The Champion's League is so bloated these days teams could be forgiven for not knowing where they are heading from one game to the next. But when Arsenal landed in Mallorca yesterday, even their less astute players must have been taken aback by the plane captain's message. "Welcome," he said, "to a pleasant afternoon here in Barcelona."
Arsenal will be across the water from Rivaldo and the Nou Camp when they open their campaign tonight against Real Mallorca, who finished ahead of the Catalans last season. Another 15 matches separate Arsene Wenger's team from the final, and the manager would prefer a slimmer competition.
In terms of player demands and spectator excitement, fewer entrants and more knockout rounds would be better than two group stages before the quarter-finals. Yet the finances of the modern game make that impossible. From the first group alone Arsenal will make an estimated £11 million sterling at least, and nobody can turn that down.
"We must be careful of complaining about too many fixtures," said Wenger, who discussed the issue at a recent meeting of elite coaches in Geneva. "Ideally there are too many games for the audience, but on the other hand nobody can afford to reduce the number because we'd go bankrupt.
"You are forced into (player) contracts of four or five years, which you have to pay, and nobody can afford less income."
Anything short of progress to the knockout stages would constitute failure for Arsenal after heavy summer spending and last season's quarter-final defeat by Valencia. This is hardly an easy group, with representatives from Germany (Schalke) and Spain, leagues which provided May's finalists, but Wenger sounds confident.
"This season is our best chance to do something," he said. "There are no dominant teams in Europe at the moment. There is not a single team that we should fear."
Mallorca, third in last season's Liga and beaten 2-0 by Arsenal in a summer friendly, are in the Champions League proper for the first time but possess dangerous, fast strikers in Alberto Luque and Cameroon's Samuel Eto'o. Wenger will assess Tony Adams' foot injury before the match.
