Liverpool's Champions League Re-Emergence Would Be Good for European Football

It has now been four long years since Liverpool last competed in Europe’s premier club competition, the UEFA Champions League, and after yet another disappointing Premier League season, the new campaign will once again kick off without the Reds being involved in the European Cup.

However, in their current predicament, it could be a good few years yet before the Reds are gracing the top table of European football once again, and that can only be a bad thing for the game on the continent.

For one thing, the UEFA Champions League is a competition which is synonymous with many things but primarily the biggest names in European club football, whether that be a Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, AC Milan, Juventus or a Manchester United.

Make no mistake about it, one of those names should be that of Liverpool Football Club, which have won the continent’s biggest prize on no less than five occasions, making the Merseyside giants the joint third-most successful club side in the illustrious 58-year history of the competition.

Yes, it is always refreshing and heart warming to see some of the lesser-known sides take centre stage, whether that be, say, a Steaua Bucharest in 1986 or a Real Star Belgrade five years later.

In more recent times, the unexpected emergence of the likes of Porto and Borussia Dortmund have also provided spectators with some of the most memorable moments that the UEFA Champions League has ever seen.

But equally, this is Europe’s premier club competition and so by definition it demands the involvement of the continent’s “premier” clubs, without which it would lose some of its star dust and lustre.

For imagine going to the theatre and hearing just before the curtain went up for act one that the leading man had pulled out with a cold, to be replaced by his understudy. Naturally, you would feel just a little deflated, cheated even, and that is what the European Cup is like at present without the presence of one of its heavyweight contestants: incomplete.

It is not just the name and the history of the club, though, that would be welcomed back by fans from across the continent but also the chance afforded to supporters to watch their team play a UEFA Champions League tie at Anfield, one of the great cathedrals of European football.

Any spectators—home or away—who were at the famous old ground for some of Liverpool’s most memorable European Cup adventures will attest to the stadium’s now legendary atmosphere, whether that be against St. Etienne in 1977, AS Roma in 2002 or Chelsea both in 2005 and 2007.

Those nights, which produced a series of never-to-be-forgotten, spine-tingling emotions, are what the UEFA Champions League is all about and was made for, and the competition is without doubt all the poorer for the absence of the 18-time English champions.

Put it this way: Can you imagine, just for a moment, watching the European Cup without, say, a Munich or a Juventus taking part in it? No, to be at its strongest and most eye catching, the competition absolutely must contain the superpowers of the club game on the continent.

If confirmation were needed on that, a quick and simple survey of fans from across Europe, let alone TV executives and club owners alike, would surely provide it.

Do not forget either that on the last occasion that the Merseyside giants were involved in the Champions League, between 2002 and 2009, the club managed to reach no less than two finals, one semifinal and two quarterfinals in only eight appearances—a run of success that ultimately saw the Reds ranked as the continent’s No. 1 side by the governing body of European football under the management of Rafael Benitez, before their sudden and dramatic fall from grace.

So let’s just hope that current Liverpool head coach Brendan Rodgers can continue the evident progress which he has already clearly made at Anfield in just the 12 months that he has been in charge of the Reds, culminating in a possible re-entry into Europe’s premier club competition at the next earliest possible juncture for the 2014-15 campaign.

As who would not, in all honesty, want to see again the type of pure drama, excitement and theatre that happened on the last occasion that Liverpool won the European Cup against AC Milan in Istanbul on May 25, 2005?

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