Bayern and Chelsea beware: Superior teams often fail in Champions League bid

“The highest prize as always is the European Cup, but it is a competition where there are no guarantees,” Rummenigge said. “The things you take for granted in domestic football don’t always work.”

In order words, unlike a league campaign, the nuances of knock-out football mean the best team doesn’t always win. In fact, they only occasionally win.

Consider the Champions League roll of honour since the competition was expanded in 1999-2000. How many of its winners since then have actually been the obvious best team in Europe?

There was maybe Bayern Munich 2001, Real Madrid 2002, Barcelona 2006, Manchester United 2008, Barcelona 2009 and 2011 and Bayern Munich 2013.

Internazionale 2010 got someway lucky over two legs to beat the Catalans and probably weren’t really on that elevated level, but they were a fine side who also benefitted from Mourinho at his best. The same could be said of a more moderate Porto side in 2004 and, beyond that, the league records aren’t exactly stellar.

Real Madrid 2000: 5th in Spanish table, three years since they’d won title

Milan 2003: 3rd in Italian table, four years since they’d won title

Liverpool 2005: 5th in English table, 15 years since they’d won title

Milan 2007: 4th in Italian table, three years since they’d won title

Chelsea 2012: 6th in English table, two years since they’d won title

Real Madrid 2014: 3rd in Spanish table, two years since they’d won title

In virtually all of these seasons, there was a highly superior team who had at one point seemed destined for victory. These ranged from Real Madrid 2003, Milan over 2004 and 2005 and Barca again in 2010.

The point here is to perhaps not get too carried away or conclusive about what is currently happening in this season’s campaign. Because, from the opening group stage, there have been two truly stand-out performances so far. They were Bayern Munich’s sensational 7-1 win away to Roma and Chelsea’s 5-0 win at Schalke.

What really marked both apart was the manner in which they were so commanding, the way they effectively rendered the opposition irrelevant. It went beyond who they were playing.

The definitive nature of the displays reminded of what Arsene Wenger once said about the time he went to watch Milan in the 1988-89 season when manager of Monaco.

“I came back and said to my staff: ‘don’t worry too much about the quarter-final. I know who will win it.’”

They instantly became, in Wenger’s words, “super favourites”. Now, the growing feeling is that we might see a super showdown, the one Europe was denied in 2012: Jose Mourinho v Pep Guardiola in the final. The two best managers in the game facing off in potentially the grandest Champions League final of all, the ultimate clash between core philosophies and approaches.

It certainly seems to be going in that direction.

The draw could yet divert and distort that path, but it is not the only complication.

On only a slightly lower level than both Bayern and Chelsea in terms of highest performance, there has also been the sensationally free-scoring Real Madrid, and their own canny manager in Carlo Ancelotti.

The Italian in many ways personifies the eternal contradiction of the Champions League, how it remains the most prestigious competition, but doesn’t necessarily reward the best team.

He has never won the trophy with a team that finished higher than third in the same season domestically, and has won as many Champions Leagues as he has domestic titles.

Of course, he could bring his own career to completion this season, as Real are chasing a treble that would also see Ancelotti finally do a league and European double while also winning a record fourth European Cup.

His side have so far been brilliantly complete, but that was also the case with Bayern last season.

The Germans, in fact, almost suffered from that completeness. Guardiola is on record as bemoaning the manner in which winning the domestic title so early stripped them of their intensity, and there was another warning towards the end of their self-inflicted 3-2 defeat to Manchester City, as the otherwise exceptional Xabi Alonso gifted the ball to Manuel Pellegrini’s attack.

It has been one of the peculiar characteristics of the modern Champions League, going right back to Ancelotti’s earliest victories with Milan.

At that point, between 2002 and 2007, it was almost as if the biggest clubs were still adjusting to the extra demands of the expanded Champions League, leaving many exhausted for the latter stages.

Like in the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004, it seems a plausible explanation for why there were so many upsets. It also allowed the likes of Milan and Liverpool to focus all their energies on Europe once out of the title race.

Eventually, the biggest teams adjusted, and we entered the era of the super-clubs. It is not a coincidence that there have been so many doubles and trebles since 2007. It has also led to a plateau. Now, there are about six to eight super-clubs of similar size clashing against each other, but that does occasionally create gaps for either under-performing or lesser-resourced teams to squeak through.

It felt the case with Borussia Dortmund 2013 and Atletico Madrid 2014, and indeed Chelsea 2012.

It is just another contradiction of the competition and why, as Rummenigge said, nothing can be taken for granted - regardless of how well Bayern and Chelsea currently play.