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 a change this week, vlogmeister Owen Wyatt and Deputy Sports Editor Jon Bramley decided to discuss the bottom end of the Premier League. 

Jon thinks Fulham should have stuck with coach Lawrie Sanchez for longer but Owen disagrees. What do you think? Little has improved under Roy Hodgson and the west London club look poised to follow Derby County through the Premier League trapdoor.

Bolton Wanderers, who qualified for the UEFA Cup under former boss Sam Allardyce last season, are next in line to go down. Their troubles can surely be linked to the decison to sell Nicolas Anelka to Chelsea without buying a suitable replacement. 

Leave us your thoughts 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.

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

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

Arsenal’s comeback to win 3-2 at Bolton was special, but Manchester United’s 4-0 demolition of Aston Villa on Saturday was simply sublime. Cristiano Ronaldo’s amazing flick for the first goal summed it all up.

But how good are this United side? Is the Premier League already in the bag and should AS Roma be expecting another 7-1 Champions League mauling on Tuesday?

Here Deputy Sports Editor Jon Bramley talks to vlogmeister Owen Wyatt about Arsenal, United and the Premier League run-in. We’d like your views in the comments below or you can send us your own vlog via youtube or wherever. Tag it ‘Vlog on the pitch’ and if we like it, we’ll put it up here.

One of the greatest things about Subbuteo, besides giving generations of kids endless table-topping fun, was the chance of studying the team colours chart.

Where else could you learn at a glance that your claret and blue squad could be either West Ham, Burnley or Aston Villa, or that Plymouth Argyle were the only team in the Football League to play in green shirts (as did amateur giants Hendon) and that Blackpool were unique for being the only team to play in tangerine.

I thought of that old chart for the first time in years this week as Bolton, Fulham and Derby County edged closer to relegation from the Premier League.

Forget about logos and sponsors names, as far as my generation is concerned all three teams play in identical kits — white shirts and black shorts — and they are on the brink of becoming the subject of a future pub quiz trivia question.

Q: What was unique about the relegation of Bolton, Fulham and Derby in 2008?

A: It was the first time three teams wearing identical colours were relegated together.

Derby are already doomed but if Bolton and Fulham join them — and that is far from certain as yet — it will be because they haven’t played well enough, not because of the colour of their shirts.

But is there anything in a club’s colours that determines its success rate? Bill Shankly certainly thought so, changing Liverpool’s kit from red shirts and white shorts to all-red in the early Sixties. He believed that it made Liverpool look more intimidating and perhaps he had a point, perhaps not.

Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal, the three most successful clubs in English soccer all wear red, but Real Madrid, nine times European champions, play in all-white.

You can argue it until you are blue in the face, of course. Or in the case of Bolton, Fulham and Derby, white with fear as the prospect of Championship football edges closer.

PHOTO: New Derby owners pose with manager Paul Jewell in January 2008. REUTERS/Darren Staples

This week saw Portsmouth goalkeeper David James sign a contract extension that could see him playing Premier League football at the age of 40.

The England international is about as physically fit as players come, so much so that he once accepted an invitation to train with NFL side the Miami Dolphins, in order for them to assess his physicality.

If you were to bet on someone to surpass the Premiership’s oldest player record, set by Manchester City goalkeeper John Burridge (43 years, 4 months and 26 days), he’d be your man… well, him or Manchester United’s Ryan Giggs who was recently honoured with an OBE for services to football.

Generally these days we expect goalkeepers to have longer careers. Tim Flowers, David Seaman and Nigel Martyn all played for a long time and today the Premiership has no fewer than seven first-choice keepers aged 35 or over. It’s more novel for an outfield player to still be playing at the highest level at such an age.

Last month we saw ex-England, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United striker, Teddy Sheringham announce plans to retire at the ripe old age of 42; he defied the rigours of Premiership football right up until the end of the 2007 season and now plies his trade for Championship side Colchester United.

So what players are there out there of a similar mould to James and Sheringham?

A quick glance down the Premier League roll-call sees the likes of Tugay (37) at Blackburn Rovers, Everton’s Lee Carsley (34), Chelsea’s Claude Makelele (35) and Manchester City’s Dietmar Hamann (34).

Is there some carefully guarded magic formula which allows them to carry on at a time when most other professional players have retired to nurse tired legs? Or is it just hard work, and an unrelenting hunger for the sport? 

Who in today’s game could go on play to such ripe ages?

Chelsea’s John Terry perhaps? The blues captain certainly has the hunger. How about Terry’s team mate, Frank Lampard? He holds the Premiership record for most consecutive games played (164) so he looks to have the stamina. Who do you reckon will be playing on to their late thirties or beyond? Give us your picks in the comments…

PHOTO: David James in training with England at Wembley, ahead of the February friendly against Switzerland. REUTERS/Eddie Keogh