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Micah Richards remembers the fear of it all, the panic of the big nights when he didn’t know what to expect other than 90 minutes of torment.
Bayern Munich were always the ones. Whether it was Franck Ribery or Arjen Robben, it felt like a pair of Red Arrows were hurtling down the runway towards him; Richards could handle pace but it was the fact both could deceive like master pickpockets and had more tricks than a magician.
‘It was a level above,’ Richards tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘You knew what was going on in the Premier League, from week to week, but then we would step into the Champions League and there would be games when you’d be thinking: “what is going on here?”
‘We always used to struggle with Bayern. I remember coming up against Napoli and they had a team with (Edinson) Cavani, (Ezequiel) Lavezzi and (Marek) Hamsik, three unbelievable players. We lost 2-1 but we would have been happy getting a draw over there. Would that be the case now?’
In a word, no. Manchester City, Richards’s old team, strolled past Napoli when they beat them 2-0 in September. During the conversation, the former England defender remembers the problems Borussia Dortmund used to present, a team of yellow and black wasps, swarming forwards fury and anger.
What a team Dortmund had: Robert Lewandowski, Mario Gotze, Marco Reus, Mats Hummels with Jurgen Klopp directing from the sidelines. Dortmund were the team no English side wanted to face then. On Wednesday, City beat them 4-1 and barely broke sweat.
Micah Richards remembers the fear of playing in the Champions League against top sides during his Man City days
He recalls playing against a powerful Napoli side including a prime Edinson Cavani
And a blistering Bayern Munich frontline consisting of Frank Ribery, Robert Lewandowski and Arjen Robben
Dortmund had names in their team you would have known but they are over there because they are no longer considered good enough for the Premier League: Emre Can, Pascal Gross, Carney Chukwuemeka, Fabio Silva.
Jamie Gittens, a shining light last season for Dortmund, was sold to Chelsea in the summer for £51million. He has made two starts in the Premier League and six substitute appearances, he’s a squad player, essentially. Signings from Dortmund, historically, used to be transformative.
But this is where we are now. The Premier League is trampling all over Europe to the point that teams can get a little bit of a breather in midweek when the Champions League comes on the agenda, which is remarkable when you think to how it was 10 years ago.
Put it another way: Newcastle will have significantly more trouble dealing with Brentford this weekend than they had during their march past Athletic Club on Wednesday. Did anyone really believe Eddie Howe’s team wouldn’t overpower the Basques at St James’s Park?
Jeopardy, in this competition, left town long ago. After four rounds of games, the six Premier League teams have amassed 56 goals and conceded just 17 – it actually comes as a surprise when the scoreline such as Qarabag 2 Chelsea 2 flashes across your screen.
It is remarkable that it has come to this. Liverpool against Real Madrid is a fixture that should leap off the page and have a massive TV audience but it was a surprise that some were surprised that Arne Slot’s men won 1-0 on Tuesday: Liverpool are a better team with better players. Only hype and PR would tell you otherwise.
Without Thibaut Courtois, Xabi Alonso would have left his old stomping ground with a result similar to 4-0 skewering his Bayer Leverkusen team suffered 12 months ago. Real might have won 10 of their 11 games in La Liga but the domestic intensity is a world away from playing Premier League teams.
Gareth Southgate always used to make this point, during his time as England head coach, when he was asked why Jadon Sancho and Jude Bellingham were not regular starters at one stage in his reign when they were emerging at Dortmund.
Liverpool's 1-0 victory at Anfield on Tuesday night over Real Madrid should come as no surprise
The quality of the Premier League is now superior to that of the Champions League
Whether it is Germany, Spain, France or Italy, the levels of intensity drop depending on the opposition. Dortmund v Bayern Munich will never be played at the same speed as, say, Dortmund v Augsburg or Dortmund v Paderborn: individuals don’t have to be a full throttle all the time.
Everyone knows that isn’t the case in England. Liverpool played Crystal Palace, currently ninth in the table, away on September 27 and were pressed, pummelled and eventually put away by a last-minute goal that sparked delirium. It was one of the most ferocious games Slot’s side will face.
By contrast, when they played Eintracht Frankfurt – currently eighth in the Bundesliga standings – away on October 22, Liverpool won 5-1 and could have had a few more for good measure. Respective league positions would suggest the test would be similar; the reality is vastly different.
Is this a good thing or a dangerous thing? This observer attended the Champions League quarter-final in April 2017 in Turin, when Juventus took a torch to Barcelona and beat them 3-0 with a stunning performance that stamped them out as one of Europe’s best.
Max Allegri’s team included Gianluigi Buffon, Giorgio Chielli, Dani Alves, Leonardo Bonucci and Pablo Dybala; Barcelona had Luis Suarez, Andres Iniesta, Javier Mascherano, Neymar, Ivan Rakitic and a little number 10, who was quite decent, called Lionel Messi.
Barcelona are building an impressive team featuring Marcus Rashford, Lamine Yamal and Raphinha
But it doesn't hold a candle to the Catalan giants' Champions League winning team of 2015 including a front three of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez
It was football from another world, miles in front of anything the Premier League could offer. Now when you look at Juventus, toiling down in 26th place with three draws and no wins from four games, you wonder how they mighty have fallen.
This is no stretch to say the 11 who started for Juventus against Sporting Lisbon this week would be, at best, squad players if they came over to England. Barcelona are trying to get back to former glories but it is an insult to liken them to the team that last conquered Europe in 2015.
‘The Premier League is the best league in the world,’ Mauricio Pochettino told BBC Sport this week. 'Of course I am missing it. I am so happy in America but also thinking one day to come back to the Premier League. It's the most competitive league.’
A more accurate thing would be to say it’s the most powerful. More competitive, certainly, than international football and now more competitive than the Champions League, so there can be no excuses: one of the six must win in Budapest next May. The distortion is there for everyone to see. The fear of the unknown has gone.
