There are countless different sayings and phrases that are used around football that may or may not make sense to you. If you have spent most of your life watching football, going to games, and speaking with others around the sport in general, you will no doubt have adopted most of these without even realising that you’ve done so.
If, on the other hand, you are quite late to the football party or are a young football supporter, it is entirely possible that many of them have passed you by.
One such example of this is the phrase ‘fourth place trophy’, which we’ll look to explain further here.
Getting a Champions League Spot
For a long time in the Premier League, the teams that finished in the top four spaces qualified to take part in the following season’s Champions League.
It became an aim of some clubs that didn’t feel as though they could challenge for the title to aim for the fourth position in the top-flight at the very least, believing that making it into Europe’s most elite club competition was something that would give them the prestige to be able to sign better players.
You might think, therefore, that the phrase ‘fourth place trophy’ is a complimentary one, given to the team that made it into the spot.
In reality, it was actually coined as a derogatory comment on Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal side. Although the Frenchman had been able to win the Premier League title more than once with his team, including one season in which they went unbeaten throughout the 38-game calendar, the end of his managerial career saw the Gunners rarely competing for the league and instead being seemingly content with finishing fourth.
This led to supporters of rival clubs suggesting that the North London side had won the ‘fourth place trophy’, rather than any actual silverware they could boast about.
It’s Outdated and Not Really Accurate Anymore
When the Premier League was first formed, it was only the champions that made it into the Champions League, whilst the teams that finished lower than first took part in the likes of the UEFA Cup. That changed for the first time in the 1996-1997 season, with Manchester United making it to the group stage for winning the league and Newcastle United heading to the second qualifying round for finishing as runners-up.
Two years later and both first and second made it to the group stage, whilst third place went into the third qualifying round. Four teams made it for the first time in the 2001-2002 campaign.
Nowadays, there is a regular chance that as many as five teams could make it into the Champions League, depending on how sides have done in European competitions across the preceding season.
In other words, the fourth place trophy isn’t really a thing anymore, but it is still used as a derogatory term used to belittle the accomplishment of a team that has been able to qualify for the Champions League on a regular basis whilst not really competing for any other trophy. It is the kind of daft phrase that supporters use in order to try to diminish the accomplishment of other sides.