An All-English Final: Vision of the Future?

In 1997 the rules of the Champions League were changed to allow more than one team from each nation to participate. Now, 11 years later, we have our first all-English final.

This is not the first one nation final. That came in just the third year under the new rules, in 1999-2000 when Real Madrid beat Valencia 3-0 in Paris to win the Spanish honours.

That year Valencia had beaten Barcelona in the semi finals, denying Europe, and Spain, the "dream" final between the two great rivals of Spanish football.

If Chelsea overcome Liverpool tonight and win the right to face Manchester United in Moscow, they will perform a similar feat as Valencia managed.

Liverpool and Manchester United are the two great historical giants of English football in the same way that Real and Barca are the greats in Spain, with a similar level of antipathy between teams and fans.

Three years after the first all-Spanish affair, came the first all-Italian final. Juventus and AC Milan bored everyone to sleep at Old Trafford, with AC eventually winning 3-2 on penalties after a goalless, and largely uneventful, 120 minutes in 2003.

Now, after five years of mixed nation finals, we have the very first all-English affair. What I think we can say with some degree of certainty, is that it won't be the last.

If you look at the Champions League in recent years, all of the "Big Four" have been serious contenders to win the competition. And that will surely only continue in the foreseeable future.

Liverpool have two finals and a semi final to their name in four seasons. Arsenal have one final and a litany of quarter final appearances. Manchester United have a final and two semi finals in the noughties. And Chelsea are in their fourth semi final in five seasons.

When you look to next season's Champions League and beyond, the Big Four have to feature heavily in the list of favourites for the competition, along with Real, Barcelona, and the new-look Bayern Munich and Juventus. Elsewhere, finding genuine final contenders is not easy.

AC Milan may yet nick fourth spot in Italy and qualify. But if they don't, the other three Italian contenders (Inter Milan, Roma, and Fiorentina) hardly fill you with confidence in terms of their Champions League history, past or present.

In Spain, perennial threat Valencia, who reached two finals in the early noughties and won the UEFA Cup, have slipped into mediocrity.

Sevilla are a team more likely to break up than to grow, and their best days may be behind them.

Villarreal are great to watch. They made the semi finals in 2006, but they lack the history and fanbase of the other Spanish giants. And history does seem to have a strong influence on the destiny of this great competition.

Atletico Madrid are relatively new to European competition in recent years. It is difficult to see them as serious contenders to win the competition should they qualify for next season.

Of course, there is always the chance of a "surprise" finalist. Just four years ago we had Porto and Monaco in the final.

Porto were a great mixture of a great group of largely homegrown players (Maniche, Deco, Costinha, Ricardo Carvalho), and an inspired new manager (Mourinho).

Monaco's appearance was a complete shock, and when you look at their team in that final, few of the players have since gone on to great achievement—Roma, Evra, Ibarra, Bernardi, Giuly, Morientes, Eduoard Cisse, Zikos, Rothen, Rodrigues, Givet. Hardly household names with a few notable exceptions such as Evra, Giuly, and Morientes.

Adebayor was also an unused substitute in 2004. In 2002 it was a Michael Ballack inspired Bayer Leverkusen's turn, knocking out both Liverpool and Manchester United on the way.

While finalists such as those in 2002 and 2004 make for a very welcome change, they are very much the exception to the rule.

Consider the superior television funding the Big Four have behind them, and the reputations they have throughout the footballing world. It's very difficult to foresee anything other than more all-English finals in the next decade—or at least a strong presence in the last four.

Of course, football can, and frequently does, change very quickly. And this writer certainly hopes that is the case. The final of the Champions League should, as often as possible, be a truly European affair.

Finals and semi finals dominated by one nation can only damage the competition in the long-term.

This is one of the pitfalls of a great competition. I am certainly in favour of allowing more than one team from each nation to participate.

I know none of you will be surprised by that, given that I am a Liverpool fan. But I genuinely think it has added great drama to the competition, and strengthened it beyond belief.

And there is certainly no going back now, despite the protests of the purists to the "Champions League" name.

I would honestly think this even if Liverpool finished fifth every season. The Champions League is a far better competition than the European Cup ever was, but it has caused as many problems as it has solved.

It is up to UEFA and FIFA to come up with ways of strengthening other domestic leagues and making one-nation finals less likely in the future.

I fear that Sepp Blatters' "foreigner rule," while admirable in aim in many ways, is out of step with modern thinking. I can't see it being ratified by the European Union, so we will be back to square one.

The next decade will be very interesting.