In May, the most prestigious European Cup will get an English winner. For the 11th time. You mark my words…

Has English club football ever been better? Perhaps in the late seventies and early eighties, but probably not. Four English teams out of the eight quarter finalists, and unless Fenerbache can pull off TWO major shocks, we are more or less guaranteed at least one English team in the Champion’s league final. No country has ever had four representatives in the quarter-finals of Europe’s top club competition before. England (2000/01 and 2006/07), Germany (1997/98), Italy (2004/05 and 2005/06) and Spain (1999/2000, 2000/01, 20001/02 and 2002/03) have all had three in the past.
 

In the nineties Serie A dominated the European cups, so far this millennium the Spanish league has done the same. But there seems to be a shift in power now. It probably has happened already, with the Premiership having taken over the mantle. Last season England had three teams in the semis. That could very well happen this season as well.
Some have argued that the Spanish league still holds the lead. That the Premiership is all about the might and financial muscle of the so called big four. Or is it just that the money in football now means that in all the big leagues the top clubs are just in a different league compared to the lesser lights? After all, for Bolton and Wigan in England, read Murcia and Levante in Spain, or Catania and Siena in Italy.

I think it all boils down to this…

The top dogs in the three biggest leagues, England, Spain and Italy, are so powerful that they basically can buy whoever they want, that they can offer their players salaries that others only can dream of, and off course as they are so regular Champion’s League contenders, they have a pulling power that other clubs cannot compete with.
Manchester City and Aston Villa for instance, have enough Thai bath and American dollars, to buy and pay top players, but will they win a tug of war over a player if the competition is called Manchester United, Real Madrid or Inter? Probably not.
 

A chasm has opened up in the top leagues. Basically you have three divisions within the Premiership, Serie A and La Liga. The Champion’s League regulars at the top, the UEFA Cup hunters behind them, and the relegation candidates at the bottom. And it is difficult to see teams breaking out of these groups in the long run.
 

Will Everton or Villa ever become regular Champion’s League candidates? Will Wigan – over several years – ever become an established top half of the table side?
 

Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest went from promotion to league champions in one year. That will never ever happen again. But I can also remember a Stan Collymore inspired Forest going from promotion to a top four finish in one year, and Ipswich Town going from promotion to serious Champion’s League contenders only seven years ago. That will also never happen again. The big boys have become too big. Money has brought excitement to the Premiership, but it has also brought predictability. Between 1967 and 1981 England had ten different league champions. Now it is difficult to see a team outside the so called big four ever winning the league again. But it isn’t only the Premiership that has become predictable, so have European football as a whole.

 Even France and Germany are legging behind. Bayern Munich had a disastrous campaign last season, and are therefore in the UEFA cup this season, not the Champion’s League. But they will be back next season, and expected to reach the knock out phase. But becoming winners? Not likely. The same can be said about Lyon. Good side, yes, but good enough to win the Champion’s League? It is difficult to see. And the best of the rest in Germany and France? They might reach the last 16 of the Champion’s League if they are lucky. But the UEFA Cup is a more likely destination.

England has four out of eight in the Champion’s League, but none in the UEFA Cup. Is that an argument that the Premiership isn’t that mighty after all? No. Everton and Spurs crashed out of the UEFA Cup, both were very unlucky. But the teams in the UEFA Cup are league champions of other strong leagues – like Holland for instance. And many of them have come from the Champion’s League. That a mid table team in England (Spurs) can go so far in the UEFA Cup, and nearly beat PSV, Dutch champions and quarter finalists of last season’s Champion’s League, just shows how powerful the Premiership has become.
 

Ok, Porto won the Champion’s League in 2004, beating another unfancied team in the final (AS Monaco). But I’ll put that down as a fluke. In the long run, we will see Champions League winners from the big nations.
 

In fact, I’ll be willing to bet a large portion of my undersized salary that in at least nine of the next ten Champion’s League finals, we will have either an English, Italian or Spanish winner. In fact, I will also be willing to bet that the winner of these finals will be either called Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan, AC Milan or Juventus. And if we are to get anyone else lifting the trophy, it would have to be some other team from one of these leagues – probably aided by a sugar daddy – or Bayern Munich or Lyon.

No more Ajax win, no more Marseille win, no more Porto win…

The diversity of European football has diminished with the introduction of the Champion’s League in 1993, and the big TV deals in England, Italy and Spain in the nineties.
The big has grown bigger, the rest are legging behind. The pulling power and financial attraction of the Premier league means that the potential league champions of strong European footballing nations like Holland, Portugal and even France and Germany are struggling to keep hold of their best players? Take a Belgian example. Anderlecht was a force to be reckoned with in European football in the seventies and eighties. But in 2001 Thomaz Radzinski, after impressing for Anderlecht in the Champion’s League, chose to transfer to Walter Smith’s Everton, a team that at that time were perennial relegation candidates.

Only a couple of decades ago, it was unthinkable that the best players of the best teams in Belgium, Holland and Portugal and would swap for a relegation threatened team in England, Italy or Spain. After all, why would someone in the eighties swap trophies and the chance of glory in the European Cup with Benfica, with an 18th place in England with Norwich, or a mid table experience with Lecce or Ascoli in Italy? These days, however, Bolton can sign Nicolas Anelka. Wigan, Birmingham and Sunderland are more attractive than Anderlecht, Ajax and Sporting. Can it be reversed?
 

Well, UEFA president Michel Platini has several times revealed a great concern about the plight of the smaller nations. He has advocated a change of the Champion’s League set up, to give the medium sized leagues a better chance of getting teams into the Champion’s League proper.

But to reverse the trend completely, and get a more even playing field, you would have to go back to the biggest leagues having only one, at the most two, participants in Europe’s premier club competition. And we all know that that is not going to happen. It would probably be to late anyway. After all, the difference between the Manchester Uniteds and the Red Star Belgrades of this world has already grown too big. With the kind money that is involved in the modern game, the big fish will keep on getting bigger.And the biggest fish swimming around in the gold fish bowl that is European football are English.Liverpool versus Manchester United in Moscow on May the 21st, anyone?

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