Now I know I keep banging on about this, but it's the day of the Champions League Final, so hear me out.

Thousands of football fans from (literally!) all over Britain have flown to Moscow to support their teams, supported by the world's media and a watching TV audience of billions.

And with that in mind, I was chatting to someone yesterday who reckoned that Manchester United and Chelsea wouldn't allow the world's showpiece club Final to degenerate into the kind of defensive non-committal farce that it has the rich potential to become.

Eyeballing me, almost, he presented fervently a case to believe that an exotic flush of the game's most talented frontmen and intelligent midfield playmakers would proudly offer before us a stimulating flourish of flair, desire and passion; a statement of intent and a cast iron mark or respect for those great Finals of old, for the memories of the game, and for the players who had laid down beneath the shimmering spectacle of the champions Cup, the peoples' Cup - the European Cup.

Then I told him he was talking bollocks, and if he didn't believe me he should look at almost every leading bookmaker's prediction for the most like result - 0-0.

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