Manchester United. Manchester City. Chelsea. Liverpool. Tottenham Hotspur. West Ham United. Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa. Ipswich Town. What do these teams have in common?
The answer is they have all won European trophies which are still active. As you likey noticed, Arsenal - the third-most successful English club of all time by honours - are not named. The Gunners' failure to turn decades of domestic dominance into continental glory is a mystery to this day. It's not even as if they can blame it on a curse a la Benfica post-1962 European Cup triumph.
The north Londoners have won two defunct European tournaments: the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, which was not run by UEFA until it was replaced with the UEFA Cup in 1971, and the Cup Winners' Cup, which was absorbed by the UEFA Cup (all hail the UEFA Cup, by the way). So it's not as if they're complete nobodies away from the British Isles, at least, even if their haul is slim compared to their rivals.
A new age is dawning in N5, however. Arsenal are on the verge of changing their European footprint for the better, penning a new legacy for a generation of hopefuls, dreamers and optimists. It all starts with Real Madrid.
