Why Don't English Clubs Dominate In Europe?

the Premier League is the biggest and richest league in World football and it isn't even close Premier League Revenue at 6 and a half billion euros a season and Rising is now worth more than the next most lucrative leagues in World football La Liga and the Bundesliga combined Premier League clubs now spend a collective 4.3 billion EUR a season on wages compared to €2.4 billion EUR in La liga2 billion EUR in Seria and 1.9 billion EUR in the Bundesliga in terms of gross transfer spend Premier League club spent a collective 3.1 billion EUR last season

compared to just 882 million EUR in Sera 74 million EUR in Le gun and around 550 million euros in La Liga and the Bundesliga so more than the other four leagues combined the gulf is even wider when it comes to net spend with the rest of Europe except for a small handful of clubs now Reliant upon sales Premier League teams just to fund their own signings and day-to-day operations we now live in a world in which Bournemouth in a rickety old 11,000 CA Stadium can take players from as Roma Newcastle United can poach players from

AC Milan or be it they might end up getting suspended for the next 10 months and Aston Villa can casually pluck the best players from the likes of vial seevilla and B lusen in the 2024 Delight football money League which ranks clubs based upon how much annual revenue they generate there are six English clubs among the world's 10 richest teams and 14 amongst the top 30 leads United who are currently in the championship no less rank of a French Giants Leon and only very narrowly behind last season's Europa League winners Sevilla the financial imbalance that

exists within European football which is one of the main reasons why some European Giants were and indeed still are so so keen on the idea of some kind of European Super League is absolutely enormous so much so that as I recently made the case on this very Channel it could be argued that the Premier League already is a deao Super League just with all of the clubs playing their games in England for now at least the premier league has been the biggest and richest league in the world for more than 20 years now and the

gap between it and every other league only grows larger and larger with every passing season and yet since 2000 English clubs have won just six out of a possible 24 Champions League titles and a mere four Europa leagues losing every single Final in which they have come up against a Spanish opponent for more than 20 years this season half of England's four Champions League Representatives Manchester United and Newcastle United not only failed to progress from the group stage they finish bottom of their groups failing to even drop down into the Europa League meanwhile Arsenal just

lost the first leg of their round of 16 tie against Porto whose revenue is lower than that of the team that finishes bottom of the Premier League each season it's for that reason that I was recently asked in various different verbiage by four separate people both online and in real life very occasionally I will talk to people not on the internet why English clubs aren't more dominant in Europe surely it was put to me given the financial mate of the Premier League the League's teams shouldn't just do well in Europe as they do winning the

odd trophy here and there they ought to be a Relentless winning machine annihilating all those who dare to step in their wake on route to an all- English semi-final stage well I'm not one to shk a challenge so long as that challenge is a football based query that I can monetize for content and call a job and doesn't actually require any physical bravery or even the possibility of any personal sacrifice whatsoever so today I'm going to try and answer that question so sit back relax and join me on a journey to England the home of

Lollipop ladies 99 flake I screams and a dee rooted hatred of young people and a burning desire to see their lives made ever worse as we take a look at why English football clubs despite seemingly having every financial advantage imaginable aren't all conquering Jugger dos in Europe when discussing the success of English clubs in Europe or lack thereof the past and present can often be conflated you might even have noticed that I did it in the introduction I mentioned Manchester United and Newcastle finishing bottom of their groups this season alongside English clubs only having won

the Champions League six times in the 21st Century spanning 24 editions of the competition it is a clever slate of hand if I do say so myself to create a neat and tidy narrative about English clubs in Europe but the reality is that the reason why Newcastle f fail to reach The Knockout stage of this season's champions league and English clubs have won so many fewer Champions Leagues than say Spanish clubs over the last 35 years are at best only tenuously related when Manchester United won the treble in 1999 beating Bayern Munich by virtue of

scoring two goals an injury time they became the first English Club to be crowned as European Champions in 15 years but there was good reason for that following the he stadium disaster at the 1985 European Cup final which Liverpool lost 1-0 against Juventus English clubs were banned indefinitely from All European competitions by UEFA the ban was lifted in the 19991 season after 5 years for all English Clubs except from Liverpool who were only allowed to return the season after that prior to the ban which came as the result of 39 people being killed more than

600 injured and 14 Liverpool fans being convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years behind bars it would be a grave understatement to describe English clubs as merely being dominant in Europe in the European Cup at least English clubs were virtually hegemonic between 1975 and the uafa ban in 1985 out of 11 European Cup finals nine featured an English Club every single final between 1977 and 1982 featured an English Club English clubs won six European cups on the bounce and after hamburg's success in 1983 normal service was resumed as Liverpool were crowned as European Champions

in 1984 against Roma one year before their final against Juventus that led to English clubs being banned bearing in mind that throughout this period only one club from each country namely the previous season's domestic Champions qualified for the European Cup and it was a straight knockout format with no group stage so just one slip up and you were out the consistency of English clubs for more than a decade was pretty much without precedent with the exception perhaps of Real Madrid's early dominance of the competition when they won five straight crowns under slightly different circumstances the

UEFA ban changed everything not only in the most fundamental sense of course did it prevent English clubs from winning any European competitions for the next 5 years you know by virtue of not being able to play in them it isolated English football from the rest of the continent whereas at the 1982 World Cup only one member of the England squad played their Club football outside of England namely backup Striker Tony Woodcock who played for cologne and even he joined Arsenal later that very same summer after English clubs were banned from European competitions even as famously

poor Travelers some of England's best players left the first division the likes of Mark Hatley Ray Wilkins and David plat all joined teams in siia as did Paul Gasco in Des Walker a little a little bit later on Glenn huddle tried to better himself by joining Monaco Gary liner couldn't turn down the opportunity to play for Barcelona and Chris Waddles signed for Marseilles even more common as in the case of Gary Stevens Terry Butcher and Trevor Steven was English players heading north of the border and joining Scottish clubs who were still able to compete in

Europe throughout this period at Italian NY in fact when England made it through to the semi-finals of the World Cup there were more Rangers players in Bobby robson's Squad than there were players who represented any other single Club more important than the sheer Capital flight in terms of losing talent to the rest of Europe and arguably more important than just not being able to compete in Europe for 5 years was the Tactical Technical and professional isolation of English clubs this was a period of Rapid innovation in football the same year that English clubs were exiled

from European competition Johan C took the Reigns as the manager of his former Club Ajax in 1987 Ajax won the European Cup winners cup with an all Dutch starting 11 which featured the likes of Frank Reichard Marco van Baston and a young Denis bur Camp honed on the principles of Total Football and in playing the game how C felt that it should be played in 1988 C was appointed as the new head coach at Barcelona where his impact would be even more consequential in his first season at Barcelona with Gary liner playing on the right

wing C won the European Cup winners cup once again and in 1992 by which stage he had overhauled the Barcelona team C won the treble a 1-nil win against sdor in the European Cup Final providing a Vindication of his tactical Revolution along with successive La Liga titles a Barcelona team which featured the likes of Pep Guardiola Michael lrp and Aristo stov later to be joined by ramario came to be known as C's Dream Team C app pended Barcelona implementing root and Branch reforms in the immediate aftermath of the infamous asparia Mutiny and reshaping the club

in his own image it wasn't just the first team C was obsessed with lamazia Barcelona's youth ranks mandating that they play and train in the same way as the first team say they were tactically and technically equipped to play the way that he wanted them to and could seamlessly step up to the first team at any moment without being expected to do anything different C is just one example at the same time former shoe salesman origo saki was implementing an equally radical set of new ideas at AC Milan with even greater success Sven gar and

Ericson worked wonders in Italy and Portugal while belonging to an entirely different school of thought and there were just as interesting Innovations and ideas coming to the foreign Eastern Europe as both stal Bucharest and Red Star Belgrade upset Western Europe's Elite to be crowned as European Champions as important as any tactical Innovations was the modernization of training diet and nutrition while all of this was going on a footballing earthquake of sorts English clubs and English Football watched on from the sidelines semi- aware of what was going on though much less so than they would have

been nowadays when the world is so much smaller and everything is broadcast in ultra high definition but always one or two degrees removed whereas Bar's Dream Team AC Milan's revolutionary off Sid trap and stow's unbre a able defensive shape and discipline within a 4222 formation presented a fresh challenge to the rest of Europe and one which had to be overcome if they wanted to win anything English football sort of inevitably when you think about it became very Ina it was no use Arsenal contemplating how they might best break down Sven Benfica or match the energy

and professionalism of latex Bayern where all that they needed to do was overcome Middlesboro and Luton Town in order to be crowned as first division Champions it's not that English football terminally declined during 5 years outside of Europe the national team's fortunes actually improved they were just left behind and out of the loop when it came to ways in which to succeed in Europe despite being so dominant then to an unprecedented and almost tediously predictable extent before the ban English clubs wouldn't just Waltz back into Europe and win again not until Manchester United beat Bayern

Munich at injury time in Barcelona in 1999 14 years after Heisel and 9 years after English clubs had been readmitted to Europe did an English Club even reach the final of either the European Cup or the champions league as it later became known though English clubs were readmitted in the 19991 season by virtue of Liverpool winning the league the previous season and being banned for an additional season there was no English Club in the 19991 edition of the competition meaning that English clubs were day facto Bann from Europe's Premier competition for six years instead of

five the first English Club to compete in the European Cup post ban in the 1991 92 season was Arsenal who lost 4-2 over two legs against Benfica in the second round over the next four seasons Leeds United and Manchester United were knocked out by Rangers and Galatasaray also in the second round before a change of Champions League format which saw both Manchester United and Blackburn Rovers dumped out in the GRE group stage instead to say that English clubs underwhelmed in Europe following their return again would be a pretty gross understatement it wasn't until Manchester United

reached the semi-finals in 1997 where they lost 2-0 against eventual winners bruscia Dortmund that some pride was restored even after the Red Devils won the Champions League in 1999 the first English Club to do so since Liverpool in 1984 it didn't exactly Mark a turning point the next five finals didn't feature a single English Club the 20203 season provided particular disappointment as Liverpool were knocked out in the first group stage finishing below Valencia and barzel Newcastle and arsenal were seen off in the second group stage and Manchester United went out in the quarterfinals it meant

that only one English team reached the quarterfinals compared to three each from Italy and Spain and non made it through to the semis which was an all Italian and Spanish affair that is vital context in understanding why between the mid1 1980s and the mid 2000s English clubs performed so poorly in Europe or indeed didn't perform at all it is less relevant though not entirely irrelevant to understanding why Liverpool lost the 2022 Champions League final against Real Madrid Newcastle and man united went out in this season's group stage and Arsenal despite putting between four to six

goals past every Premier League team that they face at the moment just lost 1- n against Porto without registering a single shot on target it's not entirely irrelevant because there are still tactical differences between Premier League teams and those on the continent and indeed between different teams on the continent themselves chiefly the Premier League is still played at a faster pace and with more physicality than most of Europe's biggest leagues tactically and professionally the league has changed an enormous amount since the beginning of the 1990s the Breakaway of the premier League from the rest of

the football league and the European Cup becoming the Champions League arson Wenger was the Catalyst for a lot of that change after he was appointed by Arsenal in 1996 particularly in terms of the diet and nutrition the drinking culture in English football was still enormous when Wenger arrived something that was alien at plays throughout the rest of Europe and Wenger set about changing it at Arsenal as soon as the results of those reforms became evident and made such a huge difference for Arsenal everyone else had to follow suit or get left behind in wenger's First

full season in charge of Arsenal the Gunners won a premier league in FA Cup double and for the next eight seasons they never finish lower than second the results therefore were fairly emphatic and it didn't take long for the rest of the league to catch up now the diet nutrition training conditioning and sports science are as good in England as they are anywhere else in the world if not marginally Superior given the resources at the disposal of Premier League clubs at the Academy level likewise English clubs professional or otherwise have come on Leaps and Bounds

even just over the last decade in terms of introducing small-sided games small goals one two or three touch matches and just generally putting a much greater emphasis on technical ability and honing a player's skills rather than just who is the quickest strongest and most likely to win you a game before they're even fully developed in English teams are nonetheless often less patience in possession than their European counterparts Manchester City the reigning European Champions are an obvious exception to this but if you look at either Newcastle or Manchester United in the Champions League group stage this

season both sides struggled to dominate possession and control games even in their most impressive Champions League performance and result a 4-1 win at home against PSG Newcastle only kept 20 6% possession that is less than Luton Town kept against Man City in the Premier League this season as was the 27% the Newcastle had in their one all draw away in Paris the situation was if anything even worse for Manchester United despite having far more recent pedigree and experience than Newcastle in Europe who only kept more than 50% possession at home against Copenhagen and Galatasaray out

of their six group games and even then they barely did with with 51 and 55% possession away at Galatasaray united only saw 42% of the ball and in both games against Bayern they never got above 40% it's a similar problem that we have seen at times with the England national team particularly at major tournaments where the games come thick and fast and the conditions can be hot and humid where they begin to lose the Midfield battle Jing The Knockout stage speaking of games coming thick and fast it is hard to imagine that the intent of

the Premier League the number of games in English football and the strength of the league as a whole doesn't hurt English teams that compete in Europe I mentioned briefly at the beginning of this video some of the financial disparities between the Premier League and Europe's other leagues which one might to imagine would lead to English clubs who bring up the continent's biggest prizes on a routine basis that's not an entirely unreasonable assumption but the real disparity when it comes to the Premier League compared to every other league isn't so much in terms of the rich

six or seven though they do have definite advantages but in terms of the rest let me explain what I mean for all of the Woe Is Me Talk of real M president Florentino Perez and the murmur of discontent among him and his acolytes about the Premier League's revenue and revenue growth far out stripping Europe's other leagues the reality is that Real Madrid can still compete financially with any other team in World football for now at least Los Blancos took TBO ctoa Antonio rudiger and Eden Hazard from Chelsea one of the Premier League's Rich six and

they routinely beat Chelsea and other Rich six clubs to widely identified transfer targets like vidicus Jr Eduardo kavinga aelian shui Jude Bellingham and Lely soon Killian mbappe that almost all clubs are or would be desperate to sign consequently the radd wage bill is higher than that of any team in the Premier League as is psgs which has been the highest in Europe Europe for the last few years meanwhile Barcelona and Bayern Munich's wage bills are higher than either Arsenal or tottenham's and Inter Milan Juventus and Atletico Madrid all maintain wage bills significantly higher than newcastle's

again for now at least this graph by the excellent Swiss ramble who I hope won't mind me borrowing it since I have included his Watermark I pay for his substack and I would recommend subscribing to it also for anyone who is interested in football Finance is a perfect illustration of what I'm talking about the graph illustrates the distribution of wages in each of Europe's Big Five leagues from the top to the bottom clubs as you can see at the top both Lian and La Liga are ahead of the Premier League and neither San nor the

bunders Liga are all that far behind as soon as you go past the first two three or in league un's case at least one team the drop off is startling the wages at the third highest spending team in League G is already lower than that of all but the bottom three in the Premier League a mid-table club in England's Top Flight pays their players at least twice as much as a midable club in any other league it is probably for this reason that we see English teams performing especially well in recent editions of the Europa

League and the UEFA conference League since the disparities there between Premier League clubs and their competition is far greater than it is between Premier League clubs and Europe's Uber Elite in the Champions League West Ham for example who won the confence League last season have a higher wage Bill than European regulars like the Europa League winnner Sevilla and current Bundesliga League leaders B leusen and almost exactly twice the size of their actual conference League final opponents Fiorentina Brighton and Liverpool both of whom top their groups in the Europa League this season along with West Ham

have the biggest budget in the competition by far in Liverpool's case and among the biggest in West Ham and even Brighton despite the latter being viewed as plucky underdogs and such Savvy operators in England which they are though Brighton have a bottom half wage bill in the Premier League emphasizing just how well they did to finish six last season and to currently sit in seventh their wage bill is actually the same size as the second highest spending Club in France namely their Europa League group stage opponents marsel and higher than the likes of vale IR

trk Frankfurt and even last season's Seria title winners Napoli Aston Villa England's sole represent ens ative in this season's conference League keeping the claran blue flame firmly alive maybe punching above their weight to be fourth in the Premier League this season but in the conference League they are in a world of their own only an Trak Frankfurt and the two Turkish Giants have budgets which can compete with theirs and most conference League teams have wage bills that would look low in the championship the second Ser of English football let alone in the Premier League maybe

the best illustration of the disparity distribution is a comp comparison between the team that sits 10th so exactly mid-table in each of Europe's top five leagues La liga's 10th Place team GFE have a42 million wage Bill the bundesliga's 10th Place team hoffenheim's is £74 million the team in 10th in serat is Torino whose wage bill is £65 million in League un it's Leon who actually have the League's fourth highest wage bill at £84 million but in the Premier League the team in 10th is chelse whose wage bill is £340 million Which is far more than

the other four clubs all combined and ranks joint 7th among the biggest wage bills in Europe tied with Barcelona over the last two seasons Chelsea are quite literally the highest spending football team of all time over that period of time even when adjusted for football specific inflation that prompts the question why haven't English clubs historically dominated the Europa League having had this finan cial Advantage albeit not quite to the same extent for much of the past two decades to which the answer in large part however unsatisfying it might sound is just that for a very

long time English clubs didn't have the same interest in the Europa League and particularly the UEFA cup as it was previously known as clubs from pretty much everywhere else in Europe before foreign coaches with a better feel and affinity for the competition came into the Premier League and particularly before winning the conference League and the Europa League came with qualification for the Europa League and the Champions League the following year the Europa League or uafa cup was just viewed as more of an inconvenience by whichever of the rich six teams happened to drop into it

after failing to qualify for the Champions League whereas a lot of European teams would rest players in domestic fixtures to keep them fresh for a UEFA Cup tie Liverpool or Spurs might do the precise opposite resting plays in Europe ahead of a Premier League fixture the Europa League league and Conference League are major cash cows for many European clubs but for Premier League teams it is a drop in the ocean my own club Hall city after we qualified for the Europa League unforgivably in my opinion rested players for a trip to lockran because we were

playing Stoke City in the Premier League at the weekend and ended up getting knocked out of Europe for the sake supposedly of drawing one all at home against Stoke for fans the idea of sacrificing a once in a lifetime running Europe particularly for a club like little old Hall City for the sake of one point in the battle for survival is a travesty but for the club it was just a straightforward business decision even going deep in the Europa League wouldn't make up for a fraction of the revenue loss with Premier League relegation naturally of

course we ended up getting knocked out of the Europa League early and getting relegated That season so it was really the worst of all worlds I mean we might as well have had a go in Europe after all now now that the attitude towards the Europa League has changed though four out of the last eight Europa League finals are featured an English Club including an all English final between Chelsea and Arsenal in 2019 and the three English clubs in the competition this season all feature among the five favorites to win the whole thing likewise I

would be personally surprised if English clubs didn't routinely start to make the conference League final and win the competition following in West Ham's footsteps at this point it is probably worth addressing the elephant in the room which is that although I had numerous requests to make a video about why English clubs aren't more dominant in Europe English clubs historically not having been dominant in Europe and English clubs certainly not having been dominant in the Champions League so far this season in some ways and this might seem like an odd thing to say in this of

all videos English clubs are actually quite dominant in Europe only six wins out of the last 24 champ chions leagues is one way of putting it but half of those six wins have come in the last 5 years and three out of five paints a rather different picture to 6 out of 24 England ranks first in uefa's League car efficient rankings which is based solely on the performance of each country's clubs in Europe and by a distance there have been five English finalists in the last eight Europa leagues the reigning conference League champions are English

and the last six Champions League finals have featured seven English clubs Spain is the only other country to have had multiple finalists but by multiple I mean two compared to England's seven and they were both the same team Real Madrid whereas England has had four different finalists in The Last 5 Years alone you could make the case that English clubs could still be more dominant and there is no doubt that they have an abysmal record against foreign and especially Spanish opposition in finals but overall it's not bad going is it there are lots of reasons

why English clubs May face additional hurdles in Europe aside from all those that I've already mentioned the point that I was trying to make earlier about the speed intensity and relentlessness of the Premier League before getting sidetracked blindly by wage comparisons was that Premier League teams very rarely get to take their foot off the gas because the elite in Europe's other major leagues have budgets in line or sometimes even greater than the big six teams in the Premier League while the rest of those leagues have budgets lower than top half championship teams it's much easier

for the likes of Real Madrid Bayern Munich and PSG in a typical season at least to rest and rotate players or at least for those players to avoid burnout by coasting and relaxing in games where they have significant control and dominance far more so than it is for Premier League teams combined that with the lack of a proper winter break and the fact that England has not won like most other countries but two domestic Cup competitions the f Cup and the efl cup making for an even more Compact and demanding schedule at times and it's

not hard to see why particularly in the latter stages of a season premier league clubs could be at a disadvantage pep guardiola's great Barcelona team for example when they won the Champions League in 2009 they had such a comfortable margin at the top of the La Liga table that they were able to rest and rotate all of their big hitters failing to win any of their final four League games in fact even losing against min like mayorca and osasuna in order to be at maximum capacity for the Champions League semi-final and final ties against Chelsea

and Manchester United Chelsea and Manchester United by contrast were still going Health a leather in the league at the time and couldn't afford to take any games L with the exception of man United's very last game of the year that season because the title had already been wrapped up what's more much as it shouldn't because it is just 11 players against 11 players players rather than the badge on the shirt or trophies in the museum European pedigree really seems to matter in competitions like the champions league and Europa League when you look at the sense

of belief that Real Madrid or Sevilla always possess in those respective competitions make no mistake I think that this is a secondary consideration at best but some English teams lack that pedigree and it is much harder for them to build it up whereas the big hitters in Europe from other countries whether that be Barca Bayern Real Madrid or PSG tend to qualify for the Champions League every single season and have done for as long as anyone can care to remember in the Premier League the country's champions league and Europa League representatives are often chopping and

changing Newcastle for example may have been hurt by a lack of Champions League pedigree this season but having built up some minor experience they are unlikely to build upon that in the immediate future next season currently eighth in the Premier League table what makes makes the Premier League unique in some ways is that Liverpool for example won the Champions League during the same season that they finished fifth in the Premier League in 2005 Chelsea won it despite finishing sixth in the league in 2012 and the Blues won it again in 2021 in a season in

which they finished fourth just one point above Leicester city it is unimaginable that that could happen in any other league it is also illustrative I think of the nature of knockout football and cup competition the reality is the so-called best team doesn't necessarily always win even if it were the case that by virtue of the League's Financial Supremacy Premier League clubs were automatically better than teams from Europe's other major leagues which as we've already established isn't necessarily true and nor does that financial advantage even exist at the very highest level but if we were to

imagine that it did it still wouldn't be the case that an English club would win every European trophy every single season knockout football is random the Liverpool team in 2005 wasn't fit to lace the AC Milan team's boots how can Chelsea possibly have been the best team in Europe when they finished sixth in the Premier League below Allan puu's Newcastle when they won it in 2021 beating Man City in the final they did so during the same season that they finished a massive 19 points behind Man City in the league to surmise then why aren't

England clubs more dominant in Europe well basically they are pretty dominant though they weren't historically for lots of reasons a European ban and The Hangover from that Exile Chief among them they are becoming ever more dominant as the League's financial advantage grows and now the Messi Ronaldo axis and barcel Madrid stronghold has ended and in ufa's secondary and recently introduced tertiary competitions now that they're taking them seriously at least where they have a far greater advantage and when they don't win we shouldn't be that surprised because Europe's Elite have budgets as big if not bigger

than them and also knockout football is random and unpredictable and the best team doesn't always necessarily win but really mainly and this ought not be overlooked English clubs are pretty dominant Manchester United were just rubbish in this season Champions League Newcastle had a tough group and an injury crisis and also weren't that great and Arsenal will probably still beat Porto at home and progress despite losing the first leg and even if they don't they probably will next time around because they'll most likely only have lost because knockout football is random and unpredictable I really don't

see what is so hard to understand about any of that anyway hopefully the people who asked fillers though I have suitably answered their question I'm not sure what else there is to say on the matter other than I hope that you all enjoyed it and I think that I might need my inhaler now thank you all very much as I say as ever for watching hit the like button if you did enjoy it I obviously hope that was the case let me know your thoughts Down Below in the comments and it goes without saying at

this stage what are you doing if you're not already subscribed and have notifications turned on for both this channel hit c7s and also my second Channel Alfie pots haror both of which should be about to appear on your screens now along with a couple of videos that you might fancy watching after this one you can also find me on Twitter Instagram or threads via the username @ hit c7s on all three and all of those links plus a whole lot more should be down in the video description below cheers