I see that, apparently, it's only us old gits who don't think football is better than its ever been - speaking as someone who always tries to avoid the trap of saying everything was better in my day, I must point out the obvious fact that you would expect older people to give a more reliable answer to the question asked in the thread title because they have seen more football than those who appear to be eager to write their views off.

Anyway, that's by the by. Although I thought that, given the prize that was at stake, Ajax were very naive in not trying to run the clock down in those closing minutes when they had plenty of opportunities to do so, I accept that their match with Spurs was a very good game of football, but Liverpool v Barcelona? I'm not so sure about that one.

I can only think of the Brazil side from the 1970 World Cup as a team I have seen that might have been able to beat the Barcelona side of around 2010/11. That Barcelona side were fantastic, but in recent years they have been a long way short of that standard as evidenced by the number of very heavy defeats (one or two of which they have been able to overturn) in away ties in the latter stages of the Champions League. I didn't watch the First Leg, but everything I have seen or read about it said that Barca were flattered by their margin of victory, so was what happened on Tuesday really the miracle it is portrayed as being?

For me, Liverpool's first goal was down to a dreadful individual error by Barcelona's left back, there will be those who say their keeper should have saved the second one (I wouldn't be one of them mind), the third was a free header in the six yard box and while the fourth was brilliantly conceived and executed, it owed a lot, as did their first goal down here, to a defence that fell asleep at a corner.

Fantastic drama? Absolutely, but proof for a theory that football has never been better? I don't think so.