If you grew up following the European Cup in the 1970s and 80s you knew that Dynamo Kiev were a "crack Soviet outfit", Dynamo Dresden had a "stealthy hitman" up front and Honved Budapest were not so much a handy Hungarian football team as a "ruthless red machine". Then the Cold War thawed and an entire anthology of clichés was binned.
But that's not all we lost in the early 90s. Because in 1992, with the advent of the Champions League, we lost "the magic of the cup". OK, that's not true: the BBC still trot the term out every year during its FA Cup coverage - and rightly so. But, sadly, it can no longer be applied to Europe's premier competition.
We all know the reason: it's because there is no longer an open draw. The FA Cup retains its charm precisely because it has minimal seeding or sorting: after the third round it's a free-for-all, meaning Chelsea are as likely to be forced into a do-or-die duel with Arsenal as with Kettering. That's why even the draw is exciting. But the Champions League is so skewed in favour of big teams that they rarely have to travel to such extremes: they don't have to meet each other till towards the end and they don't have to consort with plebian clubs at all. And when they do meet smaller teams, they know the chances of them actually being eliminated are slimmer than Lily Cole. Even if they lose.
If, for example, Levski Sofia pull off one of the greatest performances of all time this week by crushing Chelsea 7-0, they'd still be unlikely to progress to the next round as they'd have to follow it up with wins over Barça and Werder Bremen. Worse, a shoddy 1-0 home win over the Bulgarians could still be enough for Jose Mourinho's celebrities to stumble into the last 16. That's perverse.
A Levski win would at least have the merit of making the Chelsea-Barcelona clash a little more meaningful. As things stand, that encounter threatens to be about as exciting as your token weekly office meeting. The clash between the champions of England and the champions of Spain should always be one of the highlights of the continent's showpiece - as it was in 1975, when the second-round draw pitted Derby County against Real Madrid; Dave Mackay's men stormed to a 4-1 home win, helped by a Charlie George hat-trick, before the Spaniards pulled out all the stops to win 5-1 in the Bernabéu (Real triumphed in a similar titanic thriller in 1987, when the first round paired them with Diego Maradona's Napoli). But the current system means the stakes are now boringly low and two draws would probably suit both Barça and Chelsea; which is why the teams were actually happy to be pitted against each other so early. That too is perverse.
It seems that most of Europe's much-hyped flagship tournament is deliberately dull.
But what, as crack Soviet upstart Vladimir Lenin famously wondered, is to be done? France legend Michel Platini has an idea ... unfortunately, he won't tell us what it is yet. A few years ago he was advocating a return to the simple knock-out system of yore, but now he's aiming to be elected Uefa president - either he or present incumbent Lennart Johansson will be voted in next January - and appears to have toned down his radicalism. But he hasn't sold out completely: in the manifesto he released last Friday, he denounced a Champions League that has become a "closed-off pseudo NBA", though was careful to add that he wouldn't alter the present group format. Quite what he's proposing, then, isn't clear. He says he'll reveal all the details next month.
It's a pity that, despite his promise to restore "football's traditional values", his plan doesn't include scrapping the group system. The groups are a concession to the G14, an indulgence that sustains elite clubs' dominance, allowing them to hog money and players and gradually erode genuine competition between all but a tiny super class of bloated, decadent franchises. Outrageously, many rich teams are even granted automatic entry to the groups, a wheeze that allowed Manchester United, for example, to slot straight into the group stages this season - as top seeds no less! - despite managing their privileges so badly that they finished bottom of their pool last season.
You wouldn't give Brazil and Italy automatic entry to the World Cup finals. And you certainly wouldn't give it to Japan and England.
Scrapping the group stages would also mean teams played fewer matches. Therefore they wouldn't need, and possibly couldn't afford, such massive squads. AC Milan probably wouldn't have sabotaged Jean-Pierre Papin's career by buying him as luxury back-up; Shaun Wright-Phillips would probably still be thrilling Manchester City fans; Mart Poom wouldn't have been stowed in some gilded north London hideaway.
If Platini or any other Uefa president were to suggest this, of course, the G14 plus a few like-minded giants like Chelsea would threaten, openly or otherwise, to form a breakaway league. Fine. Uefa should finally call their bluff. Reclaim the game. This isn't darts or boxing, this is humanity's most cherished sport. If push came to shove, these clubs are powerful, but are they really sufficiently deluded by their arrogance to believe they're bigger than football?
Oh.
But Fifa would ban any players who took part in a renegade league from starring in the World Cup. Surely these pagan greedheads wouldn't retort by creating a breakaway World Cup?
Oh.
But TV companies such as Sky wouldn't be cynical enough to throw their money and influence behind such a soulless enterprise, would they?
Oh.
But surely the likes of Platini aren't merely anachronistic idealists doomed to be steamrollered by avarice, glamour and hordes of armchair fans who mindlessly follow whichever clubs get the most airtime?
Oh.
