OK, to get any non-football fans up to speed, Liverpool won the Champions' League, but didn't finish high enough to qualify for next years tournament. Everton finished fourth, and the English FA said that Liverpool weren't allowed to go to the Champions' League ahead of Everton, effectively forcing UEFA to allow both teams into the Champions' Leaugue, giving England 5 Clubs in the Champions League, and pissing off UEFA, who had been forced to back down. Although they did make the Champions of Europe go through 3 Qualifying rounds instead of the usual zero.
In the final qualifying round, Everton got the strongest team in the draw, and were knocked out.
Today, the draw for the group stages was made. the only possible pairing of English clubs was Liverpool and Chelsea. They just so happened to get paired together.
Does this seem suspicious to anyone else?
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Liverpools result was a bit of a freak, though. The other side of the coin is that only 2 teams from the richest league in the world have won Europes premier competition in, what, the last 2 decades (and they are the only 2 to reach the final)? In the UEFA cup you have Liverpool in 2001, and then nothing until Spurs won in 84.Kietotheworld wrote:Um... we have the Champions of Europe in England, (Liverpool) and team that has got to consecutive Semi-finals. (Chelsea) We also have a team that has got to the Knockout stages for the past 10 or so seasons in a row.(Man Utd)
So English clubs are ATM definately punching below their weight, especially considering the financial problems in the other 'big 3' countries - Spain, Germany and Italy. Spain currently have the best league in the world (in terms of European success), I think.