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Today's Champions League semi-final will be between two English clubs: Liverpool and Chelsea. Tomorrow will be the turn of Barcelona who will play another English side, Manchester United, seen by many as favourites to win the title, the most important in European club football.

The fact that three of the semi-finalists are English clubs is proof of the competitiveness of the Premier League (the English league), considered the best in the world, ahead of the Spanish and Italian leagues. Indicative of this is the fact that, for the last three years, the Champions League has had an English finalist. This year, it is possible that both finalists will be English. Only Barça can change that.

The domination of English clubs in Europe is, to a large extent, due to the quality of overseas players. (The England side, however, is not having much luck at the moment, and did not even qualify for the Euro 2008 finals.) Some of the best English clubs (Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, etc.) have been bought by multi-millionaire businessmen who have not been reticent in spending large amounts of money to sign the crème de la crème from world football.

The Premier League is made up of a number of legendary teams from European football, although four currently stand out clearly from the rest: the so-called 'big four': Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal.