Fog in the channel – continent cut off. Footballing climate change has left Europe isolated from the Xanadu of the Premier League after Arsenal and Manchester United fell at the quarter-final stage within 24 hours. The Champions League has no choice but to soldier on without the Free Market Four.
Divine right had flavoured the English view of Europe's showcase competition before this week's exchanges left the Premier League with no semi-finalist for the first time since 2003. The annual Grand Tour had United's followers scenting the reds in Bordeaux or the food in Vieux Lyon. Few Arsenal supporters would have looked beyond Barcelona, but many Chelsea fans had swallowed the tales of Serie A's decline. Their spiritual father, José Mourinho, put them right with Internazionale's expert raid on Stamford Bridge. By then, Liverpool were already sending postcards home from the Europa League.
In France, Spain, Germany and Italy, where the revels continue, there will be relief that leveraged buyouts and oligarchical extravagance have been given a slap. In 2007, 2008 and again last year, Premier League clubs filled three of the four semi-final places. This near annexation could not stop Barcelona winning in 2006 and 2009, or Milan (in 2007) avenging their loss to Liverpool in Istanbul (2005), but there was a growing sense that Premier League chutzpah had overwhelmed the old powers.
Then the money ran out. Or, rather, the credit. Last summer English top four spending collapsed as United headed into autumn still £66.5m up from the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo for £80m and Arsenal were £31m to the good as Kolo Touré and Emmanuel Adebayor left for Manchester City. Chelsea's net deficit of £20.5m was modest by Roman Abramovich's standards and Liverpool were only £3m down after recycling the £30m received from Real Madrid for Xabi Alonso.
Liverpool's top spends were on a right-back (Glen Johnson) and a serially infirm midfielder (Alberto Aquilani); Chelsea's biggest splurge was on a left wing-back, Yuri Zhirkov, while United sought to ameliorate the loss of the Premier League's best player by investing £16m in Antonio Valencia, a fine player excelling in a great one's shadow. Consolidation was the theme as the big four raked in money and spent parsimoniously to reach transfer deadline day with a net gain of £73m.
In a three-horse race for the league title, audiences are unanimous in reporting a drop in entertainment. This fall in the razzle-dazzle ratio is consistent with the slide from three Champions League semi-finalists 12 months ago to none now. But there was more at work than boom and bust.
The greatest fightback against English borrowing came this summer at a club who flamed-out at the same stage as Chelsea. Real Madrid bought Kaká, Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Alonso but could not advance past Lyon. Money was not continental Europe's main counter-attacking weapon. The tools were Mourinho's strategic cunning, the artistic might of Barcelona's academy and the tactical nous of Bayern's Louis van Gaal, together with decisive flourishes from game-changing players.
In a World Cup year the strain of cross-channel scuttling and cauldron football has been lifted from the England hardcore. Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand and Theo Walcott have now turned inward to domestic assignments in the campaign's final month. But the exodus was no energy-conserving ploy by Fabio Capello. Each let-down was a separate study in fallibility, or powerlessness (in Arsenal's case), and each fallen club will conduct an autopsy alone, not under an English flag.
One thread connecting Arsenal's 4-1 defeat at the Camp Nou and United's exit on away goals to Bayern Munich is that both games were settled finally by individual majesty: Lionel Messi, in Spain, and Arjen Robben with a sublime volley on a pitch where United's enforcers considered him a soft touch in his Chelsea days.
The other catalyst in the English champions' downfall was the dismissal of Rafael, the 19-year-old Brazilian right-back, for tugging at Franck Ribéry's arm when he was already on a caution for kicking out at another Bayern player. Heavy German lobbying of the referee conspired with an absence of self-control on Rafael's part to force United into siege mode for 40 minutes. The teenager's interminable trudge from the pitch was a gallows procession for United's hopes. On the slim credit side they could at least say his crime expressed an excess rather than a paucity of passion.
Michael Carrick's tumble in his own penalty area for Bayern's first when United led 3-0 would not qualify as a warrior's response to danger, unlike Rooney's eagerness to sprint through the pain barrier in pursuit of a third consecutive Champions League final appearance for United. With Rooney and Ronaldo eliminated, the stage is clear for Messi to show us the limits of Mourinho's talent for suffocation.
An autopsy works properly only if the 180 minutes of both legs are studied – and if credit is extended to the opponent, who should not be depicted as some continental irritant who just hijacked a royal procession.
Barcelona did unto Arsenal in Catalonia what they ought to have done unto them in north London: splattered them across Messi's canvas. Of the four 45-minute phases, a depleted Arsenal side won only one – the second half at the Emirates. There is no refuge in little Leo's genius. For two seasons now Arsenal have taken thumpings from teams with more power and drive: United, Chelsea and now Pep Guardiola's Barça: a better, stronger, more fluent manifestation of Arsène Wenger's romantic visions.
United landed themselves in the position of having to risk Rooney's injured ankle because their ball retention was so poor in the 2-1 defeat in Bavaria. Those failings shaped Sir Alex Ferguson's team selection and tactics for the return at Old Trafford. Chelsea, Arsenal and United all went into round two in a disadvantageous position. Ferguson and Wenger will feel the strongest urge to hit the shops: United for a striker and Arsenal for centre-halves, a centre-forward and at least one gladiatorial midfielder.
None of the expelled English clubs is an overnight basket case. United and Arsenal are miracles of evolutionary planning and Chelsea are not the first big notch on Mourinho's tomahawk. But the Premier League should worry. When the spending stopped, so did the conquest of European lands.
Non-patriots will say Lyon's presence, Mourinho's cleverness, Barcelona's radiance and even Bayern's persistence have restored diversity to a competition that had become the plaything of a league whose gift for negotiating huge television contracts and extracting money from hedge funds had inflated its power on the pitch artificially. Arsenal and United, though, both play in something close to the Barcelona spirit, so there is no basis for gloating on aesthetic grounds.
Messi has raised this Champions League campaign far above the financial, political or national. Only the most tribal Arsenal or United supporter could disengage from the last two stages with the world's best footballer in this kind of defence-ripping form. If he carries on this way, Messi will inspire Barcelona to a defence of their title in Madrid, home of Ronaldo, Kaká and the free-spending White Enemy. A scouted boy who could still pass as a boy scout is the antidote to money.
