ASIDE from Chelsea's relentless purchasing power that has turned a two-horse into a three-horse English Premiership, it would be foolish to look at the conclusion of the first phase of the Champions League and pretend that England's is the best league on earth.
But I'll tell you why I think, for the first time in history, all four English clubs - Chelsea, Arsenal, Man United and Liverpool - are in the hat for next Friday's quarter-final draw.
It is because in England, unlike other parts of Europe, the integrity of the competition is still strong.
The past week has been a travesty of Champions League values.
The stupid format of the first round, made into a mini-league so that the big clubs can have six pay-days and television can fill up their schedules, invites chicanery.
And boy, did it get some.
Rome was the worst. There, the AS Roma club and their president Franco Sensi are under investigation for financial irregularities, the former coach Fabio Capello has departed for Juventus, the crowd so violently attacked a referee that the team have to play behind closed doors, and all of that led to Wednesday night's appalling complicity by which Roma helped Real Madrid stay in the Champions League.
Madrid's Galacticos had to win in the Olimpico to qualify for the real tournament, the knockout rounds that start next Spring.
So what do Roma do?
In a stadium that is a shut-out, they make the contest a sell-out.
Luigi del Neri made no bones about it. He is Roma's third coach since the summer, and he inherited a team on its way out of Europe, and a stadium closed by Uefa after Anders Frisk, the Swedish referee, was bloodied by a thug's cigarette lighter thrown from the stands.
On reflection, it would have been better had Uefa banned Roma sine die.
The stadium closure simply made it unpleasant for David Beckham and his posh pals to play in. But del Neri eased the path by declaring that he had no interest in the Real match, so he left out Francesco Totti, Antonio Cassano, Christian Panucci and Vincenzo Montella. In fact, he dropped anyone who might resist Madrid's right of passage.
Three-nil to the Galacticos, the middle goal a soft penalty - no more, no less than anybody could expect. No Roma stars, no contest. And no reprisal from Uefa because, deep down, the rulers of the so-called Champions League accept that they have created a money league, and that some games simply become redundant when the groups are sewn up early.
We had it right across Europe. On Tuesday, six clubs - Chelsea, Milan, Anderlecht, Barcelona, PSV Eindhoven and Rosenborg - had nothing to gain or lose on the night. None of them won.
Arsenal, fielding their bright and precocious 17-year-old Francesc Fabregas and a 20-year-old Euro debutant Matthieu Flamini in midfield where Patrick Vieira was absent, suspended, found limp resistance from Rosenborg, whose season in Norway is in winter hibernation.
So many heavy scores have followed, so many goals, I confess I almost have to look up the figures to recall that Arsenal equalled their best Champions League scoreline, 5-1, to win the group.
The goal by Fabregas, chesting the ball down, flicking it away from a Norwegian defender with one foot and volleying it into the net with the other, was still a minor classic.
But would it have happened if the Rosenborg defence had showed up?
Far better, and far followed on Wednesday.
Liverpool's exhilarating come-back against Olympiakos, responding to a Rivaldo goal to win 3-1 at the last gasp, was the week's truly outstanding match in which both teams played at full stretch to win.
Reeling from Steven Gerrard's confession that he will soon be 25 and that he might have to leave his beloved Reds to win big prizes - and take the �130,000 (S$416,000) per week Chelsea dangle his way - the Liverpool crowd still managed to raise You'll Never Walk Alone to an anthem of climactic power.
Rivaldo has never played against such a noise. Rafael Benitez and the new Liverpool players have never been inspired by one so loud, so powerful, so desperately urgent.
'You hear the song,' said Benitez, 'and you really believe you are not alone.'
And you're never alone when Gerrard is among you. His tackles were illegal, his industry sometimes hysterical. But his winning goal, four minutes from time, was a thing of beauty and brutality.
If a ballet star stood on one leg, on the very toes of his left foot the way Gerrard did, we would applaud his perfect balance. If he then thrust through the ball with the other foot, driving it with unstoppable power into the net from 25 metres, we'd say this is genius.
Gerrard merely said that, after his press conference, he needed something like that to show Liverpudlians he's with them. For the time being.
But then we looked at the TV highlights. Monaco helping themselves to five goals against Deportivo La Coruna, the team they beat 8-3 last season.
Lyon thrashing Sparta Prague, also by five. Dynamo Kiev going down by three goals in Germany to Leverkusen, and Manchester United sending the boys to Istanbul to lose 0-3 to Fenerbahce.
If those results are genuine reflections of the best football in Europe, then I am a Tibetan.
Thank you, Liverpool, for raising the game to something genuine.
And no thanks to the ruinous structure of the Champions League, or the clubs that systematically abuse and exploit that system.
More meaningless nights like these, and Uefa might as well close all the doors. Talk about passion
