In Champions League, future emerging where the Atleticos and Leicesters are our only ‘outsiders’

Ian Hawkey's writes the current state of the Champions League is giving us an early view into how Uefa's new rules to favour the haves over the have-nots will shape things.

Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone has pushed his club into Europe's upper echelons in recent seasons, a feat that will become all the more difficult soon. Javier Lizon / EPA

The Uefa Champions League suffers from a growing of sense of entitlement.

The latest edition of club football’s most glamorous competition began this season with good news for the wealthy, bad for those with upstart dreams.

They learnt that, from 2018, the heavyweight nations of the continent will be granted even stronger guarantees of success.

The September decision by Uefa, under pressure from elite clubs, to ring-fence half of the future slots in the group phase of the tournament to clubs only from England, Spain, Germany and Italy was greeted with dismay elsewhere, not least because the ruling was passed barely six months after a last-16 of the Champions League featured clubs from Belgium, Ukraine, Netherlands, Russia, Portugal and France.

If, as the so-called “Big Four” leagues argued, they should effectively have privileged, exclusive access to the top-16 seedings year in, year out, how come Gent and PSV Eindhoven and Dynamo Kiev had got through?

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Approaching Matchday 4 of the 2016/17 edition, there is a strong scent of elitism, and apparently little chance of an outsider like last season’s meteoric minnows, the Belgians Gent, rupturing the hierarchy.

By Wednesday 11 of the 16 qualifiers for the knockout round could be known with two fixtures of the mini-league phase to spare.

Those 11 include a quartet of Spanish clubs, a pair of English Premier League members, two Germans and two Italians.

The chances of an oddball contender still being involved come February?

Slender.

Gent’s successors as the Belgian entry, Club Brugge, have no points from three games.

Legia Warsaw have flown Poland’s flag with little distinction, disfigured by poor crowd behaviour and a goal difference of minus-12.

Dynamo Kiev sit bottom of their group, as do the two Russian teams, although CSKA Moscow can glimpse a chance to clamber up because their Group E is so tight.

Experienced Champions League campaigners have a preferred method in the group phase.

The ideal is to race to the top of the mini-league rapidly, gain top place – and a better seeding in the knockout draw – while minimising the effects of fatigue and injury on their domestic activity.

No better example has been set than that of Atletico Madrid, who have made themselves at home in Uefa's elite.

Twice in three years they have reached the Champions League final. Last year's route took them past Bayern Munich by a narrow margin and past PSV on penalties.

Familiarity breeds wisdom.

Bayern and PSV were pooled with Atletico in Group D, and Diego Simeone’s team have earned 1-0 wins over both.

They have also defeated Russia’s Rostov, whom they host Tuesday night, by the same margin.

Simeone’s admired reign at Atletico has been characterised by this sort of minimalism, by coherent counter-attacking, compact defending and making capital of a finite number of chances.

In the Primera Liga, though, they have looked more expansive, and after Saturday’s 4-2 win against Malaga left them third in the Spanish table, Simeone chuckled at the suggestion that a domestic average of 2.5 goals a game so far this term indicates a new flourish to Atletico.

“It makes me laugh,” said the Argentine, “when people say we have become more attacking. I think back to our last Europa League final.”

Atletico won that 3-0, in 2012, and Simeone regards that triumph as a key stepping stone in the club’s evolution.

He should feel flattered, too, that newcomers to Europe thrive playing in Atletico's basic style. Take Leicester City, sharp on the break, who have three wins out of three and three clean sheets in their first attempt at the Champions League.

The surprise title-holders of the richest league of all, England’s, may end up as the only last-16 team, come the new year, who look like outsiders.

But also keep an eye on the side Leicester play Wednesday, Denmark’s Copenhagen, still hopeful of reminding the continent there is talent and ambition in smaller countries, too.

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