Teams from England, Spain, Italy and Germany have enjoyed spells of dominance in UEFA’s flagship club competitions
The Champions League and Europa League have been dominated in recent years by teams hailing from the same handful of countries.
Spain, England, Italy and Germany are all guaranteed at least four teams in the Champions League group stage which, of course, helps.
Since the 1999-2000 season, La Liga’s representatives, in particular, have flourished, providing at least one finalist in 11 of the past 19 editions of the Champions League.
That dominance is reflected in the Europa League too, with 10 of the past 19 tournaments featuring at least one Spanish team.
In that same time period there have been a number of cases where finalists in both competitions have been drawn from the same country. It has happened six times in the Champions League and three times in the Europa League.
But history was made in the 2018-19 season when all four European final slots went to English clubs in Tottenham, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal.
Liverpool and Tottenham booked their place in the Champions League 2019 final in Madrid by beating Barcelona and Ajax respectively, while Arsenal and Chelsea are set to face off in UEFA’s secondary club competition in Baku.
A case of all four European finalists coming from one country has never happened before, so it was a momentous occasion for English football in 2018-19 when Arsenal and Chelsea progressed from their respective UEL semi-final ties.
Arsenal overcame Valencia while Chelsea saw off Frankfurt on penalties the day after Tottenham and Liverpool were confirmed Champions League as finalists. It is the first time that all four European finals in a single season have involved English clubs.
While we hadn’t seen four finalists from one country across the UEFA’s continental competitions until now, there have been a number of instances where a country boasted three of the four finalists.
The first time it happened was in 1980, when Eintracht Frankfurt and Borussia Monchengladbach contested an all-German UEFA Cup final, while Hamburg played – and lost against – Nottingham Forest in the European Cup final.
Ten years later, in 1990, Italy had both UEFA Cup finalists – Juventus and Fiorentina – and the winner of the European Cup as Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan defeated Benfica.
Indeed, it was a glorious decade for Serie A and the three-team feat was repeated in 1995 (AC Milan in the Champions League, Parma and Juventus in the UEFA Cup) and 1998 (Juventus in the Champions League, Inter and Lazio in the UEFA Cup).
In 2008, British teams accounted for three of the four European finalists, with England’s Manchester United facing Chelsea in the Champions League, while Scottish side Rangers took on Zenit in the Europa League.
More recently, Spanish teams have been to the fore on both fronts, with three representatives across the two finals in 2014 and 2016 (Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, Sevilla in Europa League on both occasions).
Source:Goal.com