With just six countries supplying the 16 teams in the knockout phase of the Champions League, many in Europe are concerned by excessive concentration. Spare a thought, then, for South America, where the equivalent competition, the Copa Libertadores, is about to define its semifinalists. There is a strong possibility that all four will come from Brazil and Argentina -- for the third year running.
For one of the semifinals, no doubts remain. The winner of the all-Brazilian tie between Santos and Gremio (1-1 after the first leg) will take on whoever emerges from the all-Argentine affair between Boca Juniors and Racing -- where the teams have yet to meet, as Boca's schedule was thrown a week back following the death of Diego Maradona.
Feint hopes remain in the other half of the draw. Libertad of Paraguay did better than expected last week against Palmeiras of Brazil, and probably deserved better than a 1-1 draw, but now they must travel to Sao Paulo in search of a win or a score draw against a side that has cruised to 5-0 triumphs in its past three home games in the competition. Nacional of Uruguay start out from an even worse position. Last week they went down 2-0 away to Argentine giants River Plate. Nacional are a side built to defend, they have only managed nine goals in the nine matches they have played, and failed to hit the target in any of the past three. Now they must score at least twice to force penalties, and a River away goal would complicate their task still further.
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The smart money, then, is on a final four drawn exclusively from Brazil and Argentina.
This might come across as the natural order of things -- after all, the big two are streets ahead of the rest of the continent -- but it has not always been so. Since 2000, when the competition began its 32-team format, a Brazil-Argentina duopoly had never happened until two years ago. As recently as 2014, eventual champions San Lorenzo of Argentina were alone in the semifinals with rivals from Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.
So why the change?
It seems clear that the key date was 2017. Up to that point the tournament was squeezed into the first half of the year, whereas the latest editions have lasted throughout the calendar year -- and this season, because of the coronavirus pandemic, right through to the end of January. The longer the format, the greater the chances of success for the wealthier clubs, who can reinforce their squads during the course of the competition.
The last edition of the Libertadores played in the first semester was 2016, which came to a conclusion with a final between teams from Colombia and Ecuador. Since then, Barcelona of Ecuador in 2017 are the only club from outside the big two to have made it to the semifinals.
Colombian football, which should be a major competitor, appears to have declined alarmingly since Atletico Nacional's title four years ago. And when the format changed, the Mexican clubs were unable to continue their participation, which robbed the competition of some heavyweights. True, in the last few years the Mexicans had not done as well, but they had supplied three finalists and six semifinalists between 2000 and 2015, and their absence has undoubtedly made things easier for the Brazilians and Argentines.
But there also appears to have been a change within the big two. At this stage it is entirely possible to imagine a last four of Gremio against Boca, River against Palmeiras. In this case, Gremio and River will be disputing their fourth consecutive semifinal, Boca their third and Palmeiras their second in three years.
Before there was more rotation, mainly because South American football is an export industry, and the price of success is that the best players are placed in the shop window and rapidly sold, making it hard to maintain consistency. This has not changed, but Gremio and River Plate have found an excellent strategy for dealing with the situation. They have rare continuity. Renato Portaluppi has been coaching Gremio for more than four years, Marcelo Gallardo has been in charge of River for six and a half. This is almost unheard of in South American football. It provides stability in an atmosphere of change. Both clubs have excellent youth-development structures, preparing and feeding in youngsters to replace those who move on.
Trends on the other side of the Atlantic have surely had an influence, too. The major European clubs now seem more interested in signing up-and-coming teenagers rather than the established stars of the South American club game, and this has been an aid to continuity.
And then there is money. Differentials are opening up in South America; clubs that are well run, have wealthy sponsors and do well from the distribution of TV money have broken away from the rest, and are making themselves present in the closing stages of the Libertadores year after year.
This contains a worrying truth for the South American game. Europe's Champions League is a competition of undoubted quality, where there is a price to be paid for the accumulation of the world's best players in a handful of clubs. The flip side of quality is predictability. The Copa Libertadores cannot hope to match the Champions League for quality, but, with the same teams fighting it out, it is starting to look just as predictable.