While money is pouring into the Premier League in abundance and football inflation in the UK is running rampant in both player and agent salaries, English clubs are getting slap after slap in Europe. How is it that European competition is not completely dominated by expensive European teams, as it happens in almost every transfer window?

Last January, Chelsea alone spent as much on transfers as all the major league teams in Italy, Spain, Germany and France combined. Milan couldn’t match the salaries offered by some… Bournemouth with 11,300 seats. And Dortmund’s financial stability is based on the annual sale of Premier League players.

And yet, what most in continental Europe feared and almost everyone in England hoped that English teams would win trophies in Europe did not happen. And there are many reasons.

In a Champions League final, an English team has not beaten a rival from outside England since 2012, and the full four English representatives at the venue have managed to make it to the quarter-finals only once. According to others, all this is due to the fact that the owners of the nouveau riche do not know how to properly spend money on building big teams – and often this is true. For others, it’s a big internal battle for titles in England, absorbing much of the energy and concentration of the country’s dominant clubs, who often look tired in European matches.

However, the best explanation for the phenomenon is that play-off competition, unlike a 34-38-match league, forces you to overcome financial gaps and everything is decided by the luck of the second, penalty and higher. all for psychological and technical readiness in 90 or 180 minutes. Obviously, money doesn’t (always) bring trophies. The T-shirt also plays a huge role – the one that turns 2-0 into 2-5 in an hour.