The Champions League returned to North London this week after the winter sabbatical we were back down to the bare knuckle business of knockout football, albeit with our noses bloodied and our glass jaw exposed. Arsenal under the lights, the ear splitting falsetto of the theme tune before kickoff, the crisp, sense softening kiss of continental lager in far flung town squares. There is much to enjoy about the Champions League (usually), which long ago left international football as a wheezing dot on the horizon as football’s pinnacle. It is not difficult to explain or understand the appeal of the world’s best players duking it out for European supremacy. Yet I still maintain a slightly...
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