Around Europe: From Chelsea to the Milan clubs, Champions League set for heavyweight cull

In this week's Around Europe column, Ian Hawkey looks at the changing landscape set to take shape in next season's Uefa Champions League.

Borussia Moenchengladbach, a traditional European heavyweight, made their return to the Uefa Champions League this season, and are aiming to reach next season's competition. Christian Verheyen / GettShow more

Ian Hawkey

Once upon a time Bayern Munich against Borussia Monchengladbach was the big fixture in the German Bundesliga.

For the best part of a decade from the late 1960s, the two clubs shared an exclusive hold on the trophy. In the mid 1970s, four successive European Cup finals featured either Bayern or Monchengladbach.

Saturday’s meeting in Bavaria has a title at stake but there is not much suspense about where it is going. Three points for Bayern, who have dropped only 12 points in all their 31 league matches so far this season, guarantees a fourth successive championship.

Borussia Dortmund, seven points behind the leaders in second place, are not anticipating a chase that goes on into May.

The Bundesliga is in a period of monotony at its summit, just like Italy’s Serie A, where Juventus celebrated a fifth scudetto on the trot last Monday, and France’s Ligue 1, where Paris Saint-Germain barely waited for winter to become spring when they sealed their fourth championnat in succession.

Fact is, Monchengladbach have far more to be holding their breath about than Bayern in terms of the domestic hierarchy. They sit fifth in the table, just below the spot that carries a ticket into the August play-off round for qualification for the group stage of the Uefa Champions League, a competition they competed in this season for the first time since the 1970s.

Currently, Hertha Berlin, a club with more than a grand enough stadium for the continent’s elite competition, but a limited budget, are clutching that fourth-place ticket, but only by a point’s advantage over Monchengladbach.

More from European football:

Bundesliga weekend preview: Bayern Munich on brink of title ahead of crunch Atletico tie + schedule (UAE time)

Ligue 1 weekend preview: All to play for as four teams battle for Champions League spot + Ligue 1 schedule (UAE time)

Serie A weekend preview: Evra to 'make a decision' on Juve future as Napoli and Roma fight for second + schedule (UAE time)

La Liga weekend preview: 'It is in our hands' for Barcelona + La Liga schedule (UAE time)

Diego Forlan column: Diego Simeone has Atletico squeezing every inch of advantage out of margins

If Hertha can hold on, and either creep up to third, where their opponents, Bayer Leverkusen, have a six-point advantage or negotiate the tricky knockout tie ahead of the group phase, the capital of Germany will be represented in the Champions League for the first time since early 2000.

It has always been an oddity that Berlin has, in common with the capital cities of other major western European nations, had such a small impact on the top tournament of Europe’s favourite sport.

Paris Saint-Germain, the sole major club in Paris, have never won the European Cup, and their regular participation in the Champions League has only been guaranteed since the club became in 2011 the beneficiaries of a vast Qatari investment.

Neither Roma nor Lazio have ever won the trophy, while London has produced only one European Cup holder, Chelsea in 2012, in 60 years of the competition.

London will be in the group phase draw for 2016-17, through Tottenham Hotspur and perhaps Arsenal, but the Premier League may very well go into the next Champions League without any of its 21st century European club champions — Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea.

There has been a significant heavyweight cull that will show on the Champions League starting grid. It affects Italy, too, as last year, neither Inter Milan or AC Milan are on course to finish in Serie A’s top three.

No Galatasaray, either. They are banned from European competition for breaching Uefa’s financial fair play regulations. In any case, they are a long way behind Fenerbahce and Besiktas, the leaders in the Turkish league table.

Leicester City’s debut voyage in the Champions League is likely to be the fairytale attracting most attention come September, although if a minnow is best measured by how miniature its town is compared with most of the cities that send clubs out into contention for the European Cup, then there are two clubs on course to return who, per head of population, can claim to be punching most powerfully above their weight.

Monaco, based in a small city-state, third in Ligue 1, are hanging on to the Champions League play-off spot in France, though they could be ousted by neighbours Nice.

Then there is Villarreal, whose conurbation has a population below 45,000. They are in fourth place in Spain’s Primera Liga, though recent league form has made them vulnerable.

They go into their local derby against Valencia four points ahead of Celta Vigo with three fixtures to go, and buoyed by Thursday night’s win over Liverpool in a Europa League that might yet offer them another route into a Champions League already looking a little quirkier than usual.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK — ARKADIUSZ MILIK

The battle for the Dutch Eredivisie title is a cliffhanger. Going into the penultimate weekend, Ajax, the Netherlands most decorated club, and the defending champions, PSV Eindhoven, have won the same number of matches, drawn six times each and both lost just two games out of their 32 so far. Level on points, Ajax have the edge only on goal difference.

Pole with goals

Ajax’s plus-56 in the goal difference column, six better than PSV’s statistic, is credit as much to the division’s meanest defence as their firepower, although a scoring record of almost 2.4 goals per match is hardly spartan. They have Arkadiusz Milik, from Poland, to thank for 21 of their league 76 goals.

In form

Milik turned 22 at the end of February, and has been celebrating with goals almost ever since. He has 12 from his last nine Eredivisie matches, a run in which Ajax have been unbeaten and dropped just four points out of 27. He was also key to last month’s win over PSV, scoring one goal and setting up the other in a 2-0 triumph in Eindhoven. He had started the home match against PSV, a 2-1 defeat for Ajax in October, on the bench with a fitness issue.

New year nadir

After the winter break in the Dutch calendar, Ajax coach Frank De Boer dropped Milik from the starting XI for a major fixture, against Feyenoord. He was concerned about the Pole’s form, apparently believing a spell as a substitute would re-motivate the striker. It worked. He has only gone without a goal in one league match since.

Eyes on the Euros

Milik hopes his momentum will roll on into June, and, with perhaps a Dutch league title under his belt, he can form one half of a potent Poland forward line at the European championship in France. His partner up front for the national team is Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski, leading scorer in the Bundesliga.

Transfer target

Milik himself moved to the Bundesliga, from Gornik Zabrze, at the age of 18. It may have been too steep a jump, so young. After spells with Bayer Leverkusen and Ausburg, where he struggled for top-flight goals he joined Ajax on loan in 2014, and then signed a long-term contract, to 2019, last summer. His growing reputation makes it unlikely he will see that deal out. Ajax tend to sell their best, and Sevilla are the latest suitors reported to be interested in Milik, along with Arsenal, Liverpool and Barcelona.

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