Old guard will still rise above in Champions League

Dida and European champion AC Milan have struggled this season, but that's no reason to expect they won't be playing late into May. AP

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Two rounds into this season's Champions League group stages and already some of the big guns are floundering -- or so their critics would have us believe.

Both of last season's finalists have begun poorly. Liverpool managed only a point from its games against FC Porto and Marseille, while AC Milan -- and in particular its goalkeeper Dida -- was chastised for its behavior in the 2-1 loss to Celtic in Glasgow, Scotland.

Coaches have already bitten the dust. Chelsea's opening draw with Rosenborg proved to be the catalyst for the sacking of José Mourinho, while Steaua Bucharest parted company with Gheorghe Hagi and Anatoly Demyanenko left Dynamo Kiev. All were victims of an intolerable lack of patience on the behalf of their respective club owners.

Yet managerial stability is the key to success in the Champions League, just as it is elsewhere in soccer. No club in the modern era has sacked a coach and then gone on to win the Champions League in the same season. (The last I can recall was Aston Villa in 1982, when Ron Saunders resigned before the quarterfinals and Tony Barton took over, leading the Villans to success over Bayern Munich in the final.)

Despite the doubters, Milan and Liverpool will still qualify for the knockout stages of this season's competition. The format of the group stages allows for teams to slip up, even lose games, and still make it through.

Autumn form is not an accurate guide to who will be judged the best team at season's send. The teams who play the best soccer in September tend not to be the teams who triumph in the final in May.

Italian teams, notably Milan in recent years, have mastered the art of peaking in April and May for the crucial knockout rounds. In contrast, the likes of Manchester United and Real Madrid have collapsed in March and April.

Few teams succeed in getting the balance right between domestic and European success. Milan won last season's Champions League final, but was already out of the Italian league race, thanks to the points penalty imposed for its role in the Calciopoli scandal. Liverpool also reached the final, its second in three years, but had long given up on the English Premier League title.

Similarly, two years earlier, when Liverpool triumphed so memorably in Istanbul, its progress to the final was not inhibited by domestic league distractions. It eventually finished fifth in the Premiership, behind local rival Everton, the only time the stranglehold of England's Big Four (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man United) has been broken in recent seasons.

Others, notably Barcelona in '06 and Porto in '04, have managed to combine domestic and European success, but they are the exceptions to the rule.

The uncomfortable reality for UEFA president Michel Platini, who is keen to boost the fortunes of teams from Europe's middle-ranking leagues, is that this season's winner is likely to come from England, Italy or Spain.

The absence of Bayern Munich for the first time in over a decade has severely damaged the chances of a German side triumphing in Moscow in May, while the fortunes of Holland's PSV Eindhoven and six-time French champion Lyon -- both of whom have come close to breaking through in recent years -- have taken a turn for the worse. Selling your best players to the continent's richest clubs is not a recipe for success, but this summer Lyon sold Éric Abidal to Barcelona and Florent Malouda to Chelsea. PSV, meanwhile, lost Alex to Chelsea and Arouna Koné to Sevilla.

This season, Shakhtar Donetsk is threatening to break through -- thanks to spending in excess of $80 million on new players this summer. And that's before the wages needed to persuade the likes of Cristiano Lucarelli to move east are taken into account. Not to mention the private jet that Lucarelli allegedly has at his disposal so he can fly back to Italy whenever he wishes.

Shakhtar currently sits on top of its Champions League group. But before we rush in and declare that Shakhtar's new riches are proving more effective than the old money of Milan and Benfica, it's worth remembering how few teams from outside Europe's elite tier have broken through.

The Champions League was created as an elitist competition with the help of TV money. Its structure ensures that Europe's big beasts can suffer early setbacks in the campaign and still live to fight another day.

Gavin Hamilton is the editor in chief of World Soccer Magazine. He contributes to SI.com on alternate Mondays.