That is what Pep Guardiola, the Manchester City coach, meant on Tuesday night when he said that there can be “something in the stars” in the Champions League. But most managers accept there is a limit to what they can do: Rafael Benítez, who won the Champions League with Liverpool, saw his job as getting his team to the semifinals. What is clear, though, is that increasingly those fine margins are falling in favor of English teams. Before the year 2000, there had never been a European Cup or Champions League final contested between teams from the same country. When Italian teams led the world in tactics, they tended to dominate the Champions League.

Source: New York Times May 06, 2021 11:26 UTC