Pretty decent for a farm huh? The Germans blew England out of the Champions League

“Good harvest, my dear farmers,” German representative Mats Hummels from Borussia Dortmund poked the English two weeks ago via the X network.

We get it, the allusion needs a little explanation.

In recent seasons, the Premier League has bounced back financially from other recognized leagues. For English clubs with a dose of exaggeration, the other European clubs are farms from which they can drag anyone they want. The farm system is intimately familiar to the Czech sports fan, for example from the overseas NHL.

In the football realm, for example, France’s Ligue One was often nicknamed the “Farmer’s League”. The French basically trained top players for more famous clubs.

The star Kylian Mbappé also pointedly recalled this, when four years ago two French teams – Lyon and Mbappé’s PSG – advanced to the semi-finals of the Champions League.

Now word of a revolt on lowly farms is on the airwaves again. The current edition of the Champions League lacks a Premier League representative, while the economically weaker German Bundesliga has supplied two representatives.

Only Aston Villa remained among the final four of the two remaining European Cups from the English ambassadors, who, however, lost sensationally 2:4 against the Greek Olympiakos in the opening semi-final of the Conference League on Thursday.

In the previous three seasons, English clubs accumulated the most points in the national coefficient, in this year’s ranking the English belong to the third spot with no possibility of going higher. The present retreat is more painful to the English than ever. Next season, the Champions League changes its format and expands the number of participants from 32 to 36.

UEFA has planned that two of the vacant places will go to the strongest leagues. However, the Italians and Germans blew an extra spot for the English, who still have Bayern Munich, Dortmund and Leverkusen in the game for European trophies.

It is celebrated on the “farms”. The Germans and Italians will have a certain five representatives in the elite competition.