Copa Libertadores vs Champions League

The swift unraveling of the European Super League doesn’t mean that things will become better in the Champions League. It still appears that the dominance of few clubs from Europe’s big 5 leagues (England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France) will continue for a long time. This wasn’t always the case in the Champions League / European Cup but has became the new normal. If Europe's main club competition doesn't offer much hope of change, then what about South America's big club competition? A recent observation from Norman Crane about how things fare in the Copa Libertadores inspired me to compare the different winners in South America’s main Club tournament with that of Europe’s main Club competition.

Copa Libertadores: 10 South American countries but 2 dominate

Overall winners by country: 

Argentina: 25
Brazil: 20
Uruguay: 8
Colombia: 3
Paraguay: 3
Chile: 1
Ecuador: 1

It is not a surprise to see that Argentinian and Brazilian clubs have dominated the overall Copa Libertadores with Uruguayan clubs at #3. These 3 are also the most successful national teams in South American football as Brazil have 5 World Cup wins, Argentina and Uruguay have won 2 world Cups each. Uruguay have the most Copa America wins at 15, Argentina have 14 while Brazil have 9.

However, it is still surprising to see such a small number of winning teams from Colombia (3) and Chile (1) given their national team's strong performances over the last few decades. Currently, there are no Copa Libertadores winners from Peru, Bolivia or Venezuela.

In terms of the top winning clubs, it is a surprise to see the Argentine club Independiente still leads the list with 7 titles thanks to the 4 titles they won in the 1970s with their last title coming in 1984. It is also a big surprise to see the traditionally big Brazilian clubs such as Santos and São Paulo only have 3 overall titles while Flamengo with only 2, one of which was in that recent remarkable 2-1 win over River Plate in 2019, with Gabriel Barbosa scoring the goals in 92nd and 95th minute to clinch the win.

Wins by clubs: 

Independiente: 7
Boca Juniors: 6
Peñarol: 5
River Plate: 4
Estudiantes: 4
Olimpia, Nacional, São Paulo, Santos, Grêmio: 3
Palmeiras, Cruzeiro, Internacional, Atlético Nacional, Flamengo: 2
Colo-Colo, Racing, Argentinos Juniors, Vélez Sársfield, Vasco da Gama, Once Caldas, LDU Quito, Corinthians, Atlético Mineiro, San Lorenzo: 1

Copa Libertadores by the decades:

1960 - 69

Peñarol started Copa Libertadores in a strong fashion by winning the first 2 tournaments and finishing runners-up in the third tournament. However, clubs from Argentina came to dominate this decade.

Overall, 5 different teams won from just 3 nations.

Argentina (5): Independiente (1964, 1965), Estudiantes (1968, 1969), Racing (1967)
Uruguay (3): Peñarol (1960, 1961, 1966)
Brazil (2): Santos (1962, 1963)

1970 - 79 

Argentina extended their dominance in the 1970s and that also coincided with their national team winning their first World Cup in 1978. Brazilian football was declining on the international stage after Pelé retired in 1970 and that decline was reflected at the club level as well as only one Brazilian club won a title in this decade. Paraguay had their first ever Copa Libertadores winner as Olimipia won the first of their 3 titles in 1979.

6 different teams won from 4 nations.
 
Argentina (7): Estudiantes (1970), Independiente (1972, 1973, 1974, 1975), Boca Juniors (1977, 1978)
Uruguay (1): Nacional (1971)
Brazil (1): Cruzeiro (1976)
Paraguay (1): Olimipia (1979)

1980 - 89 

Clubs from Uruguay began their re-awakening and that translated into their national team growing in strength until the mid 1990s. Atlético Nacional became the first Colombian team to win the Copa in 1989. 

Overall, a diverse decade of winners with 8 different teams winning from 4 nations.

Uruguay (4): Nacional (1980, 1988), Peñarol (1982, 1987)
Argentina (3): Independiente (1984),  Argentinos Juniors (1985), River Plate (1986)
Brazil (2): Flamengo (1981), Grêmio (1983)
Colombia (1): Atlético Nacional (1989)

1990 - 99

The best decade in spreading out the titles as 9 different teams from 4 nations won the competition. Brazilian clubs dominated and would start their seesaw battle with Argentine teams in dominating a decade. The famous Colo-Colo won their and Chile's first Copa in 1991.

Brazil (6): São Paulo (1992, 1993), Grêmio (1995), Cruzeiro (1997),
Vasco da Gama (1998), Palmeiras (1999)
Argentina (2): Vélez Sársfield (1994), River Plate (1996)
Paraguay (1): Olimpia (1990)
Chile (1): Colo-Colo (1991)

2000 - 2009

7 different teams won from 5 nations with Argentina dominating again and their clubs taking over from Brazilian clubs. LDU Quito became the first ever team from Ecuador to win the Copa in 2008.

Argentina (5): Boca Juniors (2000, 2001, 2003, 2007), Estudiantes (2009)
Brazil (2): São Paulo (2005), Internacional (2006)
Paraguay (1): Olimpia (2002)
Colombia (1): Once Caldas (2004)
Ecuador (1): LDU Quito (2008)

2010 - 2019

Brazilian clubs dominated this decade although it wasn’t one Brazilian club that dominated. 6 different Brazilian clubs won a single title and as a result 9 different teams won from just 3 countries.

Brazil (6): Internacional (2010), Santos (2011), Corinthians (2012), Atlético Mineiro (2013), Grêmio (2017), Flamengo (2019)
Argentina (3): San Lorenzo (2014), River Plate (2015, 2018)
Colombia (1): Atlético Nacional (2016)

2020 - 2021

2020 proved to be an all Brazilian Copa final although the final was played in 2021 due to the pandemic shifting things. Palmeiras won the title 1-0 over Santos. Given the recent dominance of Brazilian teams, it feels safe to say that Brazilian clubs may dominate this decade but if the seesaw logic holds, then Argentine teams should win more than the Brazilian teams. As Tim Vickery noted recently that even this year the dominance of Brazilian and Argentine teams looks set to continue as 12 of the teams in the round of 16 are from Brazil and Argentina (6 each) with 2 teams from Paraguay and single teams from Chile, Ecuador.

“Just five of South America's 10 countries, then, are represented in the round of 16. As well as Colombia, there were wipeouts for Peru (for the eighth successive year), Venezuela (for the fifth and the 11th in the last 12), Uruguay and Bolivia.”

European Cup / Champions League

Overall winners by Country:

Spain: 18
England: 14
Italy: 12
Germany: 8
Holland: 6
Portugal: 4
France: 1
Romania: 1
Scotland: 1
Yugoslavia: 1

Just two Spanish clubs (Real Madrid with 13 wins and Barcelona with 5) make Spain the dominating nation in terms of European Cup / Champions League winners.

In contrast, England’s 14 wins are provided by 5 clubs (Liverpool, Man Utd, Nottingham Forest, Chelsea, Aston Villa).

Italy’s 12 wins are by their big 3 of AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus. Bayern Munich’s 6 wins prop up Germany’s 8 total wins with single titles by Borussia Dortmund and Hamburg.

Holland’s 6 wins are by their most well known big 3 led by Ajax with 4, Feyenoord and PSV with a single title each. It is not a surprise that Portugal’s big two clubs Benfica and Porto each have 2 titles.

Wins by Clubs:

Real Madrid: 13
Milan: 7
Bayern Munich, Liverpool: 6
Barcelona: 5
Ajax: 4
Manchester United, Inter Milan: 3
Juventus, Benfica, Nottingham Forest, Porto, Chelsea: 2
Celtic, Hamburg, FCSB, Marseille, Borussia Dortmund, Feyenoord, Aston Villa, PSV, Red Star: 1

1956 - 1959

The tournament started in the 1955-56 season so it is hard to measure the 1950s via a proper evaluation but safe to say Real Madrid dominated the tournament early on by winning the first 5 straight European Cups including all 4 in the 1950s.

Spain (4): Real Madrid (1956, 1957, 1958, 1959)

1960 - 69

6 different teams won from 5 different nations. Celtic won the first ever European Cup for a British team and it still remains the only European Cup that Celtic has won. Portuguese powerhouse Benfica led by Eusébio won their only 2 European Cups in the 1960s and also finished runners-up on 3 other occasions in the 1960s.

Italy (4): AC Milan (1963, 1969), Inter Milan (1964, 1965)
Spain (2): Real Madrid (1960, 1966)
Portugal (2): Benfica (1961, 1962)
Scotland (1): Celtic (1967)
England (1): Manchester United (1968)

1970 - 79

Worst decade in spreading winners out as only 5 teams won from 3 different countries. The rise of Johan Cruyff meant Ajax won three straight titles and that dominace also translated into Holland’s strong showing at the 1974 World Cup. Cruyff left Ajax for Barcelona in 1973 and it is not a surprise that Ajax didn’t win any more European Cups in the 1970s. Although, without Cruyff the Dutch national team did still make the 1978 World Cup final which they lost to hosts Argentina.

Holland (4): Feyenoord (1970), Ajax (1971, 1972, 1973)
Germany (3): Bayern Munich (1974, 1975, 1976)
England (3): Liverpool (1977, 1978), Nottingham Forest (1979)
 

1980 - 89

9 different teams won from 6 different nations.

English Clubs dominated the early 1980s but were banned from the European Cup after the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985. The absense of English clubs surely played a key part in spreading out the winners in the late 1980s before the rise of Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan team, powered by the flying dutchmen trio of Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard, won about back-to-back European titles in 1989 and 1990.

England (4): Nottingham Forest (1980), Liverpool (1981, 1984), Aston Villa (1982)
Italy (2): Juventus (1985), AC Milan (1989)
Germany (1): Hamburg (1983)
Romania (1): Steaua Bucharest (1986)
Portugal (1): Porto (1987)
Holland (1): PSV Eindhoven (1988)
 

1990 - 99

Best decade in terms of spreading winners as 9 different teams won from 7 different nations. Also, this was the last decade before changes started happening across the European game including the rebranding of European Cup to Champions League plus the removal of foreign player restrictions for a team. The collapse of the Berlin Wall, changing of transfer policies in Eastern Europe and the dissolving of Yugoslavia meant that talented Eastern European players could move to Western European teams for the first time.

Italy (3): AC Milan (1990, 1994), Juventus (1996)
Spain (2): Barcelona (1992), Real Madrid (1998)
Yugoslavia (1): Red Star Belgrade (1991)
France (1): Marseille (1993)
Holland (1): Ajax (1995)
Germany (1): Borussia Dortmund (1997)
England (1): Manchester United (1999)

2000 - 2009 

7 teams won from 5 different countries.

Spain (4): Real Madrid (2000, 2002), Barcelona (2006, 2009)
Italy (2): AC Milan (2003, 2007)
England (2): Liverpool (2005), Manchester United (2008) 

Germany (1): Bayern Munich (2001)
Portugal (1): Porto (2004)

2010 - 2019

6 teams won from 4 different countries. The 1970s were worse in the fewest number of different winners but this decade certainly featured a lot of repeated and predictable match-ups. The difference was in the 1970s, each country only had 1 team in the competition which meant some different teams still took part. But with the expanded Champions League format with top 4 teams from Spain, England meant almost the same teams were present resulting in similar match-ups.

Spain (6): Barcelona (2011, 2015), Real Madrid (2014, 2016, 2017, 2018)
England (2): Chelsea (2012), Liverpool (2019)
Italy (1): Inter Milan (2010)
Germany (1): Bayern Munich (2013)

2020 - 2021

Germany won the first title of this decade after Bayern Munich’s 1-0 win in 2020 over PSG while Chelsea beat Man City 1-0 in an all English final in 2021.

Comparison of Copa Libertadores vs Champions League 

The financial, social and economic circumstances between European and South America clubs are vastly different but a curious statistic stands out. Both continents had their best decade of different winners in the 1990s. That makes sense as the game was going through a massive shift in that decade. The European Cup became the Champions League and the Premier League was formed and as a result, more money flowed into the European game. The Bosman ruling was also a seismic shift and meant that European teams could buy more than a limited quota of foreign players (3 in the case of Serie A) which also resulted in a lot of Eastern European and South American players leaving for Western European teams from the late 1990s onwards. In that sense, the 1990s was the last decade where a lot of South American / Eastern European teams could keep their local talent. It is worth noting that Barcelona signed Lionel Messi at the age of 13 from Newell's Old Boys in 2000.

As 2000s started, the big 5 leagues in Europe (England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France) started to breakaway from the rest of the European teams in terms of finances gained via new lucrative TV deals or by foreign owners putting in their own millions in stacking up the teams. No such big money flowed into South American clubs whose biggest source of revenue was selling their young talent to European teams. On a slightly positive note, some experienced South American players are returning to their home nations to finish their careers such as Carlos Tevez (currently at Boca Juniors), Dani Alves (signed with São Paulo in 2019) and Roque Santa Cruz who returned to Paraguay's Olimpia in 2016, the same team with whom he started his youth career with.

On the European stage, it appears highly unlikely that a team outside of the top 5 leagues can win the title while it looks like that mostly a Brazilian or Argentinian team can win the Copa Libertadores. The Copa Libertadores quota allows 5 teams each from Brazil and Argentina while only 2 each from the remaining 8 nations. In addition, the winners of the previous year's Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana (similar to Europa League) are allowed entry. That is why in the current 2020-2021 season there are 6 teams each from Brazil and Argentina. Having 5-6 teams each from Brazil and Argentina means that at least the Copa Libertadores may have different Brazilian or Argentine winners each year because their domestic titles aren't dominated by a single team to the extent that the European domestic league titles are.

European Super League

European Super League (April 18, 2021 - April 20, 2021)

It ended even before it began.

On Sunday, April 18 news broke of a proposed 20 team European Super League competition which would involve 6 teams from the Premier League (Liverpool, Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham) along with 3 from Spain (Real Madrid, Barcelona and surprisingly Atlético Madrid) and 3 from Italy (Juventus, Inter Milan, AC Milan). As per the reports, there would be 15 permanent member clubs with 5 others joining based on league results. This competition would take place during the middle of the week, thereby going in direct competition against the UEFA Champions League.

There was swift backlash from fans, media, some politicians, UEFA and FIFA. This uproar grew on Monday, April 19 and there were even threats of players involved being banned from the World Cup. The two German teams, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, announced that they wouldn’t take part in this new tournament and would prefer to work with UEFA. It emerged that even PSG would not take part. That was the first blow to the competition.

The next and decisive blow came a day later.

On Tuesday, April 20 Man City and Chelsea were the first two clubs to withdraw from the European Super League followed by the remaining Premiere League teams. Eventually, AC Milan, Atlético Madrid and Inter Milan signaled their intention to leave. That left only Juventus, Real Madrid and Barcelona in the Super League.

The speed of this collapse was a surprise but the announcement of the Super League was not. This was not the first time talks of a breakaway European Super League have surfaced. Such talks of a breakaway competition have been in the air for the better past of the last decade. However, in the past, whenever rumours of a breakaway European Super League emerged, UEFA quickly appeased the big clubs and averted such talks by giving more concessions, revenue and Champions League places to the big 5 European Leagues (England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France). However, April 18th was the first time an actual plan was released. The timing of the European Super League announcement wasn’t coincidental either. On Monday, April 19, UEFA were ready to concede with another revamped Champions League with 36 teams instead of 32. Clearly, the big rich clubs wanted to get their intentions on the table before UEFA made their proposal. The big clubs could have been testing the waters or looking to use this threat to get more concessions from UEFA. As it turned out, the news backfired spectacularly.

The European Super League proposal was only about making the big clubs richer and creating a setup where the top teams played each other multiple times and got more revenue from TV revenue deals. The plan had no consideration for the overall good of the game. Of course, the current UEFA Champions League and domestic European league setup aren’t benefitting the health of the local game too much either. It has been clear for the last few years that changes have been needed to address the growing disparity between the big leagues/clubs and the rest of European soccer. UEFA hasn’t addressed this disparity and the big leagues/clubs gobble up plenty of revenue already. This analysis by Swiss Ramble gives an estimate about the revenue the big clubs stand to make from this season’s Champions League.

It is important to highlight that the big clubs will make all this revenue despite earning next to $0 from gate receipts over the last year. With no fans in stadiums, the big clubs still continued to earn millions from TV rights and UEFA’s distribution money for winning games and progressing further in the Champions League. This money was earned while many teams across Europe have been suffering financially and are close to bankruptcy. It is true that despite all this revenue, the big clubs have also been earning less than previously. Some of these teams have been losing money or were in debt before the pandemic. A large portion of these big club’s operating costs/revenue goes towards player salaries. Instead of taking stock of their operating costs and coming up with creative ways to reduce their debts, these clubs decided to go for a strategy that would continue their free spending ways. The European Super League would have given them instant cash, more than double what they can make from the Champions League. Importantly, these clubs would have gotten all this money without even kicking a ball and not by working to earn a spot and then actually winning games to advance in the Champions Leagues. These big clubs wanted all this extra money in the short term without giving any thought to the financial problems plaguing the game in a pandemic world. A big reason why these clubs don’t care for the rest of the teams is because they are soccer clubs in name only but are instead businesses/corporations, run by millionaires and billionaires whose only incentive is to increase profit and grow.

European Cup to Champions League to Super League

This problem of soccer clubs becoming businesses didn’t happen overnight but has been steadily taking place over the last few decades as rich owners jumped to buy soccer teams in order to increase their finances. If one had to trace the start of big money in the modern European game, a good starting point is Silvio Berlusconi’s purchase of AC Milan in 1986. Berlusconi used his wealth to buy AC Milan but in turn, the success of AC Milan also helped Berlusconi to launch his own political career and he became the Italian Prime Minister in 1994. Berlusconi also set in motion the changes that ushered in a new Champions League and set the path for this new Super League.

In the early 1990s, Berlusconi talked of a tournament where the big teams would play each other frequently. His words clearly played a part in UEFA announcing a newly rebranded Champions League in 1992 with a group stage. Although, in the mid 1990s, the Champions League only contained Champions from the different European countries, meaning one team from each participating country. The 1996-97 season was the first time when multiple teams from one country took part as both Juventus and AC Milan represented Italy. The following year, more teams from other countries were allowed eventually leading to the current tournament where the top 4 league teams from England, Spain, Germany and Italy get spots automatically along with the top 3 from France. Some of these 4th place teams haven’t even won a domestic league title in ages and one would be hard-pressed to name when they last won a league title. In order to make space for these 4th place teams, league champions from other lower ranked European nations would fight in multiple play-offs games and many league champions would never make it to the lucrative Champions League group phase. As a result, the disparity between these other leagues and the big 5 leagues has grown over the last two decades. In the current form of the Champions League, it is hard to imagine a team from Eastern Europe can ever win the Champions League. It is also improbable that a team from Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Greece can even make the final although Ajax were minutes from making the final in 2019 and Porto made the Quarter-finals in the current 2020-21 season.

Champions League and Europa League results from 2009-10 to 2019-20

Looking at the results of the Champions League over the last decade (2009-10 to 2019-2020), Real Madrid have won 4 titles, Barcelona and Bayern Munich with 2 each and a single title for Inter Milan, Chelsea, Liverpool. 

In terms of nations, that is Spain with 6 titles, Germany and England with 2 and Italy with 1. The last time a team outside of these 4 nations won the Champions League was Porto (Portugal) led by Jose Mourinho back in 2003-04, 17 years ago. Before Porto, the other team outside of these four to win the title was Ajax in 1995 with their famous young team, most of whom went on and signed for bigger teams. Marseille won the only French title in 1993 while Red Star Belgrade won in 1991.

The Europa League results aren’t that better. From 2010-20, the following teams have won the Europa League: Sevilla (4), Atlético Madrid (3), Porto (1), Chelsea (2), Man Utd (1).

In terms of nations, that is Spain with 7, England with 3 and Portugal with 1.

To make matters worse, 4 of the above winners came from dropping out of the Champions League for that season: Atlético Madrid won the title in 2010 and 2018 after faltering in the Champions League, Sevilla in 2016, Chelsea in 2013.

Combining the results of both the Champions League and Europa League, Spanish teams have won 13 titles, English teams with 5, Germany 2, Italy and Portugal with 1 each.

Of course, this isn’t enough for the big teams from Spain and England who are already dominating these trophies.

The state of European Domestic Leagues

The discussion about the Champions Leagues and even the Super League comes down to a handful of teams from Spain, England and Italy. What about the rest of Europe? A lot of emphasis is put on UEFA’s coefficient system in order to give spots in the qualifying rounds for these European Cups.

I wanted to look at the top 20 ranked teams in UEFA and have a look at the domestic league title winners over the last decade from 2009-10 to the current season 2020-21. In cases, where the current league title hasn’t been decided, I kept the range until the 2019-20 season. Looking at these results makes for a bleak picture. 

Out of 11 or 12 league title seasons, only 3 nations have had 5 different league winners: England, France and Turkey. But even in these 3 nations, a few of the different teams that won a title only did it once. In England, if you remove Leicester City’s dream title in 2016 and Liverpool’s stellar 2020 title, the last decade has been dominated by Man City with 5 titles (I am giving the 2021 title win to Man City), Chelsea with 3 and Man Utd with 2. In France, PSG have won 7 out of the last 11 titles with single title wins by Marseille, Lille, Montpellier and Monaco. In Turkey, Bursaspor and İstanbul Başakşehir have stopped the regular titles won by the big three of Galatasaray, Beşiktaş and Fenerbahçe. Although, over the last decade Galatasaray have dominated with 5 wins.

7 out of the 20 nations have only had 2 league winners over the last decade but only 2 of these nations (Portugal, Serbia) have had a close parity between the two winners. In Portugal, Benfica won 6 titles to Porto’s 5 while in Serbia, Partizan won 6 compared to Red Star’s 5. For the other leagues with 2 winners, it has been a single team league such as Germany, Scotland, Croatia, Switzerland. The single team league has also applied to Italy and France.

While winning a league title isn’t easy, repeating it is more difficult. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case over the last decade. In all these 20 nations, there has been at least one team that won two titles in a row. 16 out of these 20 nations (80%) have had teams that won 3 or more titles in a row. 10 out of 20 nations have had teams that won 5 or more titles in a row. Many of these runaway domestic winners such as Dinamo Zagreb (won 14 out of last 15 titles), Olympiacos (won 9 of last 12), Basel (8 of last 12), Celtic (9 of last 12), FC Red Bull Salzburg (9 of last 11) can’t even make a dent in the Champions League. Therefore, it is hard to imagine any other team from Croatia, Greece, Switzerland, Scotland, Austria attempting to go far in the Champions League provided they win the domestic league title and get past the multiple qualifying playoff rounds.

Next Steps

It is a sad state of affairs and the European game is already in trouble with a large disparity in between a select few teams and the rest of Europe. UEFA hasn’t come up with any ways to solve this and the Super League would have made this problem even worse. For now, even though the Super League appears dead, it may only be a temporary pause. Real Madrid’s Florentino Pérez wants this tournament and can’t understand why there was this outrage.

Regardless of what happens with the Super League and Champions League, there are severe problems with the domestic leagues. I haven’t seen any discussion about fixing the domestic leagues. If that doesn’t happen, then there will be no need for a Super League. Most of these other leagues will collapse and we will only be left with the Big 5. Therefore, the Champions League will de facto become the Super League.
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[Update, April 23]

Tariq Panja and Rory Smith's essential article regarding the European Super League plan.