Benitez: The Premier League is the best in the world

13:04 Wed 12 March 2008

Rafael Benitez has been talking up the power and strength of the Premier League following Liverpool's 1-0 win against Inter last night. Liverpool became the fourth English team to reach the quarter finals of the Champions League after Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal qualified last week.

Speaking to the Beeb Rafa said, "This win shows the power and strength of the Premier League, we have fine clubs who are among the best in Europe, a league that is the same and players of quality who are some of the best in Europe."

It's the first time that any country has had four teams in the quarter-finals of the Europe's elite competition, illustrating Benitez's point about the strength of the Premiership. But it raises the question whether or not it's a good thing to have four clubs from the same country in the last eight?

While all four English teams are there on merit, do we really want to see a  Chelsea-Liverpool or Man Utd-Arsenal final? Again it raises the issue of the Champions League format. Ever since the 97-98 season UEFA has allowed the runners-up of the top European leagues to compete.

The idea was to increase the quality of the tournament by excluding the so-called minnows. In reality it has also seen a concentration of money amongst an elite group of clubs thus decreasing the possibility of seeing another Red Star or Borussia Dortmund go all the way. What do you think?

Inter-Liverpool 1-0