Jon Driscoll can be found on social media here, and if you’re hungry for more, tune in to his weekly La Liga podcast with Terry Gibson. You can read more from Driscoll in his two books Get It Kicked and The Fifty.
The day of the final game was delivered as promised. The new Champions League format has its flaws, but it is set to deliver a series of cliffhangers on Matchday 8 and I’m sure UEFA would like to extend their thanks to Anatoliy Trubin, Benfica’s great goalkeeper who scored his team’s fourth goal against Real Madrid to salvage their place in the competition. It will be an iconic moment. Who did not bring that night of chaos, and, frankly, in the general competition this season? Spanish teams.
We have been here before, the weakness of Spanish football bowed and broken by the financial juggernaut of the Premier League. The 2007/08 Champions League semi-finals featured three of England’s four clubs. Manchester United beat Chelsea in the final in Moscow. A year later and against the semis there were three-quarter Englishmen with only Barcelona against them.
Looking back at Pep Guardiola’s Barca team now, it seems ironic to remember that English football pundits initially dismissed them as lightweights who would face the inevitable steamroller of the Premier League. It is true that English clubs were growing rich. And while it’s often true that money talks, Chelsea’s strange victory in 2012 was the Premier League club’s only in a decade. From 2014 to 2018, Real Madrid were European champions four times and Barcelona once. There has been a depth in the success of the Spanish continent: between 2010 and 2021 there have been nine Spanish winners of the Europa League. It took a long time for the British to spend that TV money wisely.
Goalkeeper Trubin 🤯
Super-sub Alisson Santos 😤
Olympiacos ends a 12-year wait 👏So many amazing moments!#PricelessMoments | @MastercardEU pic.twitter.com/p0eBQLGd8j
– UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) February 2, 2026
Then last week, five of the top eight spots in the first round of the Champions League were taken by Premier League clubs – and one of them was Tottenham Hotspur! They were only there because they beat Manchester United, it was not good last season in the Premier League in the Europa League final. So, has the day finally arrived, the day when the fortunes of the Premier League make English clubs unquestionable? After all, the biggest voices in Spanish football have been predicting this for years. La Liga President Javier Tebas is using it as ammunition in his demand for rule changes and stricter financial controls from UEFA. Real Madrid President Florentino Perez uses it when pushing the idea of a European Super League. The big mystery of the introduction of abortion in 2021 is that the Premier League clubs, the big winners under the current arrangements, were initially willing until the power of apoplectic fans killed it with the stones of the English mind.
The new format helps English clubs. With eight or ten games to play before relegation, the League Stage is much stronger than the older teams, where you could qualify in four games. It makes sense to swap players, and the depth of Premier League resources is a huge advantage. It also helps English clubs that you cannot play a national rival in the League stage. If the table is correct, it means that five of the top eight clubs are English, so their fixture list is relatively easy because they are not playing.
Besides, I would discard that principle anyway. It feels like a holdover from the early days of many contributors from the rich leagues when there was an understandable skepticism that they were drafted too early. This season we had six clubs in England and five in Spain with a lukewarm league division. I don’t think broadcasters or fans would be happy to see more local conflicts on the continent, especially if it strengthens the integrity of the competition.
But a tweak won’t change the whole picture. The Premier League generates eye-watering sums, and its relegation battle generates more transfer money than chasing the title elsewhere. Jorgen Strand Larsen, who scored one league goal this season, would cost €49.7m to join the 15-man squad.th in the league. A club in any other league can put together that team. Spending in the Premier League’s summer window was more than clubs in the Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1 and Serie A combined.
And yet. I can’t believe we have passed the point of no return. Real Madrid generate more money than any club in England. They have capital that can be used to improve their squad. And no one forced them to appoint Alvaro Arbeloa. Atletico Madrid’s home defeat against Bodo-Glimt cannot be explained by the size of the Premier League’s global TV contracts. Diego Simeone has had €126 million for Joao Felix, €75m for Julian Alvarez and €72m for Thomas Lemar in recent seasons and they look less likely to be crowned European champions than in their veteran days.
An honorable exception, Barcelona were the only Spanish team to finish in the top eight but, as we all know, the incompetence of Josep Maria Bartomeu’s regime plunged the club into a financial black hole. We should also note that any of the three remaining giants in La Liga could still win the crown this season.
Not so Villarreal, whose performance on Day 8 against Bayer Leverkusen was a disgrace. They were unlucky in the early games, but they got worse later in the tournament, letting go cost as much if they got the prize as it was useless. I have a lot of sympathy for Athletic Club who are doing remarkably well to compete at the highest level and at the moment it looks like they will be coming to the end of the cycle.
Having five clubs in the Champions League has revealed two major links missing from European competition La Liga. Specifically, Sevilla and Valencia; one suffers from institutional mismanagement and civil war, the other is crippled by an owner who gives every impression of hating the essence of the club. The bottom half of La Liga has clearly benefited from the increased distribution of TV money. Gone are the days of basketball clubs not being able to afford signing players.
In the press conference ahead of Newcastle’s match in Paris, I asked Anthony Gordon to explain the difference between Champions League and Premier League football. His answer is 👇 pic.twitter.com/FvzVLJgb0G
— Oma Akatugba (@omaakatugba) January 27, 2026
None of the regulations prevent La Liga from doing a better job of marketing itself to the world. There is nothing stopping Real Madrid players from buying a coach who wants them to work on a plan when they lose the ball, nothing stopping Barca from pressing the ball in midfield to go with their defensive line, and no one else can help Diego Simeone settle on the idea of how best to use his expensively assembled team. Newcastle’s Anthony Gordon made an interesting point when asked about the dominance of English clubs this season, saying that the top clubs on the African continent are playing more open tactical styles.
“The Champions League has become like an old style of play, more based than football. Teams are coming and trying to play the right football. In the Premier League, you see very long throws, set pieces – it’s much slower and more based.”
I agree that the Premier League has been strengthened this season with far fewer mistakes by defenders giving chances to opponents on the edge of their penalty area, and a greater emphasis on set plays. During Spain’s dominance of European finals, Barcelona and Real Madrid had good players, but Spanish clubs were also tactically savvy. This season, five Spanish clubs have scored 73 goals while six English clubs have scored only 45. Despite Barca’s fifth place, it has been a difficult Champions League so far: improvement is urgently needed and impossible to achieve.
