Goals give a player authority. With his commanding drive that delivered a 1-0 win over Barcelona at Stamford Bridge, Didier Drogba played like a leader of the Chelsea team and also spoke like one afterwards. At present he has a higher status than at any point since he moved to England two years ago. The Ivorian knows that he has not so much hit a new peak as belatedly rediscovered his old self.

The advent of micro-countries introduced a new terror to international football. You could beat them and still be humiliated. Fifteen years ago Scotland won 2-0 in San Marino, but the goals took a while to come. The game is remembered for the drawl of the late Ian Archer in a radio broadcast: ”We’ve been playing for an hour and it has just occurred to me that we’re drawing 0-0 with a mountain top.”

Should Germany be anything like as bad in this World Cup as they were in Euro 2004, fans who currently protest about his base in California will rant that Jürgen Klinsmann should never be allowed to leave it again. Though his citizenship is not yet being revoked, solidarity with him is tenuous.

Much as Frank Rijkaard and Arsene Wenger will talk of their keen anticipation of the showpiece to come at the Stade de France, the fact is that Barcelona and Arsenal were the best sides in the last four of the Champions League. There are no soft options now.

Managers dream of honours, but they are almost all fighting a losing battle for survival. Time is shorter than ever and they now last only 1,7 years on average in their posts. The odds against them emerge in the most extensive inquiry into their profession that has ever been conducted.

”The transfer market exists to teach managers humility. Even Jose Mourinho should feel chastened from time to time. Despite his public pronouncements, in his private moments, he might ask himself whether it really was essential to spend £8-million on Tiago, the midfielder offloaded to Lyon on Wednesday,” writes Kevin McCarra.

Whatever else happens in Glasgow, Gordon Strachan has already shaken the critics. Those who doubted whether his heart was really in management must be silent now. Other members of his profession were bemused last year when he walked out at Southampton, but they cannot question the depth of his ambition any longer.

The tail is wagging a howling dog. All the enraged energy in the Premiership’s closing weeks comes from the swishing and flailing of the clubs in the relegation zone. Norwich, Southampton, Crystal Palace and West Brom all went unbeaten at the weekend and no one was dumbfounded.

The Stade de France is a place of marvels. Last Saturday, the crowd was amazed by the inability of Raymond Domenech’s side to score in the drawn World Cup qualifier with Switzerland, despite a clutter of chances. Those of statistical tastes are agog, too, that France will complete a season without a home victory for the first time in 47 years.

Liverpool’s Champions League quarterfinal with Juventus will take place in the midst of football’s blackest memories. There will be renewed grief and perhaps suppressed guilt over the 39 deaths at the Heysel Stadium, in view of the blame attributed to some Merseyside fans for the tragedy at the ground in which the 1985 final was held.