With three months still remaining in Europe’s major leagues, four of the five most-watched competitions are pretty much already decided. In Germany, Bayern Munich have ostensibly been crowned champions with an 18-point lead over their nearest rivals. In England and France, it would be shocking to see Manchester City and PSG throw away their respective 13-point and 11-point advantages. Spain is tighter, but Barcelona comfortably sit nine points clear of Atletico Madrid.
Even what was once a madcap, five-team race in Serie A has quickly dwindled into a two-horse race between usual suspects Juventus and underdogs Napoli, but at least there’s competition in Italy.
As Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger recently stated, financial imbalance is “destroying competition” and revealing that “something is not right in our game.”
For a better idea of how competitive football could be without smaller clubs getting torn apart every transfer window, here are four clubs (Valencia, AS Monaco, Southampton and Borussia Dortmund) that could’ve challenged for silverware this season had they been able to keep these active players together.
La Liga — Valencia
ST: David Villa (NYCFC); ST: Aritz Aduriz (Athletic Bilbao)
LM: Paco Alcacer (Barcelona); CM: Andre Gomes (Barcelona); CM: David Silva (Manchester City); RM: Juan Mata (Manchester United)
RB: Antonio Barragan (Real Betis); CB: Shkodran Mustafi (Arsenal); CB: Nicolas Otamendi (Manchester City); LB: Jordi Alba (Barcelona)
GK: Mathew Ryan (Brighton)
Subs: Jeremy Mathieu (Sporting), Raul Albiol (Napoli), Andres Guardado (Real Betis), Alvaro Negredo (Besiktas), Ever Banega (Sevilla), Juan Bernat (Bayern Munich)
Ligue 1 — AS Monaco
ST: Kylian Mbappe (PSG); ST: Anthony Martial (Manchester United)
LM: Yannick Carrasco (Atletico); CM: James Rodriguez (Bayern Munich); CM: Tiemoue Bakayoko (Chelsea); RM: Bernardo Silva (Manchester City)
RB: Maicon (Free agent); CB: Geoffrey Kondogbia (Valencia); CB: Aymen Abdennour (Marseille); LB: Benjamin Mendy (Manchester City)
GK: Stephane Ruffier (Saint-Etienne)
Subs: Yaya Toure (Manchester City), Layvin Kurzawa (PSG), Guido Carrillo (Southampton), Jeremy Menez (America), Allan Saint-Maximin (Nice), Patrice Evra (West Ham)
Premier League — Southampton
ST: Theo Walcott (Everton); CAM: Adam Lallana (Liverpool)
LM: Sadio Mane (Liverpool); CM: Morgan Schneiderlin (Everton); CM: Victor Wanyama (Tottenham); RM: Gareth Bale (Real Madrid)
RB: Nathaniel Clyne (Liverpool); CB: Dejan Lovren (Liverpool); CB: Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool); LB: Luke Shaw (Manchester United)
GK: Artur Boruc (Bournemouth)
Subs: Calum Chambers (Arsenal), Jose Fonte (West Ham), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Liverpool), Graziano Pelle (Shandong Luneng), Jay Rodriguez (West Brom), Peter Crouch (Stoke)
Bundesliga — Borussia Dortmund
ST: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Arsenal); ST: Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)
LM: Ousmane Dembele (Barcelona); CM: Ilkay Gundogan (Manchester City); CM: Kevin Kampl (RB Leipzig); RM: Henrikh Mkhitaryan (Arsenal)
LB: Kevin Großkreutz; CB: Matthias Ginter; CB: Mats Hummels (Bayern Munich); RB: Marc Bartra (Real Betis)
GK: Mitchell Langerak (Nagoya Grampus)
Subs: Ciro Immobile (Lazio), Ivan Perisic (Inter), Sven Bender (Bayer Leverkusen), Mikel Merino (Newcastle United), Emre Mor (Celta de Vigo), Adrian Ramos (Granada)
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