January is the most boring month for many things as the country slumps into a post-Christmas lull but, in terms of drama on our screens, it is up there with the best.
Cinemas are packed as studios strategically release their Oscar hopefuls, The Traitors continues to save linear TV as the best reality show of its time… and then there is the climax of the Champions League first stage.
Wild Wednesday, Game Eight (to steal from basketball’s finale in the best-of-seven play-offs named Game Seven) or whatever you want to call it, the deciding matchday of the European Cup may soon become one of the must-watch events of the sporting calendar.
In terms of the storyline and sheer edge-of-the-seat stuff, not much of late has topped the last five minutes at Benfica versus Real Madrid – and it had eyes on it from across the continent.
At the Etihad Stadium, Manchester City stars were glued to phone screens. If Real Madrid equalised, Pep Guardiola’s side would be demoted from the promised land of the top eight.
The plot was much thicker than that, though. Benfica did not just need to hold on to their 3-2 lead, they needed one more to get into the top 24 on goal difference.
The last day of the Champions League group phase provided great drama – but it took a long, meandering road to get there
The previous format offered lots of dead rubbers – Man United finished their final group 12 points behind Bayern Munich
For the Lisbon side, jumping into the play-off round was the promised land. For the mighty Real Madrid, who with 15 titles are European kings, the play-off was an epic punishment.
And so with one kick of the ball remaining, goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin scored a sensational header to make it 4-2.
It sentenced Real Madrid to another two midweek assignments and sent Benfica boss Jose Mourinho running down the touchline just like he did all those years ago at Old Trafford.
There was another little subplot as this header dumped Marseille out altogether and Trubin cost Roberto De Zerbi, the man who gave him his professional debut at Shakhtar Donetsk, a place in the knockouts.
According to French reports, it could well cost the Italian boss his job, too.
Where but football do we see this sort of drama? And whisper it quietly, where but the so-called Swiss format of Champions League do we see such all-or-nothing events that can change the entire league table?
OK, maybe the final day of the Football League season can do it, and it would be wrong to pretend some group-stage deciders of the old format did not have a similar feel.
Steven Gerrard against Olympiacos in 2004 is remembered not just because it was a thumping strike – but because it put Liverpool through and dumped the Greek side into the UEFA Cup instead.
Matchday eight of the league phase is becoming one of the must-watch nights in sport
Most teams went into the final matchday with something to play for, which is an improvement
If not for that goal, the great comeback of Istanbul several months later would not exist.
There are dissenters to the new format – and reasons are fair – but after two years of turning to our Swiss friends (designed at a Zurich chess tournament in 1895 to give players more games), they can probably concede the endgame of this new phase is unbridled fun.
Some games were a bit boring but, worry not, there are 18 to choose from (sadly, I am yet to see any evidence of a punter winning an 18-fold accumulator).
After all, the final day of the old format was pretty dull save for a couple of ties.
In the last season of that old format, group A’s winners Bayern Munich were 11 points clear of third (and 12 clear of Manchester United in bottom, funnily enough) – so there were more so-called dead rubbers back then.
But aside from being more fun, there are still clearly many faults.
Do we really need eight league games? Liverpool No 1 Alisson and Rodri, Ballon d’Or winner at the time, both talked about ‘strike action’ 18 months ago due to the congested calendar.
How much – or little – jeopardy is there?
A weakness of the new format is that big teams have a buffer against the consequences of losing: Man City’s defeat by Bodo/Glimt ultimately didn’t matter
Most games don’t have that much jeopardy – you can afford to miss a random matchday
Barcelona were thrashed at Chelsea but breezed through, Liverpool lost 4-1 to PSV Eindhoven but it meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, Manchester City’s loss at Bodo/Glimt was inconsequential.
Finishing top of the 36-team group is, in theory, no different to being runner-up. Even last year’s first-place team Liverpool drew eventual winners Paris Saint-Germain in the next round. Benfica’s prize for beating Real Madrid was a play-off against… well, potentially Real Madrid again.
There is also a nagging worry that the English teams are just too strong.
Take Tottenham for example. Thomas Frank’s side lost to West Ham and drew to Burnley, two sides in the relegation zone, in the last fortnight. But either side of that they beat Borussia Dortmund and Eintracht Frankfurt, third and fourth in the German Bundesliga last year.
Liverpool, likewise, have scored nine goals without reply in their last two Champions League games but lost to Bournemouth and drew at home to Burnley.
It sounds a bemusing question but, genuinely, where would Burnley finish in the Champions League? Spurs are 14th in England and were 17th last season – but according to the European table, are the fourth best team.
Teams like Napoli (Italian champions but finished 30th of 36 in Europe), PSV Eindhoven (Dutch champions, 28th) and Villarreal (fourth in La Liga, 35th) dominate domestic games but then cannot cope with the intensity and defensive tests of European tests.
And although the latter two matchdays are high drama, the first six are still pretty drab.
The way to improve the format is to make it FA Cup-style – but the big clubs don’t want that
The knockout stages are always worth every penny of your TV subscriptions with unmissable drama. But if you are out of the house for a random Champions League game on an October midweek evening, are you really bothered if you miss it?
Saying that, though, can you think up a format that would combine non-stop drama and jeopardy?
The answer, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin, is the FA Cup – and none of the money-focused clubs will agree to that because they would run the risk of missing out on their guaranteed eight paydays.
