In celebration of the Europa League: silverware that is now worth winning
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Version 0 of 1. “Well, if you won it last year you basically got nothing. Just a trophy. Now the Europa League gives you the opportunity to play in the Champions League. That is a big challenge for us.” It’s fair to say Mauricio Pochettino has changed his tune. When his Southampton team looked as though they might qualify for the Europa League last season, he dismissed it as a “competition for teams that are not good enough to be playing with the best”. Pochettino is now Tottenham manager, and with the 2014-15 winners rewarded with a Champions League berth for next season, it now less represents a graveyard, more a gateway through which his team can play with the best. Of course, how one views winning ‘just a trophy’ is all based upon perspective. For Spurs’ legendary manager Bill Nicholson, who won the inaugural Uefa Cup back in 1972 with the club, it meant an awful lot. But time and money will do funny things to a sport, and if a Champions League carrot must be dangled at the end of a Europa League string in order to revitalise clubs’ interest in winning some actual silverware, then so be it. It would be preferable to judge the Europa League on its own merits, of which there are many, rather than constantly compare the competition to its bigger brother. But the two now are intrinsically linked, for better and for worse. While elevation into Europe’s premier competition has endowed the Europa League with greater stature this season, it is the rule that allows eight third-placed Champions League teams to parachute into the knock-out stage that remains the only thing to cheapen it. These eight make up a quarter of the teams remaining in the competition in late February. Of the last 10 Europa League finals, seven have included at least one of these teams. Why Champions League teams, flush from their group stage failings, are allowed the chance to win a trophy that they never intended to enter, is baffling. Compare this to a smaller side that may have poured blood, sweat and considerable air miles into the competition as early as July, and it becomes even more of a mystery. Tottenham and Everton, who start their campaigns in earnest on Thursday night against Partizan Belgrade and Wolfsburg respectively, are two of the bigger sides in the Europa League group stages. Whilst both Pochettino and Roberto Martínez have stated their clubs hold top-four ambitions in the Premier League this season, neither are favourites to beat Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool or Manchester United to those places. In that respect, winning the Europa League outright is perhaps their best chance of realising their Champions League aspirations. For Celtic, the only other British (at time of writing!) team in the group stages, the goalposts are slightly different. Champions League qualification will almost certainly be secured domestically, but the Europa League remains the only stage on which Ronny Deila and co can raise a few eyebrows. If Spurs and Everton progress to the competition’s latter stages and fail to make an impression in the Premier League, could it come to pass that the two teams play squad players in their Premier League fixtures in order to save their best for the Europa League? Probably not. But to even consider it is to show how significant the Champions League qualification change has made. It might even have a trickle-down effect and increase the stature of the League Cup, but that is another argument for another blog. Many feel the Europa League is inferior to the Champions League. The official anthem isn’t nearly as orchestral. Andy Townsend is the ‘colour’ commentator on ITV4. It often clashes with post-work Thursday night drinks. But on the pitch, there’s a lot to shout about. Genuine minnows emerge from the European outback with Cinderella stories and at least have a more interesting narrative than being a spiralling plaything of a foreign investor. Bigger clubs in the Europa League both spend within their means and bring through talented youngsters. Anybody that thinks the early stages do not contain quality need only look at Hull City’s failure to qualify for the group stage. The Europa League needs another tweak to drop the Champions League dropouts, but the fact that it now has a monetary reward to complement the silverware could see it become the Championship of the continent: not the greatest league in terms of standard, but arguably better entertainment. However, the Europa League is best viewed not in comparison with other competitions; it is a brilliant tournament in its own right, and should be celebrated as such. |