The Reality Of Football's New Dawn

posted: 13 March 2008 by Jim Butler

Premier League suits might be cheering the appearance of four English teams in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, but, as Jim Butler points out, this doesn't necessarily mean it's happy days for the domestic game...

Liverpool's victory over Inter Milan on Tuesday night means that for the first time in the competition's history, four clubs from the same country will take their place in the quarter-final draw of the Champions League.

And for the extra perceptive of you, that means our country - England. The home of long shadows on country grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pool fillers - well, according to John Major anyway.

So this should be a cause for jubilation, right? With Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool all in the hat - or is it a tombola the UEFA bigwigs who like to lunch use? - for tomorrow's draw, English football lovers can, for once, put aside their tribal squabbling and herald the strength of the domestic game.

Well, no, we can't actually. For starters, the appearance of the self-styled English 'big four' in the last eight is something of a misnomer. Granted, United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool play in the English Premier League and their history is as English as Shakespeare, Churchill and the Beatles, but, by varying shades, all four remain English only by name.

With Arsene Wenger at the helm, alongside their continued Gallic influence (Gallas, Flamini, Clichy etc), Arsenal are a French club who happen to play in London; Theo Walcott the only Englishman in with a sniff of making the first team.

Up at Liverpool the situation is little different, just the backdrop. For Arsenal's France, read Liverpool's Spain. Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher are the only Englishmen who regularly feel the unique warmth of Scouse fans.

Down the M62 in Manchester, the times too are-a-changin'. Fergie may have built Manchester United's 90s dominance on an English spine (Beckham, Scholes, Butt, the Neville brothers and, blurring nationalities slightly, Giggs) but with those six either long gone from the Theatre of Dreams or in the twilight of their careers, their successors are coming from Portugal, Brazil and Argentina.

Yes, compared to Arsenal and Liverpool, United can still boast an impressive array of Englishmen (Wayne Rooney, Michael Carrick, Owen Hargreaves, Rio Ferdinand, Wes Brown, with keeper Ben Foster poised to return), but this is becoming increasingly the exception rather than the rule and tellingly all six of those players were bought rather than groomed through the United ranks.

Likewise, Chelsea also contain six members of the England team (John Terry, Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole, Joe Cole, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Wayne Bridge), but this is often lost in their impressively multicultural League of Nations squad.

Factor in that Avram Grant appears to be a dead manager walking (even if he were to win either of the Premier League or the Champions League, or, for that matter, both), to be replaced by another high profile foreigner for the beginning of next season, the flow of Englishman in or out of Stamford Bridge will likely be in one direction only.

Now, this isn't a Little Englander rant about the influx of Johnny Foreigner ruining the Premier League. Far from it. As Rafa Benitez pointed out in the wake of Liverpool's victory in Milan on Tuesday night, the Premier League is undoubtedly the strongest league in the world right now.

However, this is not the same as saying the English game is flexing its muscles to the green-eyed envy of Italy, Spain, Germany, France et al.

Why, just look at the list of countries absent from this summer's Euro 2008 showcase. One country's name, above all others, is conspicuous by its absence...

Jim Butler - In 1996 Jim thought all his Christmases had come at once when Eric Cantona called him ‘mate’. Ten years later he met four-fifths of Girls Aloud. He still can’t decide which event excites him more. In the meantime he whiles away the working day writing and devising content for Channel 4’s mobile portal.