In 2024, the Champions League is changing format. No more group stages, hello to the 36-team championship. Obviously, that means a lot more matches and many people are complaining about it, especially the players. Also, to watch these matches, you have to go to Canal+ or BeIn Sports and therefore pay a subscription. So, at the dawn of this new era of the Champions League, we remembered that 20 years ago and more, watching this competition had a different flavor.
It makes you want to watch PSV Eindhoven-FC Nantes, doesn't it? At the time, TF1 and Canal+ were fighting for the rights (BeIn would arrive in 2012), and TF1 generally broadcast one or two matches per day. It's not much, but we don't care because we're kids and knowing who owns what is beyond our control. What matters is that there's football on TV during the week.
The games start earlier, at 8:35 or 8:45 p.m. At 10, all you can do is scrape together a bit of screen time after the 8 p.m. news and the weather forecast. You stay quietly on the couch without making a sound or moving an inch. You hope your parents forget about you so you can make the most of Thierry Roland's commentary. Quite often, it's over by 9 p.m., but those 15 to 20 minutes of top-level football have filled you up. The rest, you can only imagine, and each time, it's been great.
These moments are all the more delicious because they are rare. Today, I have trouble remembering the big matches because there are so many of them. Maybe the matches weren't better before, but in any case, the memories are. Especially the 2002 final.
In 1999, it was dead to watch the Manchester United-Bayern Munich final. But in 2002, I am 12 years old, it is Wednesday evening, and my father says to me: “It’s the final, so you can watch the first half.” I do the math very quickly: kick-off at 8:45 p.m., so bedtime at 9:30 p.m. It's May, the school year is starting to feel like it's coming to an end, and I'm the happiest prepubescent teenager in town: I'm going to bed at 9:30 p.m.
I'm for Real because Zizou is there, but what I want to see above all is goals. By chance, Raúl opens the scoring in the 8th minute. Then Lúcio equalizes for the Germans in the 13th. What a crazy game. I'm rebuilt. Then, as if to reward myself for all these years of watching 15 minutes of the game at a time, Zinédine Zidane scores the most beautiful goal in the history of the Champions League in the 45th minute. I go to bed with no regrets. There won't be another goal. Real wins 2-1, and Morpheus takes me to dreamland. It's the best Champions League game I've ever seen in my life, and I've only seen half of it.
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