Saturday’s Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid is the fourth in five years with at least one English participant. Two of those have been all-English affairs and, had it not been for odds-defying comebacks from Madrid, this could easily have been the third.
For one nation’s football clubs to dominate the continent’s blue riband event is hardly unheard of — Spanish sides lifted the trophy for five successive years before Liverpool’s 2019 victory. But there is something ominous about this era compared with other recent national hegemonies.
A decade ago Real Madrid and Barcelona consistently topped Deloitte’s annual Football Money League, but today Barcelona’s finances are in tatters. The spot is now held by Manchester City, poster child of the Premier League’s nouveau riche.