Whisper it quietly, but the UEFA Champions League Final between Manchester United and Chelsea may be proof positive that the English Premier League is currently the best domestic competition in Europe. Certainly it provides a sense of legitmacy to a league that consistently markets itself as Europe's 'most exciting,' but which is sometimes derided for the tactical and technical naivity of its teams on the continental stage.
Manchester United are a team renowned for their attacking sensibilities both at home and in Europe, and in Cristiano Ronaldo they currently possess the most effective player on the continent. United have, however, failed to add to their dramatic UEFA Champions League win in 1999, with this their first European final since that dramatic night in Barcelona nine years ago.
Chelsea were making headlines nine years ago for becoming the first team in the history of English football to field a starting eleven comprised entirely of foreign players. These days the likes of John Terry, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips supplement an array of multinational stars on show at Stamford Bridge, however Chelsea have failed to set pulses racing under dour Israeli coach Avram Grant, whose tactics can often be described as functional at best.
Critics too, are quick to link the sheer number of foreign players plying their trade in the English Premier League with the English national team's failure to qualify for the European Championship finals in Switzerland and Austria. Italian fans tout their victory at the 2006 FIFA World Cup as a triumph for their domestic league, with Barcelona defender Gianluca Zambrotta the only Italian playing outside Serie A at the time that Italy hoisted the Jules Rimet trophy into the Berlin night sky.
Yet many of Italy's top club sides boast sizeable foreign contingents, and it was allegedly a clash between Inter and Juventus in which not a single Italian player started for Scudetto-holders Inter that prompted FIFA supremo Sepp Blatter to propose a 'six plus five' rule. If employed, it would force clubs to field six starting players from their own country, and while many critics have labelled the proposal unworkable under current European laws, it could have a notable impact on several English sides.
Liverpool reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League this season with a squad that included just four frontline English players, and only two of those in Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher are regulars in Rafa Benitez' side. With the likes of Spanish star Fernando Torres, Argentine schemer Javier Mascherano and Dutch winger Ryan Babel within their ranks, however, Liverpool managed to sweep Inter aside in their Champions League quarter-final before beating fellow English side Arsenal to book a place in the last four.
The success of English sides in this season's Champions League has rankled some in Italy, with plenty on the peninsula casting envious glances towards the Premier League. Indeed Inter's Swedish star Zlatan Ibrahimovic has admitted that he would be happy to join an English club, and many in Italy are concerned that the lure of playing in front of packed modern stadia might be enough to persuade Serie A's best and brightest to switch their cultured calcio for the blood-and-guts of English football.
As yet that has not occurred, and with the likes of former Arsenal stars Patrick Viera and Thierry Henry trading the Premier League for Serie A and Spain's La Liga respectively, the trend has, if anything, been the reverse. Yet with the Calciopoli scandal and fan riots having rocked Serie A, while Barcelona and Real Madrid continue to monopolise La Liga, the English Premier League - with all its atmosphere and tradition, is now being labelled the most attractive in Europe.
For all the glamour of the Premier League history-laden clubs such as Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa and Everton continue to struggle to break the hegemony at the top of the English game, while in the UEFA Cup Spurs and Everton were beaten in the Round of 16 by PSV Eindhoven and Fiorentina respectively. Coupled with the woeful performance of Derby County - who look set to finish the season with the lowest points total ever recorded in the Premier League, the struggles of some English sides continues to fuel the fire for some of the competition's detractors.
Come the evening of May 21, however, an English team will be holding aloft the UEFA Champion's League trophy in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium. Whether it's Avram Grant's cosmopolitan Chelsea or Sir Alex Ferguson's more home-styled Manchester United, fans and sceptics alike will be hard pressed to argue the fact that this has indeed been a season of triumph for English football.
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