What a week in Europe.

Chelsea might have endured a few nail-biting moments towards the end in Munich, but were undoubtedly superior to Bayern over the two legs.

And Liverpool surprised even their most ardent supporters, who feared a one-goal advantage would not be enough to take to Juventus.

Full marks to the Juventus coach who could well have bemoaned his own side's poor performance but instead praised Liverpool for theirs and the tactics laid out by Raphael Benitez.

Every manager needs a bit of luck in the cups and after a season blighted by injury problems, Benitez had a welcome slice of good fortune in Turin where Alonso and Cisse made their comebacks, Alonso in the starting line up.

They were brave selections on the night but they both came off.

While many Chelsea supporters are enjoying such lofty achievements for the first time (it was 50 years ago when they last won the championship) many Anfield followers don't have to be too old to remember the glory days when teams with Shankly, Paisley and Fagan at the helm ruled Europe.

Apart from that there was the emotion for Liverpool followers of playing Juventus, 20 years after the Heysel disaster, and fortunately more bridges were built than destroyed.

However, games in Italy still have that element of crowd trouble, as we saw when the two Milan giants clashed.

Now, if nothing else, the forthcoming semi-final between two of our Premiership giants, which will be televised around the world, can give the best impression of crowd atmosphere with both sets of fans desperate for their teams to reach the final.

Certainly, with the odd exception, it appears that our old days of crowd problems have just about disappeared.

The focus no doubt will continue to be on the Chelsea coach who very little was known of until he won the Champions League with Porto just a year ago.

Jose Mourinho is hardly an unknown quantity now!

Benitiz, on the other hand, had also been a winner in Europe with Valencia, but away from Merseyside, little has been seen of him in the media over here.

One significant difference I noticed is that Benitez in his after-match interviews, uses the word "we" when he talks about tactical changes.

What Mourinho says is usually in the first person.

Whenever you see the cool exterior of any manager at the end of a game in which he has been successful, it is hiding an inner feeling which wants to burst out and make him jump up and down and wave to everyone in sight.

However, after a few years in the job, most of us could recite Rudyard Kipling's poem If off by heart, particularly the line which says "treat triumph and disaster both the same." In layman's language, don't get too carried away with a win because there's bound to be a defeat or two lurking around the corner.

On the downside, of course, from the point of view of our own young British managers and former players, who are all ploughing through their coaching courses to become qualified, the success stories of men like Mourinho and Benitez mean that more chairmen are falling in love with the idea of foreign coaches.

Portsmouth are the latest which, I suppose with a foreign chairman, is a bit more understandable.

But it was noticeable that within a day or two of Alain Perrin's first game, which apparently was masterminded by Joe Jordan, we were reading that Joe was going to be replaced in a few weeks time by another Frenchman.

In the meantime. Joe will have to point out to the new man exactly who is who in the dressing room.

At his first press conference, Mr Perrin was honest, or daft enough, to say not only did he know anything at all about the opposition, but even had to be reminded of who his own centre forward was!

Whoever the club employs as the manager usually wants his own staff, which means there will be lots of Joe Jordans looking for work again this summer.

I suppose it's all fine if you look at the achievements of messrs Wenger, Mourinho and Benitez, but it should be remembered there have been a few others like Christian Gross and Jacques Santini at Tottenham and another Frenchman, much nearer to home, who was going to inject some Gallic flair, who didn't stay very long.

And there have been numerous others in the lower divisions.

So, while waving the flag for our home-grown talent, let's still acknowledge the achievements of our two foreign friends in getting their clubs so far and insuring that we'll have one English club back playing in the final of the biggest championship in Europe.