Blackburn teammates Graeme Le Saux and David Batty fight during a 1995 Champions League match away against Spartak in Moscow . Photo: EMPICS Sport/Andy Heading
In the next couple of weeks, all eyes will be on the European finals. Of course, English clubs will take part in two of the three continental tournaments. So the moment is right for a nice discursive film about English clubs in Europe, describing peak, nadir, recovery and perhaps now a potential period of sustained success.
Our guide to Back to the Sun is James Richardson, as polite and nonchalant as ever, and perfect for a documentary that traces the period of British dominance in the 1970s and 1980s, the horrific events of Hazel and the prohibition that followed. a recovery from which was completed in 1999 when Manchester United beat Bayern Munich 2-1 to give Sir Alex Ferguson his holy grail.
A varied and unusual cast including Clive Tyldesley, Mark Lawrenson, Roberto Donadoni, Paul Parker, Andy Cole and Antonio Conte help Richardson tell the story.
Lawrenson does a good job of explaining how Graeme Souness personified the fear factor that “ Liverpool imposed on European opponents, and as an unshakable Scot, he even coped with an armed Steaua Bucharest fan in the 1984 semi-final, and also broke the opponent's jaw on the field. It was a period when English teams were at the top of the continental game, winning the European Cup seven times out of eight.
All English clubs have been affected by Hazel's ban, but no more so than 1985 champion Everton. presented here by Trevor Steven.
Everton won the Cup Winners' Cup and the English First Division in 1985 but were unable to compete in the European Cup the following season due to a ban on English clubs. an explanation of how and why England fell so far behind in that period. Hooliganism, which again raised concerns in 2023, was widespread, teams became tactically lumpen, and English club football was in decline.
Steven says the ban «began to take a toll on the quality of the players coming into the league and we became an island, a stagnant pond.» Richardson calls it a «prison league» and journalist Jonathan Wilson notes that the FA was mistakenly captured by Charles Hughes and Charles Reap's long ball doctrine, an «imperfect and very unsophisticated» belief that taught a generation that fewer passes were better.
The film's title comes from a quote by Sir Bert Millichip in the early 1990s that English football had returned to the sun, but the return after Heisel was not meant to be a stroll through sun-drenched highlands. While England atrophied, European superclubs, led by AC Milan, led the way in sports science, tactics, recruiting and branding.
The first half of the nineties saw some of England's most humble continental appearances: champions Blackburn. beaten by a rat-catcher,” as Tim Sherwood recalls losing to Trelleborg, or Graham Le Saux and David Batty battling each other on a frozen Moscow field.
Total defeat of Nottingham Forest 7-2 by Bayern Munich, or Aston Villa coached by Internazionale, or Benfica who beat Arsenal at Highbury, and so on.
Parker talks about going to Galatasaray in the Istanbul cauldron in 1993: «We got a little livelier when we got to the dressing room [full time], the boss said, 'Grab your things and let's get out.' Our next game was on Maine Road and the City fans threw Turkish delight at us.”
The final third of the film, dedicated to Ferguson's 1999 victory, brings us back to familiar ground and may seem a little painful to those outside of United, although the material leading up to That Night in Barcelona with Clive is interesting.
Terry Venables' A reign as England manager in the 90s is considered to have had a positive impact on local clubs. Photo: Getty Images/Phil Cole
Steve McManaman believes that the tactical versatility and sophistication that Terry Venables brought to the national team around 1996 has seeped into club football. , while Wilson notes that the most significant foreign imports in the early years of the Premier League were minor strikers such as Eric Cantona, Gianfranco Zola and Dennis Bergkamp, which ended in good English football's predisposition to playing hard lines.
The money-making machine that the Premier League will become has obviously helped, and now Manchester City are ready to take it to its logical conclusion: less sunshine and more financial scorched earth.
Back in the Sun (Sunday, 10pm, BT Sport 1).
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