John Arne Riise’s astonishing own goal seems to have given Chelsea the edge in the first Champions League semi-final.

Liverpool’s Norwegian defender bent down to spectacularly head in deep into injury time and leave the scores at 1-1 ahead of the second leg at Stamford Bridge.

Has their ever been a more important own goal? Liverpool were the better side on the night and looked to be easing to a 1-0 first-leg advantage after Dirk Kuyt’s first-half strike. To have that lead ripped away so late and in such a strange fashion cannot have helped their confidence while it has given Chelsea a boost they barely deserved.

Colombia defender Andres Escobar scored an own goal in the 1994 World Cup which knocked them out. He was later shot dead in his home town. Des Walker and Steven Gerrard beat their own keepers in Cup finals but with the importance of the Champions League these days, Riise’s feat will be long remembered.

It may be important for some, but for many neutrals it is certainly one of the funniest football moments.

PHOTO: Liverpool’s John Arne Riise scores an own goal against Chelsea during their Champions League semi-final first leg at Anfield, April 22. REUTERS/Phil Noble

Has it reached the stage where a Champions League semi-final is not enough to safeguard a coach’s job?

Avram Grant, whose Chelsea side visit Liverpool in their first leg on Tuesday, is under pressure despite his team stil having an outside chance of the Premier League title.

Boardroom squabbles mean Rafa Benitez is not 100 percent certain to be at Anfield next season while Barcelona’s Frank Rijkaard desperately needs a win against Manchester United on Wednesday to deflect attention from Primera Liga disappointment.

And what about poor Roberto Mancini? He is on the verge of leading Inter Milan to another scudettoand yet the papers are again full of talk that Jose Mourinho is San Siro-bound.

Surely the problems at PSG and Valencia show what real failure is like? Our dynamic duo Owen Wyatt and Jon Bramley discuss the pressure on coaches these days and want your views.  

Leave a comment below in the usual way or post a video response to youtube or wherever, tag it “Vlog on the pitch” and we’ll load it up here if we like it.

It was with more than the usual haste that I strode off from the Nou Camp after Frank Rijkaard’s customary non-committal news conference on the eve of Barcelona’s Champions League match against Schalke on Tuesday. Liverpool against Arsenal was being shown on terrestrial TV here in Spain and it was one of those games that you didn’t want to miss.

So I settled down to my usual Reuters expenses supper of a bottle of beer and a Kit Kat from the hotel minibar and wasn’t disappointed. For sheer breathless excitement, intensity and entertainment the match couldn’t be beaten. The game had the Spanish commentators gasping with delight at the football being played by both sides, the commitment from the players and the non-stop support from the fans.

The next day the Spanish media was awash with tributes to the English game, with sports daily AS even managing to bring in an unexpected reference to Nelson and Trafalgar in their editorial on the match.

The Admiral’s famous “England expects every man to do his duty,” was the motto of English football, said the paper’s director Alfredo Relaño.

“There may have been almost no English players on the pitch, but this was pure English football,” he said. “It was open, attacking football, full of commitment, enthusiasm, risk and nobility.

“The fact that there were few English players involved showed that this sort of football has nothing to do with genetics but with the atmosphere in the English game, one of respect, fair play, solidarity and a job well done. Players who in other leagues are cheats, moaners and defensive turn into exemplary competitors in England. This is how football should be played.”

Now Alfredo may have got a little carried away with his purple prose but there is little doubt that with three sides in the Champions League semi-finals for the second year in a row England is without doubt the dominant force in European club football (See Mike Collett’s analysis and lots of other stuff on our main soccer site).

The contrast with Spanish football at the moment couldn’t be sharper. Admittedly they still have two sides in European competitions, but the quality in La Liga has undergone a worrying downturn in the last two seasons.

The patient, short-passing game favoured by so many Spanish sides is past its sell-by date. The stop-start nature of matches in the Primera Liga does little to prepare teams for the intensity of European encounters, while the players are struggling to match with the sheer physicality of English-based players.

Where the best players were once clamouring to join Spanish sides, an increasing number are now looking to England first and it isn’t just because of the money on offer. Being part of a top English club now appears to offer the best chance of success in the continent’s elite competition.

I get the impression it is the same story in other European leagues. Is there anything they can do to stop the English domination?

Simon Baskett

PHOTO: Carlos Tevez scores with a diving header to give Manchester United a 1-0 win on the night and a 3-0 aggregate victory over AS Roma in their Champions League quarter-final. Roma were Italy’s last representatives in this year’s competition, April 9. REUTERS/Darren Staples

Liverpool’s rivalry with Arsenal now involves 202 matches dating back to 1893 and Tuesday’s Champions League quarter-final will, for the neutral, forever rank among the greatest of them all.

Arsenal fans will never forget Michael Thomas’s last kick of the season goal at Anfield in 1989 which gave them, and not Liverpool, the title.

They’ve never forgotten Charlie George’s blistering shot and celebratory lie-down at Wembley which secured the FA Cup and League double in 1971 either.

Likewise Liverpool fans will always remember Michael Owen’s two late goals that transformed the 2001 FA Cup final and gave Liverpool a 2-1 win over the Gunners at Cardiff when all seemed lost.

But although there was no prize at stake — apart from a place in the Champions League semi-finals of course — I have rarely witnessed such UNRELENTING tension as there was at Anfield for 90 minutes which helped turn Tuesday’s match into an instant classic.

With the teams tied at 1-1 from the first leg — and with Saturday’s 1-1 Premier League draw at the Emirates merely adding to the occasion — there had to be a winner on Tuesday and the away goals rule played a huge part in the agony and ecstacy.

Arsenal set the tone from the kick off playing some brilliantly inspired football which led to three scoring chances inside the first nine minutes — all of which were annulled by the offside flag. That didn’t phase them. They carried on looking for the goal they had to score and once they got it after 13 minutes, the stakes were raised.

Liverpool had to score and did but even when they were 2-1 ahead on the night and 3-2 up on aggregate, they could not relax because another Arsenal goal would put the Londoners ahead on aways goals.

When it came Anfield was silenced. Arsenal were almost through. The Kop was stunned. It took a lot of nerve for Steven Gerrard to take and score the penalty that put Liverpool back in front a minute later … but even then Liverpool were not safe.

Another Arsenal goal meant they would be on top again. At that stage, with more than five minutes still to play, Liverpool fans were literally screaming in agony at Swedish referee Peter Frojdfeldt to blow for time.

It wasn’t until substitute Ryan Babel scored in the 90th minute to end all of Arsenal’s hopes that the issue was beyond doubt. Ninety minutes of unrelenting drama and tension were over. The football wasn’t bad either.

Mike Collett, Reuters soccer correspondent

PHOTO: Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger gestures as Liverpool’s Rafa Benitez watches their Champions League quarter-final second leg match. April 8 REUTERS/Giampiero Sposito

For once a tie between two English sides in Europe brought out the best of the Premier League. A breathless second leg at Anfield has already been hailed as a classic after Liverpool won through 5-3 on aggregate to set up yet another semi-final against Chelsea, which will doubtless be slightly less of a classic.

Still, let’s take a bit of time to let Tuesday’s match sink in. It will be remembered by Liverpool fans as another great European night at Anfield, while Arsenal supporters will see the tie as a whole as a tale of two penalties — one turned down in London and one given in Liverpool.

We’ll have more on this on the blog tomorrow. For now, read Mike Collett’s report from Anfield here at the main site — he describes the tension on the night as almost unbearable — and send us your views on the match, the tie and the semi-final to come. Did Rafa Benitez get his tactics wrong at the start? Were Arsenal hard done by? And when was the last time you saw a European tie as good as that?

PHOTO: Steven Gerrard and Ryan Babel celebrate victory over Arsenal at Anfield, April 8, 2008. REUTERS/Giampiero Sposito

Was it just me, or did anyone else secretly prefer Liverpool Light to the Real Thing?

The Liverpool side that took the field for part two of the triple-header with Arsenal featured eight changes from the team that came away with a 1-1 draw from the Champions League first leg, including an all-new midfield and attack.

Rafa Benitez must have felt slightly apologetic when he sent out Peter Crouch to lead a team made up mainly of fringe players but things turned out better than he could have hoped.

Inspired by an immense Crouch, they showed far more ambition than they had in the Champions League game and probably deserved more than the same 1-1 scoreline. Anfield Red are among those now wondering if the striker should start on Tuesday. I’m not saying they were any better than Arsenal, or even better than the Liverpool team from the first game, but their willingness to improvise going forward and occasionally leave gaps at the back made for a far more entertaining game.

Liverpool fans were also enthused by a promising debut from Damien Plessis, a 20-year-old signed from Lyon last year. Here’s what Liverpool Pies had to say:

I’m excited because yesterday I saw one of the best Liverpool debuts I can remember in a long, long time. Midfielder Damien Plessis’ inclusion in the starting XI at Emirates Stadium came as a shock, but the 20-year-old Frenchman played a blinder and for me was Man of the Match.

Anyway, Benitez will doubtless wheel out Gerrard, Torres, Mascherano, Alonso and co for Tuesday’s game at Anfield and they’ll probably spend most of the game in two close lines behind the ball, trying to hold out for the goalless draw that would see them to another semi-final.

Liverpool have made that sort of performance their trademark lately, and they’re obviously pretty good at it. But is that really entertainment?

PHOTO: Crouch celebrates his goal against Arsenal at Highbury, April 5, 2008. REUTERS/Kieran Doherty

Tune into the latest Vlog on the Pitch, as our dynamic duo Owen Wyatt and Jon Bramley discuss Manchester United’s effortless brilliance, Barcelona’s flawed beauty and Nicklas Bendtner’s inexplicable fondness for Irish dancing.

Leave us your thoughts on the week’s Champions League action in the comments below, or better still record your own video musings, post them up to youtube or wherever tagged “vlog on the pitch” and if we like them we’ll put them up here.

And if you’ve got any idea why Owen’s got a piece of unfinished knitting sticking out of his ear, please let us know.

Just how English was the all-English Champions League quarter-final between Arsenal and Liverpool on Wednesday?

As English as bacon and eggs? Or as un-English as a croque monsieur served up by a French chef with a sense of humour working in a Spanish tapas bar somewhere in deepest Essex.      

FIFA and UEFA are wrestling with this very problem right now. In essence they want clubs based in a country to eventually feature a majority of players developed in that country playing for the team.

But Wednesday’s 1-1 draw at the Emirates was more of a Spanish-French battle than an all-English one. The only Englishmen involved were Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher of Liverpool, while Theo Walcott came on as a halftime substitute for Arsenal. Justin Hoyte was on Arsenal’s bench and Peter Crouch on Liverpool’s. 

There were four Spanish players on field at the start: Both goalkeepers (Manuel Almunia of Arsenal and Pepe Reina of Liverpool), as well as Cesc Fabregas of Arsenal and Fernando Torres of Liverpool. Liverpool coach Rafa Benitez is Spanish and Alvaro Arbeloa, an unused Liverpool sub, is also from Spain. 

Arsenal fielded three Frenchmen: William Gallas, Mathieu Flamini and Gael Clichy with Abou Diaby on the bench while coach Arsene Wenger is of course French. Of the rest, two were South Americans, three were from Africa and another seven from other European ports of call including three from the Netherlands. 

Those are just the facts. But the odd thing is this – the match was undeniably English in flavour. Although Liverpool defended like a great Italian team of old, the match was played at the typically high tempo pace seen every week in the Premier League. It had the feel of a classic encounter between two great old English rivals.

So does it matter if hardly any of the players were English? I’ve always thought that once a player pulls on the shirt of the club you support, you almost forget where he comes from and he becomes one of “your players”.      

Should FIFA president Sepp Blatter think again about his 6+5 rule that would eventually mean the majority of players have to be either from the home country or developed there? After watching a superb game of football last night I am wondering whether it actually matters.

Mike Collett, London

PHOTO: Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas and Liverpool’s Lucas tussle during their Champions League quarter-final first leg, April 2. REUTERS/Eddie Keogh

Avram Grant was being ridiculed last week as not good enough to manage Chelsea, while referees were getting stick for not coming down harder on dissent.

Cue Grand Slam Sunday — when Chelsea virtually ended Arsenal’s title hopes and Javier Mascherano left Liverpool with 10 men at Manchester United following a quite avoidable red card, clearing the champions’ path in their quest to retaining the title.

Grant made a double substitution that changed the face of Chelsea’s match with Arsenal, who were leading 1-0, with the strategy of twin strikers producing two Drogba goals for a 2-1 victory.

As they put it at EPL Talk: “Avram Grant looks as if he’s starting to understand this whole managerial thing…”

The weekend’s biggest winners, though, were United who, five points clear of Chelsea with seven matches to go, should go on to retain the title after a 3-0 win over Liverpool.

Mascherano may not have been able to prevent United’s victory had he remained on the pitch for the full 90 minutes but Liverpool’s chances diminished with his unnecessary departure for dissent.

Worse still, the end of Liverpool’s seven-match winning streak in all competitions could have a negative effect in the race for fourth place, which includes the city derby against fifth-placed Everton at Anfield next weekend, let alone virtually ending any lingering hope of fighting for the title.

Mascherano was variously called “Mad Masch”, a Muppet and much worse. Liverpool Pies disagreed with the red card but added:

“Can we please stop blaming another Old Trafford defeat on the referee? … He was hardly responsible for a defensive shambles, a midfield that lacked as much fight as it did creativity, and a striker so isolated that he must have wondered whether he was the only one on the pitch.”

The title push is now down to the top three. Chelsea have the easiest run-in on paper but United have their five-point lead. So has the title race already been decided? Give us your thoughts on that in the comments.

PHOTO: Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates his goal against Liverpool at Old Trafford, March 23, 2008. REUTERS/Phil Noble

The great 1970s TV programme ‘Fawlty Towers’ left its mark by being voted Britain’s fifth best sitcom in 2004, and the way Fernando Torres is going he’s bound to leave an indelible print on English football.

‘Fawlty Towers’ only lasted four years, in which a mere 12 episodes were shot. No doubt Liverpool will want the 24-year-old Torres to stick around a little longer, even if he didn’t sparkle at the weekend against Manchester United.

But this is international week, and it’s a good time to consider whether Torres might be the man to lead Spain to long-overdue success at Euro 2008.

As Simon Baskett writes in his preview, Wednesday’s friendly against Italy is the perfect time for Torres to show his country how far he has come since leaving Atletico Madrid for Liverpool last summer.

As a 17-year-old, Torres became the youngest player to take the field in an Atletico shirt, and two years later he became the youngest player to captain the side. As if this wasn’t enough, that season (2003-4) he also made his international debut.

His first year in the Spanish top flight yielded 13 goals from 29 appearances which was an impressive return for an 18/19-year-old, but since then he has added a lot more to his game.

I’m thinking mainly about his willingness to get stuck in, just one of the many hurdles for foreign players to overcome if they want to succeed in the Premiership.

Back in September Torres was having lumps kicked out of him by Reading’s Andre Bikey during a league cup match but responded with a hat-trick rather than a sulk.

Then there are the goals – 27 of them this season.

Greece’s victory in the last European Championship continued a trend that has seen the last four titles going to the team with the greatest collective understanding.

That is in stark contrast to the two previous tournaments - events that are remembered for the genius of Platini in 1984 and the combination of Van Basten and Gullitt in 1988.

So, will this year’s European championships be won by a ‘whole’ team or a squad containing a few talismanic individuals? And with Torres, Fabregas et al, can Spain now claim to stand in the latter camp?

PHOTO: Torres falls to the ground after a tackle by France’s Lilian Thuram during a friendly in Malaga, February 6, 2008. REUTERS/Marcelo del Pozo