Tuesday 9 April 2019 14:41, UK
Four English teams are set to play in Champions League quarter-finals this week - a feat never achieved by any other nation.
Tottenham host Manchester CIty and Liverpool face Porto on Tuesday, before Manchester United take on Barcelona on Wednesday - all looking to become the first English side to lift the Champions League trophy since Chelsea in 2012.
Sky Sports have crunched the numbers on the teams making up the last eight in each edition of the Champions League since it was restructured in 1994 to find out whether English representation is at an all-time high.
English teams have had four teams in the quarter-finals on three occasions - in 2007/08, when Manchester United beat Chelsea in an all-English final, in 2008/09, when Barcelona beat United in Rome - and now, in 2018/19.
While La Liga has had three quarter-finalists in each of the previous six seasons - as well as for four years in a row between 1999/2000 and 2002/03 - the Spanish have never managed to have four sides among the last eight.
The Bundesliga has only had three quarter-finalists once before (1997/98), while Serie A has achieved that feat three times, in 2002/03, 2004/05 and 2005/06.
Despite being considered the other member of Europe's 'big five' leagues, Ligue 1 has never even seen three teams make the quarter-finals in the same year.
While each of the last five Champions League winners have hailed from Spain, that era could well be at an end, with Barcelona being the only Spanish club left in the competition this season.
It's also the first time since 2005 that no German side remains at this stage, less than six years since Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund - both knocked out by English sides this time around - contested the final at Wembley.
And after two years with no representatives from outside the 'big five' leagues in the last eight, Ajax and Porto have provided hope to the rest of the continent, too.
If United and Liverpool progress in the competition and join Spurs or City, three English clubs will reach the penultimate stage for the first time in 10 years - having achieved that number in three successive seasons until 2008/09.
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