Leicester are about to discover the Champions League has no room for true romance
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Updated 15/03/2017 at 15:05 GMT
Leicester's fairytale run in Europe will soon be over because the Champions League was not built to accommodate underdogs, writes Desmond Kane.
Leicester City's Christian Fuchs celebrates after the game.
Image credit: Eurosport
Football's big-game hunters are already dusting down their blunderbusses in anticipation of a Fox hunt in the Champions League.
Leicester City's reward for outfoxing Sevilla 3-2 in the Champions League last 16 is a place alongside Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Juventus in the quarter-finals. Probably to be joined by Atletico Madrid and Manchester City.
It is a lavish list of football Scary Monsters. And perhaps Super Creeps when you think of Jamie Vardy’s rope-a-dope antics as he keeled over quicker than Audley Harrison confronted by the merest hint of Samir Nasri’s haunted brow.
You would need to be more of a sucker than Samir to believe the Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, who intimated after his side’s win over Porto in the last 16 that he would prefer to avoid Leicester.
Who do I prefer not to play? Leicester, because they are a dangerous and passionate team who can cause trouble for opponents who take the initiative. Against them, we would have everything to lose.
Only Juve wouldn’t lose, they would win. Unless there is a change in the traditional narrative in the Champions League, the quarter-finals are the stop where Leicester have to get off European football’s gravy train.
You can feel the might of what comes next merely by studying the form guide.
Out of the remaining eight teams left in the Champions League, it is not difficult to work out the weakest link. While Leicester are Premier League champions and have cut sharper moves in Europe’s finest club competition than Prince William in the Swiss Alps, they are not exactly going to frighten the remaining seven clubs on their annual pilgrimage to the quarter-finals.
Not that such a philosophy does not suit them, or their stand-in manager Craig Shakespeare, a bard who is holding up well after the chopping of Claudio.
We deserve to be in the quarter-finals, we have just knocked out one of the best teams in Europe in my opinion. I think it has to stand right up there with all of our achievements because of the quality of the opposition. We know there will be some terrific teams in the last eight, as there were in the previous round, but we’re in there on merit - we might just be the surprise team.
No wonder Nasri was furious after seeing red. No wonder the Sevilla coach Jorge Sampaoli was sent off after witnessing the demise of La Liga's third best side. How they managed to lose to Leicester was quite a staggering feat.
"I see myself lying hurt in bed feeling like a dream has gone," said Sampaoli.
We were on top of our opponents the whole time, they sat back and we kept on probing but unfortunately we couldn't score.
This is a team who had not lost such a knockout match since succumbing to Hannover in a Europa League qualifier in 2011. A side who had won three Europa League crowns on the spin. If they had taken their chances in the first leg in Seville, they would have easily been the fourth Spanish side in the last eight of the competition before the second leg played out. They contributed to their own demise by only unearthing a 2-1 win in the first leg.
It is unlikely the remaining three Liga sides will underestimate Leicester after this. While they might have produced a magnificent, unexpected win – just like their rise to the Premier League as 5,000-1 shots a year ago – they have probably lost the element of surprise.
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Leicester City's Nigerian midfielder Wilfred Ndidi (C), Leicester City's English-born Jamaican defender Wes Morgan (R) and Leicester City's Danish goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel (L)
Image credit: Reuters
There is a feeling that Leicester will need more than good fortune to go further than this. Even if they land an all-Premier League quarter-final with Manchester City, you would not fancy them. Not with Pep Guardiola's appreciation and awareness of the European game.
Leicester’s 2-0 win over Sevilla was stirring, but also relied on large dollops of luck as Kasper Schmeichel halted a Steven N’Zonzi penalty after Nasri was despatched for a second booking.
Leicester’s first foray in the Champions League is the stuff dreams are made of. So far the decision to dismiss Claudio Ranieri has been justified by rousing returns of wins over Liverpool and Hull in the Premier League, and then this. Yet there remains a time for romance and reality.
Let's have that list again: Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester City and Atletico Madrid all reached this stage last year. The only reason Juventus didn’t was because they lost to Bayern in the last 16, while Dortmund were busy ploughing a furrow to the last four of the Europa League.
In a cast worth millions, this is about as strong as it gets. The quarter-finals tend to provide just enough wriggle room for a less starry outfit to shine. Benfica, Porto, Galatasary. Apoel and Shakhtar Donetsk have all made it this far in recent years, but no further.
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Leicester City's Kasper Schmeichel celebrates with Wes Morgan
Image credit: Reuters
Spurs embarked upon the last eight in 2011 before being flogged 5-0 by Real Madrid over two legs. Football is never played on the balance sheet, but in the Champions League it is brokered by the bank balance.
Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern, Manchester City, Juventus, Borussia Dortmund and Atletico Madrid (the names drip off the tongue) are in the top 13 of the world's richest clubs. West Ham United are 18th and Leicester with £128.7m in total revenue are 20th merely thanks to the Premier League’s television riches, but they are much smaller than the size of their ambition. .
Despite the quarter-finals being an open draw, the Champions League is a knockout competition that was not erected to foster the 'Romance of the Cup'.
Leicester are about to discover that European football’s true King Power lies outwith the King Power.
Desmond Kane
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