May 10, 2004
Liverpool nearing the Champions League
After Liverpool's convincing win against Birmingham Saturday (and Newcastle's draw) they need only to draw or win against Newcastle next weekend to be assured of fourth place in the Premiership.
This is of critical importance because they were knocked out of all the cup competitions (League Cup, FA Cup, and UEFA Cup) in late mid-season and were too far off the top three teams at the mid-season point to challenge for the Premiership title.
Fourth place is the last guaranteed entry to the Champions League tournament that runs concurrently with the Premier League. It used to be called the Cup Winner's Cup (that's a mouthful) and has been the world's premier club competition for a generation at least.
The tournament was expanded to a much larger field some years ago, so now the top two clubs in each country's domestic league are guaranteed entry and, depending on the size and quality of your domestic league, up to another two teams are entered into what are called the group phases of the competition. Of course, it's much better for most teams to win a guaranteed place. Then there are far fewer tough games to play and its easier to concentrate on your domestic season and you don't get as tired.
But evidence has shown that it's also not a bad route to go through the group phase because teams can gain the proper mindset and can gain real confidence in their abilities.
Underlying all this is that there are huge cash windfalls for teams in the Champions League. Because its such a high-profile competition in Europe, there is a lot of TV money and huge merchandising potential the longer one stays in the competition. Winning or even just making the semi-finals can mean another £10-20 million pounds for a team for just one season.
This can, and has, allowed some teams to really consolidate their fortunes and become powers in their domestic leagues (a la Deportivo La Coruna) or concomitantly, broken teams that have decided to spend in the expectation of a return to the Champions League that doesn't happen (a la Leeds United).
Next Sunday Newcastle United battle Liverpool for that last, and vital, fourth spot in the Premiership. Liverpool's fate is in their hands^H^H^H^Hboots--if they win or draw the match they are assured of fourth place.
Posted by artandscience at May 10, 2004 12:28 PM