Kay's View: Which European Teams Will Dominate This Decade
In the previous decade, the most successful clubs were Real Madrid, Manchester United, Barcelona, AC Milan and Internazionale, to name a few.
However, who will be the dominate teams in this decade? Which teams will be dominating their respective leagues and be a constant threat in European competition?
6: Internazionale
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Inter have actually been the dominate team at the end of the last decade, but the Scudetto Scandel helped their cause.
In 2005-06, they were second in the league, and therefore were given the title when Juventus were stripped of there points.
The next year saw Juventus being banished to the Italian League 2 (Serie B), and AC Milan start the new league campaign with minus-eight points. Other teams to get punished were Lazio, Fiorentina, and Reggina.
Inter have won all league titles since then, 3 Coppa Italia (2005-06, 10), 4 Supercoppa Italiana (2005-06, 08, 10) and a Uefa Champions League in 2010.
Inter have already started this decade strongly; however, each team will have a relative bad patch after so much success and with AC Milan and Juventus finding their feet again, it will be hard for Inter to maintain their domination.
Need not worry, though, since Inter are owned by oil tycoon Massimo Moratti, so when Inter inevitably go through that bad patch, Moratti will be able to spend big and pick his team back up again.
5: Olympique Lyon
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Their most successful period in their history has actually been in the past decade.
Lyon won their first Ligue 1 title in 2002 and since then have won another six titles creating a national record of seven consecutive Ligue 1 titles. They also added the Coupe de France in 2008, and the Trophee des Champions from 2002-07. Last year they were semi-finalists in the UEFA Champions League losing out on the final to eventual champions Internazionale.
However, Lyon are the richest club in the country and in 2008-09 had a revenue of 139.6 million Euros. They are also planning on having a new stadium ready in 2013.
So with a new stadium coming along and a stable revenue they look good to dominate again in this decade.
4: Manchester City
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Manchester City are the only business in the world who can cope with a loss of £121 million. They are currently the richest club in the world thanks to the owner Sheikh Mansour who is reported to have an estimated family fortune of £555 billion.
So we can safely say that the money is there to spend. And spend he has. In the 2009-10 season alone, he has spent £125 million on transfers. Plus all the money gone into new facilities and modernizing the whole stadium.
In the up and coming years the money poured into the club will pay dividends. Extra revenue streams from the players and European competition will help stable the club and take it to new heights.
With so much talent on and off the pitch and so much money to spend, it is highly unlikely that City will not have at least three dominant years.
3: Tottenham Hotspur
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In Daniel Levy, the chairman of Tottenham Hotspur, Spurs have stabilized economically, and every year turn around good profits. He is working slowly in making this team into a football giant once again.
Not many people know this, but Spurs where actually the first British club to win a European trophy. In 1963 they won the European Cup Winners Cup. They were also the first team to capture ''the Double'' (First Division trophy and FA Cup in the same year)
So it is about time for them to win another European Cup and maybe a couple more Premier League titles. Maybe this decade will be theirs. With the increased revenue of champions league football this year, Tottenham can look to the future.
They have already had their plan accepted for the expansion of their existing stadium, while also looking at maybe having the New Olympic Stadium as their new ground.
They have also made some very good signings in recent years which have helped the club move forward. They have a relatively young team and a good manager in Harry Redknapp who can guide the team to further glories.
2: VFL Wolfsberg
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Wolfsberg won their league in the 2008-2009 season with a Bundesliga record of 10 successive victories. However the next season they finished 10th. This is mostly due to the fact that they changed manager in the 2009-2010 season.
This year though, they are stabilizing the team once more and making them into contenders to win trophies. They have a very good team that is spearheaded by two excellent forwards in Brazilian Grafite and Bosnian Edin Dzeko.
This year Steve Mclaren is their manager and seems to be a good choice for the future, seeing how he guided FC Twente to a league win a Champions League football.
To add to this they are owned by the Volkswagen Group, only the third-largest automobile manufacturer in the world. No problem in finding money then. Plus, lets not forget that the Bundesliga is actually the healthiest league in Europe with the least debt.
So in this decade when the Bundesliga inevitably becomes stronger because of more revenue and profits, Wolfsberg will also benefit, hence giving the team more profits.
The money is there, the players are there, the manager is there. I see a bright future indeed.
1: Arsenal FC
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Finally, we come to Arsenal, who I think will be the most dominant team of this decade. Why?
First of all they have a manager in Arsene Wenger who, apart from being quite good, is against spending money. Even if he does spend money, it is very unlikely that he will spend 30 million on one or two players.
Why is this important? He has helped the team balance all its finances and has not made the mistake in spending big thus taking the club into a fragile financial state. They took on a huge loan in order to build their new stadium, so spending more money absurdly would only damage the club.
What he is not against however is spending small amounts of money on up and coming talent that he can nurture and make into world class players. Like Fabregas, Nasri, Diaby, and the list goes on. He can then sell these superstars if they wish to leave and gain significant profits.
Arsenal also has a very good youth academy consistently creating promising future talents such as Wilshere and Gibbs.
Perhaps the most important point though is that they have finally paid off the Emirates Stadium. This year they recorded £56 million in net profits, 25 percent more than last year. So with huge amounts of revenue coming from the 60,000 seat, state of the art, Emirates Stadium and with all their loans firmly in command, there is no chance that Arsenal can not become one of the dominant team's of the decade.
Honorable mentions:
Real Madrid
Bayern Munich
AC Milan
Hamburg
Ajax
