Still room for a surprise as season edges to intriguing finale

Five days from the Champions League showdown in Berlin there is a slight sense of ‘so what?’ about the climax to the season.

The sides that were destined to win titles have indeed won them. As in England, the outcome in Germany, France, Italy and Spain has seemed inevitable for weeks if not months. The rich have been rewarded, the outsiders have fallen by the wayside. Gallant losers, some of them, but still losers.

Yet look closer and the season has been a lot more competitive than that, with the exception of the Bundesliga where Bayern Munich looked certainties from the moment seven months before hostilities started when they captured Robert Lewandowski from Borussia Dortmund without firing a shot.