Why Spanish teams are so much better in Europe than English teams

Never has so much been spent on so little. The Premier League may be swimming in money but its currency devalues every time the Champions League music starts up. The fact that in Friday’s quarter-final draw the only English team, Manchester City, are sixth favourites to win the tournament, sums up the dismal state of play.

How has money not translated into success? The Spanish will have three teams in the last eight of the European Cup and if Thursday’s last-16 second-leg games go as expected they will have three in the Europa League too. What are they doing right that the English are doing wrong?

English clubs now seem so obsessed with creating squads - with two expensive internationals in every position - that building an XI has become a lost art.

City have four fine full-backs but none of them would get anywhere near a European team of the season and that quantity over quality formula is replicated in other positions and other teams. Arsenal have Danny Welbeck and Olivier Giroud, Barcelona prefer just Luis Suarez, supplemented by 20-year-old youth teamer Munir El Haddadi. Arsene Wenger could argue he has the strength in depth but it's Barca who have the player who gets 40 goals a season.

The fad for rotatable squads has not replaced the value put on having what they call a ‘gala XI in Spain - a team that picks itself, and always plays the big matches. The 10 outfield players that won the Champions League for Barcelona in Berlin last summer then played the FIFA Club World Cup final in December. And, injuries allowing, they will play the final this May in Milan if they reach it.

Likewise there was no secret about Barca's first XI when they won the tournament in 2009 and 2011, just as Real Madrid had a settled side when they won the tournament in 2014. It is hard to remember the last time a big English club had a distinctive first XI where partnerships on the pitch had been forged by repetition of line-up.

Arsene Wenger is so obsessed with rotation that he played an understrength side in the group stage and ended up finishing second, facing Barcelona and being eliminated in the last-16.

Wenger would argue the sheer volume of games means clubs have no alternative but to build squads and rotate, and Manuel Pellegrini and Mauricio Pochettino would agree. The Tottenham manager felt he had to choose between last week’s Europa League first leg against Dortmund and winning a league game three days later. But in Spain this attitude baffles.

Ahead of last season’s Europa League final Sevilla coach Unai Emery asked: “What is football about if not for the glory of winning a trophy?” The UEFA Cup is a competition English football has looked down its nose at since the tournament was rebranded as the Europa League. Would Tottenham not have still beaten Aston Villa even if they had fielded a full-strength team against Dortmund? Why can Dortmund contest their domestic league and the Europa League, and Spurs not?

The Premier League must shoulder some of the blame; Arsenal could have been spared the early kick-off on Saturday away to Everton after a trip to Barcelona. But there is also a sense that there are clubs in Spain with far fewer resources who are more ready to roll their sleeves up and relish the competition.

Villarreal are a small club from a town of 45,000 people, Sevilla spend every summer selling their best players and Athletic Bilbao don’t even allow themselves the advantage of being able to buy beyond the borders of their own region. But they all work their youth systems to the maximum and Sevilla have football's finest director of football in the club's former goalkeeper Monchi.

Chelsea develop youth but only seemingly as part of a broader financial plan that involves loaning players until their profile rises high enough for them to be sold. Manchester United's version of Monchi appears to be Ed Woodward.

Champions League trends are cyclical and Jose Mourinho is right that the tournament is a lot easier to win when a team has Leo Messi. But it should not be forgotten that Messi – the finished product, the superstar – was made at Barca, he was not bought by them.

Clubs in Spain – both those with money and those without – are building as well as buying. In contrast the Premier League is in danger of becoming the competition where everyone knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Perhaps Leicester will show everyone how it should be done next season.