This is the season when English club football finally grew up, when it finally lived up to the hype. And here are the reasons why.
TO SOME of the English press, it's open-and-shut. If there are three English clubs in the semi-finals of the Champions' League, there can be only one reason: the Premiership is the best league in the world. Of course, this thinking is riddled with inconsistencies. If three semi-finalists is all it takes, was Serie A the best league in the world in 2003? And if the Premiership is the best league in the world, why did it not supply any Uefa Cup semi-finalists unlike, say, Spain, who provide three of the four? Also, all that European success tells you about is the relative strengths of the better sides in each league: how do you even begin to know how to compare Wigan and Chievo, Arminia Bielefeld and Levante? You don't. Which is why any debate about the best league in the world is best left to the Department of Length-of-a-piece-of-string at the Ministry of Spurious Arguments.
That said, there is a theme to the English success this season. You can clearly look at five areas in which Premiership sides have outperformed the opposition and for which, to varying degrees, they deserve praise. This is the season when English club football finally grew up, when it finally lived up to the hype. And here are the reasons why.
1. Healthy finances
The top four English clubs (and, yes, might as well throw in Arsenal) have more money than the top four in any other league. Sure, Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain, Inter and Milan in Italy, and possibly Lyon and Bayern in France and Germany can all match England's Big Four. But no other league comes close to having as many clubs with such deep pockets.
It's not rocket science. Money allows you to attract and - just as importantly - retain talent. Cristiano Ronaldo extended his deal at Manchester United on Thursday, becoming one of the five highest paid players in the world. This does not mean he'll stay indefinitely of course, but it does make it that much harder for him to leave. From Thierry Henry to Steven Gerrard and from Michael Essien to Rio Ferdinand, English clubs can now hang on to their big guns like never before.
The Premiership is the best run league in the world from a commercial standpoint. It surpasses every other domestic competition in terms of marketing, revenues and hype. It has obviously taken some time for the quality on the pitch to match the success on the balance sheet. But the latter has inevitably raised the level of the former and English clubs are reaping the benefits.
Incidentally, all of the above also applies to AC Milan. Commercially, this has long been the best run club outside of England. And while their deep pockets weren't deep enough to hold on to Andriy Shevchenko, at least they made sure they got a cool £30 million for him.
2. Faltering opponents
It certainly helps when your adversaries self-destruct. And, simply put, this has been a nightmare season for Europe's footballing royalty outside the Premiership.
Juventus, of course, are stuck in Serie B, so they didn't even enter the competition. Bayern are in fourth place in the Bundesliga and have had to make an acrimonious mid-season managerial change, ditching Felix Magath and bringing back the Old Master, Ottmar Hitzfeld.
After storming to the top of the Dutch Eredivisie, PSV fell apart just at the right time to suit Liverpool: when they hosted Rafa Benitez's men they were in freefall, winless in the previous month.
The same can be said for the Spanish sides. Valencia began the season with a furious (and very public) row between the manager, Quique Sanchez Flores and the club's sporting director Amedeo Carboni. Not coincidentally, they sit in fifth place.
At Real Madrid, of course, Fabio Capello has been on the verge of getting the sack for much of the year, with dirty lines being washed in public as part of his rows with the likes of Antonio Cassano, Ronaldo, David Beckham, Jose Antonio Reyes, Mahamadou Diarra and Robinho.
And, of course, all this happened while being crucified daily by the Madrid press and by a portion of the supporters, whose bile got so vicious towards some of his signings that Capello stopped playing Emerson at the Bernabeu to spare him the boos.
Things have been only marginally quieter at Barcelona, where Frank Rijkaard, another boss likely to be on his way out, endured criticism from Samuel Eto'o, all the while negotiating a difficult situation with Ronaldinho (with the Brazilian's agent flogging him left, right and centre across Europe) which may yet see him dropped.
Compounding matters is the fact that this is the tightest La Liga race in years, with as many as five teams still in with a chance to win. The domestic race has proved to be so energy-sapping that the top Spanish clubs necessarily paid a price in Europe.
Further down the food chain, things have been bumpy as well. In the six weeks before getting knocked out of the Champions' League by Roma, Lyon lost four times in all competitions - they had lost just once in the four months prior to that.
3. Managerial excellence
Rafa Benitez, Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho are arguably all among the top five managers in the world right now. (You can make a strong case that Carlo Ancelotti, the Milan boss, is in there too, which would explain the rossoneri's presence in the final four).
They've all won the Champions' League before (as has Ancelotti) and they all served up a tactical masterpiece on the way to the semis.
Benitez's decision to play Alvaro Arbeloa at left back in the Camp Nou (with John Arne Riise in midfield) was the tactical key to the game. It neutralized Leo Messi and left Barcelona with a constant thorn on the flank. Over two legs, few coaches are as effective as the Spaniard.
The same can be said for Sir Alex in the return leg against Roma. Down 2-1 on aggregate and with four regulars (Louis Saha, Gary Neville, Nemanja Vidic and Paul Scholes) unavailable, he shocked most observers by pulling Alan Smith - who had not started a Champions' League or Premiership game in 14 months - out of the hat as his centre forward.
Smith was devastating, tying up the Roma defence with his physical presence, working tirelessly and opening up channels for Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo. Not coincidentally, he was the one man who Sir Alex himself singled out for praise.
Jose Mourinho reinvented Lassana Diarra as a right back and John Obi Mikel as a holding midfielder against Valencia, displaying the guts to bench veterans such as Paulo Ferreira and Claude Makelele. But his true achievement this season has been emotional as much as tactical.
The fact that Chelsea are still a compact unit with the players firmly behind him in a season which has seen the club rocked by controversy (from the Shevchenko and Michael Ballack signings, to the disputes over his future, to the in-fighting with Peter Kenyon and Frank Arnesen).
Whatever else one thinks of these three men, only a fool would doubt that they are among the very best the managerial world has to offer.
4. Stability
Of the 16 clubs who advanced to the knockout phase of the Champion's League, seven are led by managers who have been in charge for two seasons or more. And, of those seven clubs, four are English.
The other three are Barcelona, Lille and Milan (who, again not coincidentally, are also in the semi-finals). The fact that Mourinho, Ferguson and Benitez have had time to mould their squads into a cohesive unit that fully comprehends what they are asked to do on the pitch cannot be underestimated.
Of course, time alone does not guarantee success (Gerard Houllier had as many five year plans as Chairman Mao and look where that got Liverpool). But time has a multiplier effect on managerial ability: the longer a good manager is in the job, the more effective he usually turns out to be.
Today, each of the English sides left in the competition has a distinctive style and philosophy which is deeply ingrained in the players and that can only be a result of managerial stability.
True, Mourinho won the Premiership and Benitez the Champions' League in their first seasons. But Mourinho, frankly, is a managerial freak of nature
(or what statisticians might call an "outlier"). And Benitez's European triumph was the function of the greatest comeback in the history of the game: a miracle performed with Houllier's spare parts. That Liverpool was a blood and guts hodge-podge group of men, this Liverpool is a well-oiled machine.
5. Luck
Or, if you think this is a pejorative term, you can call it "happenstance". But the reality is that - without taking anything away from the four semi-finalists - one does not win major silverware without a spot of good fortune. And that can manifest itself in many different ways.
When United played Lille away, the French side had a perfectly good goal disallowed, while referee Eric Bramhaar controversially (if correctly) allowed Ryan Giggs' quickly taken free-kick score to stand. A different official, on a different night, might have acted differently.
Even in their 7-1 dismantling of Roma, a night where everything went right for United, their opponents still managed 16 shots on goal (eight of them on target): rarely can you concede so many shots and get away with it.
As for Liverpool, it took the away goals rule to see them past Barcelona, while, as illustrated above, they faced PSV at a time when the Dutch were imploding. Furthermore, with the exception of Momo Sissoko, Liverpool's campaign has been largely injury-free, unlike some of their competitors'.
Chelsea found themselves a goal down at home (and 2-1 down on aggregate) against Porto, before goalkeeper Helton went into meltdown and gifted the Blues two goals. And, against Valencia, Santiago Canizares saved everything in sight before making the crucial error which allowed Michael Essien's shot to trickle past him at his near post.
And, of course, while we're on the subject of good fortune, Milan enjoyed some as well. Following their role in last summer's Serie A scandal, their very participation in the Champions' League was in doubt until the very last minute. Fate also smiled on them against Celtic, when referee Konrad Plautz failed to spot Paolo Maldini's handball early in the return leg.
The point here isn't to suggest that these are "lucky" sides. Rather, they are, on balance, not "unlucky".
Football is, ultimately, a sequence of individual episodes, some of which can change the course of the game.
Had Bramhaar made a different decision, had Liverpool suffered an injury crisis, had Helton not made a dog's breakfast at Stamford Bridge, had Uefa taken a harder stance with Milan we might be looking at four different Champions' League semi-finalists right now and drawing entirely different conclusions.
It's something worth remembering before making broad generalisations about the state of the game in this or that league based on a knockout competition.
By Gabriele Marcotti
TO SOME of the English press, it's open-and-shut. If there are three English clubs in the semi-finals of the Champions' League, there can be only one reason: the Premiership is the best league in the world. Of course, this thinking is riddled with inconsistencies. If three semi-finalists is all it takes, was Serie A the best league in the world in 2003? And if the Premiership is the best league in the world, why did it not supply any Uefa Cup semi-finalists unlike, say, Spain, who provide three of the four? Also, all that European success tells you about is the relative strengths of the better sides in each league: how do you even begin to know how to compare Wigan and Chievo, Arminia Bielefeld and Levante? You don't. Which is why any debate about the best league in the world is best left to the Department of Length-of-a-piece-of-string at the Ministry of Spurious Arguments.
That said, there is a theme to the English success this season. You can clearly look at five areas in which Premiership sides have outperformed the opposition and for which, to varying degrees, they deserve praise. This is the season when English club football finally grew up, when it finally lived up to the hype. And here are the reasons why.
1. Healthy finances
The top four English clubs (and, yes, might as well throw in Arsenal) have more money than the top four in any other league. Sure, Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain, Inter and Milan in Italy, and possibly Lyon and Bayern in France and Germany can all match England's Big Four. But no other league comes close to having as many clubs with such deep pockets.
It's not rocket science. Money allows you to attract and - just as importantly - retain talent. Cristiano Ronaldo extended his deal at Manchester United on Thursday, becoming one of the five highest paid players in the world. This does not mean he'll stay indefinitely of course, but it does make it that much harder for him to leave. From Thierry Henry to Steven Gerrard and from Michael Essien to Rio Ferdinand, English clubs can now hang on to their big guns like never before.
The Premiership is the best run league in the world from a commercial standpoint. It surpasses every other domestic competition in terms of marketing, revenues and hype. It has obviously taken some time for the quality on the pitch to match the success on the balance sheet. But the latter has inevitably raised the level of the former and English clubs are reaping the benefits.
Incidentally, all of the above also applies to AC Milan. Commercially, this has long been the best run club outside of England. And while their deep pockets weren't deep enough to hold on to Andriy Shevchenko, at least they made sure they got a cool £30 million for him.
2. Faltering opponents
It certainly helps when your adversaries self-destruct. And, simply put, this has been a nightmare season for Europe's footballing royalty outside the Premiership.
Juventus, of course, are stuck in Serie B, so they didn't even enter the competition. Bayern are in fourth place in the Bundesliga and have had to make an acrimonious mid-season managerial change, ditching Felix Magath and bringing back the Old Master, Ottmar Hitzfeld.
After storming to the top of the Dutch Eredivisie, PSV fell apart just at the right time to suit Liverpool: when they hosted Rafa Benitez's men they were in freefall, winless in the previous month.
The same can be said for the Spanish sides. Valencia began the season with a furious (and very public) row between the manager, Quique Sanchez Flores and the club's sporting director Amedeo Carboni. Not coincidentally, they sit in fifth place.
At Real Madrid, of course, Fabio Capello has been on the verge of getting the sack for much of the year, with dirty lines being washed in public as part of his rows with the likes of Antonio Cassano, Ronaldo, David Beckham, Jose Antonio Reyes, Mahamadou Diarra and Robinho.
And, of course, all this happened while being crucified daily by the Madrid press and by a portion of the supporters, whose bile got so vicious towards some of his signings that Capello stopped playing Emerson at the Bernabeu to spare him the boos.
Things have been only marginally quieter at Barcelona, where Frank Rijkaard, another boss likely to be on his way out, endured criticism from Samuel Eto'o, all the while negotiating a difficult situation with Ronaldinho (with the Brazilian's agent flogging him left, right and centre across Europe) which may yet see him dropped.
Compounding matters is the fact that this is the tightest La Liga race in years, with as many as five teams still in with a chance to win. The domestic race has proved to be so energy-sapping that the top Spanish clubs necessarily paid a price in Europe.
Further down the food chain, things have been bumpy as well. In the six weeks before getting knocked out of the Champions' League by Roma, Lyon lost four times in all competitions - they had lost just once in the four months prior to that.
3. Managerial excellence
Rafa Benitez, Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho are arguably all among the top five managers in the world right now. (You can make a strong case that Carlo Ancelotti, the Milan boss, is in there too, which would explain the rossoneri's presence in the final four).
They've all won the Champions' League before (as has Ancelotti) and they all served up a tactical masterpiece on the way to the semis.
Benitez's decision to play Alvaro Arbeloa at left back in the Camp Nou (with John Arne Riise in midfield) was the tactical key to the game. It neutralized Leo Messi and left Barcelona with a constant thorn on the flank. Over two legs, few coaches are as effective as the Spaniard.
The same can be said for Sir Alex in the return leg against Roma. Down 2-1 on aggregate and with four regulars (Louis Saha, Gary Neville, Nemanja Vidic and Paul Scholes) unavailable, he shocked most observers by pulling Alan Smith - who had not started a Champions' League or Premiership game in 14 months - out of the hat as his centre forward.
Smith was devastating, tying up the Roma defence with his physical presence, working tirelessly and opening up channels for Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo. Not coincidentally, he was the one man who Sir Alex himself singled out for praise.
Jose Mourinho reinvented Lassana Diarra as a right back and John Obi Mikel as a holding midfielder against Valencia, displaying the guts to bench veterans such as Paulo Ferreira and Claude Makelele. But his true achievement this season has been emotional as much as tactical.
The fact that Chelsea are still a compact unit with the players firmly behind him in a season which has seen the club rocked by controversy (from the Shevchenko and Michael Ballack signings, to the disputes over his future, to the in-fighting with Peter Kenyon and Frank Arnesen).
Whatever else one thinks of these three men, only a fool would doubt that they are among the very best the managerial world has to offer.
4. Stability
Of the 16 clubs who advanced to the knockout phase of the Champion's League, seven are led by managers who have been in charge for two seasons or more. And, of those seven clubs, four are English.
The other three are Barcelona, Lille and Milan (who, again not coincidentally, are also in the semi-finals). The fact that Mourinho, Ferguson and Benitez have had time to mould their squads into a cohesive unit that fully comprehends what they are asked to do on the pitch cannot be underestimated.
Of course, time alone does not guarantee success (Gerard Houllier had as many five year plans as Chairman Mao and look where that got Liverpool). But time has a multiplier effect on managerial ability: the longer a good manager is in the job, the more effective he usually turns out to be.
Today, each of the English sides left in the competition has a distinctive style and philosophy which is deeply ingrained in the players and that can only be a result of managerial stability.
True, Mourinho won the Premiership and Benitez the Champions' League in their first seasons. But Mourinho, frankly, is a managerial freak of nature
(or what statisticians might call an "outlier"). And Benitez's European triumph was the function of the greatest comeback in the history of the game: a miracle performed with Houllier's spare parts. That Liverpool was a blood and guts hodge-podge group of men, this Liverpool is a well-oiled machine.5. Luck
Or, if you think this is a pejorative term, you can call it "happenstance". But the reality is that - without taking anything away from the four semi-finalists - one does not win major silverware without a spot of good fortune. And that can manifest itself in many different ways.
When United played Lille away, the French side had a perfectly good goal disallowed, while referee Eric Bramhaar controversially (if correctly) allowed Ryan Giggs' quickly taken free-kick score to stand. A different official, on a different night, might have acted differently.
Even in their 7-1 dismantling of Roma, a night where everything went right for United, their opponents still managed 16 shots on goal (eight of them on target): rarely can you concede so many shots and get away with it.
As for Liverpool, it took the away goals rule to see them past Barcelona, while, as illustrated above, they faced PSV at a time when the Dutch were imploding. Furthermore, with the exception of Momo Sissoko, Liverpool's campaign has been largely injury-free, unlike some of their competitors'.
Chelsea found themselves a goal down at home (and 2-1 down on aggregate) against Porto, before goalkeeper Helton went into meltdown and gifted the Blues two goals. And, against Valencia, Santiago Canizares saved everything in sight before making the crucial error which allowed Michael Essien's shot to trickle past him at his near post.
And, of course, while we're on the subject of good fortune, Milan enjoyed some as well. Following their role in last summer's Serie A scandal, their very participation in the Champions' League was in doubt until the very last minute. Fate also smiled on them against Celtic, when referee Konrad Plautz failed to spot Paolo Maldini's handball early in the return leg.
The point here isn't to suggest that these are "lucky" sides. Rather, they are, on balance, not "unlucky".
Football is, ultimately, a sequence of individual episodes, some of which can change the course of the game.
Had Bramhaar made a different decision, had Liverpool suffered an injury crisis, had Helton not made a dog's breakfast at Stamford Bridge, had Uefa taken a harder stance with Milan we might be looking at four different Champions' League semi-finalists right now and drawing entirely different conclusions.
It's something worth remembering before making broad generalisations about the state of the game in this or that league based on a knockout competition.
By Gabriele Marcotti
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