamburg.

There are still seven slots to be decided in the final play-off games this week. Some of them will be teams from the east, but pitifully few.

There are huge European football nations that won’t be represented in the continent’s premier club competition: Poland, with a population of 38 million, won’t have a team, nor Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary or Israel.

Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce lost 3-2 on aggregate to Lille and Galatasaray went out 4-2 on aggregate to Young Boys on Tuesday, meaning Turkey, with a population of 85 million, will have no representation in a competition in which they have been regulars.

Last week’s results were bleak for many of the other teams from the east. Dinamo Kiev, semi-finalists in 1999, were knocked out 3-1 over two legs by Red Bull Salzburg, owned by a multinational conglomerate.

Where two teams from the east meet, one must go through. Dinamo Zagreb lead 3-0 against Qarabag of Azerbaijan and should confirm their qualification, but then what? Almost certain elimination.

None of Uefa’s top ten Champions League ranked nations are from Eastern Europe. Serbia are 11th and boast Red Star Belgrade, the last team from Eastern Europe to be crowned European champions in 1991 when their fine side, packed with world-class players wearing their simple yet splendid kit beat Marseille in Bari, Italy.

To young fans like Nemanja Vidic, later a player with Red Star, Spartak Moscow, Manchester United and Inter Milan, these players were his heroes. So many of them were world-class and Vidic adored the left foot of Sinisa Mihajlovic.

“Mihajlovic had been man-of-the-match for Red Star when they beat Bayern Munich in the semi-final of the 1991 European Cup, scoring the two goals, the winner in the final minute, which put Red Star into the final,” he said.

“And then Mihajlovic scored in the final against Marseille to make Red Star champions of Europe in Italy. A hero. The Champions League started a year later and no team from Eastern Europe has come close to being European champions since.

“I later played with him, but I didn’t tell him that I watched the game so many times on a VHS that my dad complained that I kept breaking the video machine.”

When Manchester United signed Nikola Jovanovic in 1980, their first ever player from outside the UK and Ireland, the Red Star player couldn’t believe how low the standards were at United compared to his old club.

Before Red Star, Steaua Bucharest won the competition in 1986 and reached the final in 1989. Their heroic goalkeeper, Helmuth Duckadam, became known as “the hero of Seville”, after saving four penalties in the 1986 European Cup final as Steaua beat the Barcelona of Terry Venables, Bernd Schuster and Steve Archibald in Seville.

The National met him a week before lockdown in 2020 at his home west of Bucharest and he was proud to show us his gloves and medals.

“We were the first Romanian team to leave the country with our own butcher since we didn’t trust others with our food in Spain,” he explained of a game for which only just 40 Romanians made the trip, a few Steaua officials and carefully vetted Communist Party members. Several defected.

“I dreamt all my life for a match to be decided on penalties. It was my moment, my stage. The stars aligned for me in Seville. The stadium was silent when the Barcelona players took their penalties but that helped me to concentrate too.

Shakhtar Donetsk's Heorhiy Sudakov during his side's Europa League play-off second leg defeat by Marseille last season. The Ukrainian side were beaten 5-3 on aggregate. AFP

“I knew the Barcelona players were nervous because they were expected to win so that helped me in the mind games, but I’d played as a striker when I was younger so I knew their mindset.”

Partisan Belgrade were European Cup finalists in 1966, Panathinaikos in 1970. Shocks from sides of the former communist states were common. European champions Barcelona didn’t even reach the first Champions League group stage in 1992 because they were eliminated by CSKA Moscow.

Liverpool, the dominant European side of the late 1970s, were knocked out of 1980 European Cup in the first round after an emphatic 3-0 defeat at Dinamo Tbilisi.

Red Star Belgrade could yet make this season’s League phase, but they trail Norwegian side Bodo/Glimt, who play games at their tiny 8,000 capacity home inside the Arctic Circle, 2-1.

Serbia, a nation of only 6.6 million and neighbour Croatia, with only 3.8 million, still produce fine footballers and their national sides punch well above their demographic, but their best usually head west for economic reasons at an early age. Previously, they weren’t allowed to move until they were 26.

There are other reasons for the swing to the west. Restrictions mean Russian teams are banned from playing in the competition: Zenit St Petersburg, CSKA and Spartak Moscow were Champions League regulars.

The result is that if the teams were pins on a map, you could put an elastic band around them and they’d miss out much of Europe and it’s not only the east: there are no teams south of Bologna in Italy, football’s very own Mezzogiorno line.

A decade ago in 2014/15, that band would have encompassed much of Europe. Zenit and CSKA made the group stage from Russia, BATE from Belarus, Shakhtar were still there, as were APOEL in Cyprus, Olympiakos in Greece, Maribor in Slovenia, Ludogorets in Bulgaria.

Shakhtar got the furthest in that campaign – only Lionel Messi, Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo scored more goals than their striker Luis Adriano, who hit nine. Then the western dominance was reasserted as they were defeated 7-0 in Munich.

In 2014/15, there were clubs from 19 countries in the Champions League. So far this season, teams represent only 12 and while this will increase after this week’s games – many are concentrated.

Madrid, Milan and Lisbon boast two entrants each, Catalonia two, while big countries have none. Aston Villa (European champions in 1982), Bologna, Brest and Girona will all make their debuts in the group stage of the Champions League, all of them from Western Europe.

Red Star Belgrade's Ognjen Mimovic, second right, celebrates with teammates after scoring in their 2-1 Champions League play-off first-leg defeat against Bodo/Glimt. AFP

The teams from the east will be there in Monaco’s Grimaldi forum when the draws are made for the group stages of the European football’s three biggest men’s tournaments this week, more in the Europa League or especially the tertiary Conference League since even success in the Europa League/Uefa Cup has dried up following the wins by CSKA Moscow in 2005, Zenit St Petersburg in 2008 and Shakhtar Donetsk in 2009.

Automatic qualification to three, four or even five teams from the biggest five leagues has skewed the geography of qualification.

Television cash is king and audiences and the advertisers who follow them want to see games between the biggest clubs. Nor is it the fault of any of the tournament organisers that football has suffered in various eastern bloc countries for geopolitical reasons.

Red Star, for example, used to play in a tough Yugoslav League against relative giants from around the Balkans. Now that has been spliced in six separate, and far weaker, leagues. They can’t be expected to jump up to playing against Champions League-ready sides.

There are clubs like Hajduk Split in Croatia, with a 40,000-seater stadium and a fan base big enough to fill it, yet they play teams from tiny towns who wouldn’t have been close to the top tier of Yugoslav football.

Or you have teams like Ludogorets, Bulgarian champions for each of the last 13 years after Kiril Domuschiev bought the second division club in 2010, which won promotion to the top division the following year.

Ludogorets have reached the Champions League group stage twice, but not since 2017. The gap is too big, even for the serial champions of Bulgaria. Ludogorets did enter this season’s Champions League qualifiers and eliminated the Georgians of Dinamo Batumi and the Belarusians of Dinamo Minsk before meeting Qarabag.

After a 2-1 away win, Ludogorets were cruising as they led 4-2 on aggregate at home in the second leg, before Qarabag brought it level to 4-4. Extra time ensued and Qarabag scored four times in 15 minutes to win 7-2 away. At least there are still some surprises from the east.