A dead-rubber week in a cup where Barcelona may erase all

Qualification is all that matters, not whether you finish first or second in your group

On form: Barcelona's Xavi

It's the challenge they've been waiting for. The reason why they're in the job they are. How exactly are Richard Keys and Jim White going to 'package' the Champions League this week? The louder they shout, the less it seems to matter.



Of the 16 matches, only those in Arsenal's group seem to carry any sense of urgency. And even that three-way battle between the Londoners, Shakhtar Donetsk and Braga involves an effective gimme for Arsene Wenger's side against Partizan Belgrade – one of the two teams in the tournament yet to collect even a single point. In the only other two groups where simple qualification for the second round is still at stake, it will take a highly unlikely pair of results for Basel to oust Roma while Copenhagen – already a point ahead of a Rubin Kazan team travelling to Barcelona – host a woeful Panathinaikos.



As such, watch how the importance of second place is amped up. Tottenham, for example, will face a crucial trip to Twente. In which case, it's worth analysing whether finishing first is actually that important. Can Harry Redknapp afford to throw Robbie Keane and a few other fringe players a game on Tuesday?



Looking at the long-term – since the Champions League altered to its current format in the 2003-04 season – you would have to say yes. Of the 56 second-round fixtures in that time, the teams which topped their groups have won 37. In other words, first has beaten second 66 per cent of the time. Over that period as a whole, the last four have been dominated by group winners. Eighteen of them have filled 28 semi-final places. In 2006 and 2007, no runners-up reached that stage.



Look at it a little closer though, and it's clear the Champions League has undergone something of a conversion in the last three seasons. And it coincides with Michel Platini's ascension to president and the onset of his intended financial reforms. From 2007-08 up until this campaign and its dispiriting regularity of dead-rubbers, the group stages had been more competitive. That was reflected in the knock-outs. Over 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10, the 24 second-round games were split evenly between group winners and runners-up: 12 each. And in that same time, the distribution of semi-final places has been just as even: six each.



Evidently, the Champions League has been much more open over the last three seasons. It matters much less whether you finish second because all the qualifiers are likely to be more even than in previous years. Just look at the manner in which Inter, who finished second to Barcelona, and Bayern Munich – who qualified behind Bordeaux – got to the final last season.



Which raises a larger issue about how much can be gleaned from performances in the group stages, or indeed the campaign before Christmas itself. Because it's a conundrum that goes back a lot further than the last few seasons. Think of the manner in which the Busby Babes thrashed Anderlecht 10-0 in the early stages of the 1956-57 season. In the semis, Real Madrid showed them how much more they had to mature.



Indeed, in the seven seasons since the last-16 knock-out stages were re-introduced, only once – 2006 when Barcelona beat Arsenal – has the final been contested by the two teams with the best record in the group stages. In fact, United's 2008 winners are the only other team to carry their storming form right through the competition. Much more often, the group stage's most impressive teams are out by the quarter-finals. Like Bordeaux and Fiorentina last year, Liverpool in 2009 and Real Madrid in 2004.



This is the inherent unfairness of the Champions League in its current format, of course; that it is too forgiving. It allows teams a second chance. The perfect example was last season when Jose Mourinho learnt his lessons from an emphatic defeat at Camp Nou to then go and beat Barca in the semis. He was helped, of course, by the fact an already understrength Barca were jaded by an enforced coach journey across Mediterranean Europe.



And that Barca team offer a few other caveats to the reason so many of the group stage's best performers go out so swiftly in the knock-out stages. After the fifth match day in the 2008-09 campaign, for example, Pep Guardiola's side were clearly the finest team in the competition. They only eased off in the final match against Basel because they had already secured first place.



Of course, of all the recent Champions League winners, this Barca team are rare because they look like they have a genuine claim to be considered among the best of all time. The way they out-fought, out-thought and – above all – outplayed Real Madrid on Monday served as a further statement. It was a landmark performance to stand alongside Ajax's 4-0 evisceration of Bayern Munich in 1972-73 or Real Madrid's cherished 7-3 final win over Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960. A further indication, of course, that this team are on a level apart from everyone else.



The most galling thing about it, however, was how they dispatched the only team that have looked truly capable of challenging them in the Champions League this season. It's that fact which makes the petty fighting over first places appear all the more irrelevant. It doesn't matter who the likes of Tottenham or Arsenal face. It's going to take an off-day or a frighteningly on-the-pulse manager to stop Barcelona this season.