England is officially guaranteed that at least five teams in the Champions League next season after Arsenal beat Real Madrid 3-0 on Tuesday evening.
Declan Rice scored two beautiful free kicks, including the very first of his career, to place the side of Mikel Arteta in full control over the quarter -final draw at the Emirates.
Mikel Merino then scored the third goal with 75 minutes on the clock and ensured that a night to remember for both the Gunners and the Premier League as a whole.
Another victory in one of the three European competitions would have completed the fifth place for England and there are four more clubs in action.
Two extra places are allocated to countries based on their UEFA coefficiërlistlist. Last season Borussia Dortmund and Bologna were the lucky recipients after Germany and Italy saw the competition of Engand, France and Spain.
However, English parties have dominated this year and there can be further success. Liverpool and Arsenal will finish in the top four, while Nottingham Forest, Chelsea, Newcastle, Manchester City and Aston Villa are also contrary.
Brighton and Bournemouth can also be in the mix with only 12 points that currently separate third place from the 10th for this weekend's promotion.
Unbelievable, England could have no fewer than seven teams in the Champions League next season, although different permutations are required in this scenario.
Aston Villa should win the competition this campaign, but the qualification abuse via the Premier League, while Manchester United of Tottenham, both quarter-finalists, should eliminate the Europa League trophy.
This is because the winners of the Europa League and the Champions League automatically get a chair at the top table the following season.
Previous rules stipulated that a single competition could have only a maximum of five clubs in the Champions League. However, that regulation has now been deleted.
Arsenal Baas Mikel Arteta praised the victory on the Holders Real Madrid, but insisted that his players still have much more to give 'for the return bone.
“If you have not played against this team for the past 20 years and have not had a good run in this competition, you must be willing to write your own history, and it is on this kind of night where you can do that,” Arteta said.
“We did that, but we have much more to give.”
Madrid -midfielder Jude Bellingham meanwhile admitted that the LaLiga giants were lucky to have only lost with three goals, such as the Dominance of Arsenal.
“We were nowhere in the neighborhood, that is the fact and Arsenal was really good,” Bellingham told Amazon Prime Post-Match. 'Two of the goals are really good free kicks, but to be honest they could have had much more.
'But there is a second stage, we hold it, we need something incredibly special. You never know, but I can't come out and say we'll give up, it's not in the nature of the club and the mentality they bring to you.
She [the free kicks] are two pieces of individual quality. If it was not for them, they still had a number of opportunities and we were punished and that happens.
“We had a chance, but you have to make more in these games. Very rarely you come here and you score one and go on. We just didn't do enough, there have been several times in the last third part, but they responded well and we didn't do enough with the ball.
“We still live, we still have 90 minutes.”
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