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In the Champions League, 15 different teams have reached the semi-final stage at least once in the last five years. The best performing team is AC Milan, who won in 2003 and lost a dramatic final to Liverpool in 2005. Barcelona and Real Madrid have also done well. No team could be said to have dominated.

Some teams haven't quite lived up to their potential. Chelsea have lost two semifinals, and Manchester United one. United's defeat by Bayer Leverkusen, on away goals, is in fact the only time they've reached the semi-final since they won the championship in 1999. At the time of writing (April 2007), both teams are still in, so maybe this is their year. United are having the best domestic season they've had in a long time, and are looking likely to win the Premiership with 7 games left.

The other team who is definitely due are Bayern Munich. They haven't had a single semifinal since they won it in 2001. They are also still in there with a fighting chance.

One rough way of assessing the top teams' current squads is by the number of players each club sent to the World Cup last summer. Arsenal sent the most, 15, with AC Milan and Chelsea sending 14 each.

You can make an arbitrary calculation on the following basis: 10 points for a Champions League win in the last 5 years, 5 points for being losing finalists and 2 points for being losing semifinalists, plus 1 point for every player sent to the World Cup. On this basis, AC Milan are Europe's dominant team, with 31 points, their nearest rivals being Barcelona on 23, Real Madrid on 22, and Arsenal and Liverpool on 20. Chelsea, despite being the richest club in Europe, with trophies galore in England, languish on 18. Club owner Roman Abramovich may well come to feel that Jose Maurinho is a spent force. He only got the job after Porto won the Champions League in 2004, so watch next season to see if this year's winner finds himself in charge of Chelsea.

The most successful countries, as you'd expect, are Italy, England and Spain. England sent the most players to the World Cup (not mainly to play for England, of course), while Spain have been the most successful in Europe.

Learn more about this author, Jon Eccles.
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