It has become the "other" ritual in our weekly football-as-religion metaphor.
Weekends belong to domestic leagues, midweek to the Champions League.
Wherever we hang our club hat -- whether we support a side challenging for the title, one hoping to avoid relegation or somewhere in the lower reaches of the football food chain -- this is where we go to see the best in the world.
It's our common ground, and the reason why, say, a Crystal Palace-supporting neutral from England will be more familiar with the starting XI of Barcelona or Bayern than that of, say, Sunderland or Stoke.
The Champions League is hard to escape and attractively packaged.
You don't need a rooting interest, and nearly every matchday offers a heavyweight clash. This week, it's Manchester City vs. Juventus on Tuesday and Roma vs. Barcelona on Wednesday. Two weeks later, it's Porto vs. Chelsea and Manchester United vs. Wolfsburg.
And on it goes.
If the group stage, especially toward the end, is sometimes accused of being boring because the best teams invariably advance, well, there's always the knockout stage to come. (And besides, it's not true that the blue-bloods always qualify to the round of 16. Just ask Liverpool. Or Roma. Or Benfica.)
The peculiarity this season is that many of the favorites have either started poorly, changed managers or found themselves in transition. Just run through the favorites as determined by the bookmakers.
Barcelona are the defending champions, yet because of the transfer ban they are under, they haven't added anybody (while losing Pedro and Xavi). Bayern have made an indifferent start to the domestic campaign and manager Pep Guardiola, in his final contract year, continues to be the subject of rumors that have him pitching up elsewhere next season. Real Madrid have a new manager, Rafa Benitez, but no new Galactico in the lineup.
Chelsea are off to their worst start of the Premier League era.
Manchester City are flying, but they're doing so with a manager who nearly got bounced last season and who may be looking for a new job -- come what may -- in the summer. The same applies to Paris Saint-Germain and Laurent Blanc: domestic success is great, presumably their "project" calls for more.
Manchester United are looking to storm back after two seasons of domestic oblivion and a turbulent few weeks both on the transfer front and, reportedly, in the dressing room. Atletico Madrid have, once again, overhauled key parts of their lineup while Arsenal have, once again, done things the Arsene Wenger Way, eschewing conventional wisdom and not signing another striker or defensive midfielder. As for last season's runners-up, Juventus have a single point out of three Serie A games.
The above are the oddsmakers' favorites, but don't be surprised if someone else crashes the party, at least in the early running. It often happens.
Because that's what happens in the Champions League. In our minds, rationally, we know who the very best teams are. Last year, it was Bayern, Barcelona and Real Madrid. (Chelsea, too, at least for some of us, until PSG forced them out in the round of 16.)
Yet the knockout dynamic is such that we feel (almost) anything can happen.
We've been here before. Juventus made the final last season, Atletico Madrid the year before, Borussia Dortmund the year before that. Of course, in 2011-12, a sputtering, injury-riddled Chelsea somehow willed their way to winning it all. Those of us who were there in Istanbul or remember Porto in 2004 can testify to the fact that, while the Champions League door policy may be strict and the bouncers demanding, there are ways past the velvet ropes. Even if your threads are raggedy or you're distinctly unfashionable, you always have shot at charming your way in.
If you don't make it anywhere near the knockout stage? Don't worry. There will be plenty of reasons to go home with a smile on your face, mostly economic. The Champions League is a veritable cash cow and one which just got that little bit more generous, with significant increases to both the prize money and the market pool this season. (What's the market pool, you ask? It's the portion of the total payout -- nearly half, in fact -- that is distributed based on the size of your domestic Champions League contract. If you're from England or Italy, who have big TV deals, it's a boon. If you're from Kazakhstan or Israel, less so.)
As the game becomes more homogenous around Europe and differences -- whether tactical, technical or stylistic-- continue to erode, the Champions League is very much our common ground, the event which all football fans share, regardless of whether their club is involved or not.
It's a vision of the game. By no means a perfect one -- it's star-studded and flashy, yes, but also numbingly corporate and skewed toward the haves over the have-nots -- but very much one which we are all a part of.
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