Five ways to
win in Moscow
This is going to be a quiz question in years to come, so you may as well
commit the answer to memory now. How many foreign clubs knocked English
teams out of the Champions League in 2007-08? Answer: zero. This was the
year when English clubs could only be eliminated by themselves. Arsenal lost
to Liverpool, who lost to Chelsea, who can only lose to Manchester United
and vice versa.
The statistics are astonishing. Including the qualifying rounds, English clubs
have met foreign opposition on 42 occasions in the competition and lost four
matches. Even in rare defeat the score has been settled in the return leg,
in some cases spectacularly, such as the eight goals Liverpool put past
Besiktas, having lost 2-1 in Istanbul. The full record reads P42 W28 D10 L4
GF81 GA18. Not a single aggregate scoreline even yielded a draw; just 21
wins.
English teams lost one match in 14 against opponents from Italy and Spain and
only then when qualification had been decided. Lyons, the French champions,
were beaten, as were the champions of Italy, Portugal, the Czech Republic
and Greece. English club football is so strong that the governing bodies of
European and world football wish to restrain it.
So, another question: why would anybody want to leave? The common factor in
the build-up to this evening's Champions League final between Manchester
United and Chelsea in Moscow has been persistent rumours that leading
players at both clubs will depart in the summer. This is not just
mischief-making by the media. With two English teams contesting the greatest
prize in European club football for the first time, the story is there and
elaboration is not required.
Cristiano Ronaldo, conversing with a foreign television crew, was less than
steadfast on his future at Old Trafford beyond June, while those in close
contact with senior officials at Inter Milan are convinced that Frank
Lampard will be joining José Mourinho at the club next season and may beat
the new manager through the door.
Knowledge of Didier Drogba's fondness for AC Milan comes from his recently
published autobiography (imaginatively titled Didier Drogba: The
Autobiography), in which he speaks of his desire to join the Italian
club and details one failed attempt to sign him in 2006. “All footballers
dream of playing for AC Milan, I explained to Paolo Maldini that it is a
club I would love to join,” Drogba wrote.
These are hardly the sentiments of a man who is playing hard to get, even if
Milan's failure to qualify for the Champions League next season may have
cooled his ardour.
There was a time when all of this would have made perfect sense, when Drogba
using Chelsea as a stepping-stone to secure his path to a giant of Italian
football would be expected. Even Ronaldo's coquettish overtures would not
have surprised because it was well known that, in marquee terms, Italy and
Spain topped the bill. Sir Alex Ferguson was considered to have performed a
feat in keeping his best young players, such as Ryan Giggs, Roy Keane and
Paul Scholes, away from the clutches of foreign predators and while David
Beckham left for Real Madrid, it was on Ferguson's terms and regarded as the
manager rejecting the player, not the other way around.
In 1999 United were the best team in the world, yet had a leading light signed
for a big European club in the summer after the treble, few would have found
it strange. This self-deprecation endures. It was seen as reasonable that
Mathieu Flamini should reject Arsenal for Milan, even though his former
team-mates outclassed his new ones in the San Siro in March and, in the
short term, Flamini has swapped the Champions League for the Uefa Cup.
True, Arsenal could not compete with wealthy Milan on personal terms, but even
so, why go abroad rather than search for another Premier League club?
England is where it is at right now. “Never holiday in a country where
everybody is looking to emigrate” is a maxim for the traveller who likes his
comforts and anyone who is any good has half an eye on the Premier League
this summer.
There was a time when English football was like Las Vegas must have been for
Elvis Presley. It was the place a big star went for a pay cheque in the
autumn of his career. Someone else got the Sun years, usually a club in
Italy or Spain. Nowadays, unless an owner buys a pup, as Roman Abramovich,
of Chelsea, did with Andriy Shevchenko, it rarely happens; not to the big
boys, at least. The days of a final turn around the block for Gianluca
Vialli or Ruud Gullit are over. The time of getting second-hand Dennis
Bergkamp, after he had failed at Inter Milan, has gone.
Crucially, the prospect of buying Ronaldinho was not unanimously welcomed by
Manchester City supporters, even if his signing-on fee was a free nightclub
pass and the photocopied contents of Sven-Göran Eriksson's little black
book. They wanted him to show that he was up for it. This is a changed
environment. Luka Modric, the Croatia playmaker who recently signed for
Tottenham Hotspur, is the sort of player who would have gone to Italy or
Spain without a glance in England's direction a decade ago.
English football did not previously attract career-prime players from leading
football nations such as Spain, yet Liverpool have Fernando Torres and
Arsenal have Cesc Fàbregas. It is considered a fault that English players
seldom travel the opposite way, but these days that has much to do with the
differing circumstances of the domestic game.
Who would be a better fit for Wayne Rooney than Manchester United, or Chelsea
for John Terry? These players have the technique to play on the Continent
but will be happiest in familiar surroundings, while no longer having to
forgo earning potential or settling for second best professionally.
The idea that a player must leave to be challenged is also passé. United,
Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool may be English clubs, but in outlook they are
as exotic as any. If talk of Mourinho's intentions is correct, Inter could
have more Englishmen than Arsenal next season. The opportunity, indeed the
necessity, for a top English player to think about the game in a different
way is as great at the elite Premier League clubs as it is in Serie A or La
Liga. No one who was unprepared to embrace new ideas would last two minutes
at Old Trafford.
It is this package, the success, the wealth, the cosmopolitanism, even the
security - at United and Arsenal, certainly, at Chelsea and Liverpool not so
much - that should make English football so appealing. Surely Ronaldo, at
23, must acknowledge the way his game has been successfully developed since
his arrival from Sporting Lisbon in 2003. Going from show pony to best in
show, his talent has been harnessed and set on a positive course by Ferguson
and Carlos Queiroz, his assistant, but the winger is still linked with a
transfer to Real.
Compare his career path with that of Robinho, the Brazil winger at Real whose
progress was disappointingly erratic until this season. Robinho played a big
part in the successful defence of the title, but no one speaks of him as
potentially the finest footballer in the world. Ronaldo could not have
achieved at the Bernabéu what he has achieved with United, and why should
that be about to change?
Drogba is 30 but, late in his career, has been transformed by the Premier
League into one of the most potent goalscorers in the world. Cutting back on
the histrionics elevated his potential and that would not have happened in a
league other than England's, where diving has a greater stigma attached than
almost any act of bad sportsmanship.
The feeling remains that if Drogba departs, it will be partly because his
antics were deemed intolerable and he could not make a lasting change to his
game after so many years. Yet he will be half the player if he chooses to
fall over when he could stay upright and use his immense physical power to
bully and upset defenders, and a coach who is not prepared to address the
unpleasant side of his personality will not be rewarded.
Lampard is the exception, it could be argued, because he will be 30 when his
contract expires in 2009, has never played for a club outside England and
may wish to experience life in another league before ending his career. His
unceasing desire to answer his critics would also be served by a successful
spell in Milan and, because his game is driven by energy, the clock is
ticking.
Lampard seems to be the type of player who will hit a wall one day and
deteriorate rapidly. It happens to the best of them, from Beckham to Keane,
but there is no sign of it yet, so why jump this summer when he could spend
his final 12 months at Stamford Bridge attempting to wrest the league title
from United? The grass is no longer greener, even for a player such as
Lampard.
Inter's target is the Champions League and who would bet on that ambition
being realised next year, given the performance that was turned in against
Liverpool this season, ending in a 3-0 aggregate defeat? Italian clubs are
looking good against each other, just as English clubs used to, before
failing in Europe. They are where we were and we are where they were, so
these are high times.
English football should make the most of it, as should those lucky enough to
be along for the ride.
