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Variety and nuance offered an escape from the brain drain

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No, the evening didn't feature two teams covering every square inch of the pitch at top speed and driving their first-time passes with the sort of power that used to be reserved for long-range shooting, as if kinetic energy were the only kind that counted in football. And, true, the symmetry of its scoreline wasn't achieved via a melodramatic error in the fifth minute of injury time, another Premier League speciality. The match between Barcelona and Manchester United at Camp Nou on Wednesday night may have ended in a goalless stalemate, but at least it featured players - and coaches - using their brains in an attempt to produce something other than a tussle for physical supremacy. The contrast between the draw in Barcelona and the 1-1 match that preceded it in Liverpool is both instructive and troubling to those who care about preserving such things as variety and nuance within football. The bleakest verdict would be that it showed us the past and the future of the game, although not in that order.

It is a year since Jorge Valdano, the Argentinian World Cup winner turned football philosopher, watched a European Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Chelsea and made his famous remark about Anfield and, by implication, the current state of English football. "Put a shit hanging from a stick in the middle of this passionate, crazy stadium and there are people who will tell you it's a work of art," he said. "It's not. It's a shit hanging from a stick." There is no reason to think that, 12 months later, he would have had a different reaction to a match between the same clubs in which all the salient characteristics of the Premier League were writ large.

With its bottomless funding and its emphasis on producing players who can run non-stop for 90 minutes, the Premier League is promoting the football of Croesus and Creatine. Often exhilarating, it engages television audiences all around the world because it can guarantee that, if you need to break off to get a drink from the bar or the fridge, the thrills and spills will still be going on when you get back.

No one should underestimate the amount of effort that it takes to assemble and prepare a team capable of mastering this demanding footballing idiom. Nor is it reasonable to call it anti-football. The Premier League is not Otto Rehhagel's Greeks playing Guus Hiddink's South Koreans on 10 different pitches each weekend. Most of the teams are trying to score goals most of the time.

But those who prefer a different diet should not be dismissed out of hand. Although a Ferenc Puskas or a Wim van Hanegem will never again be allowed to put his foot on the ball and slow a game down to his own preferred pace, that does not mean there is only one pace at which the modern game can be played.

Superficially, watching Barcelona on Wednesday was like watching the current Arsenal: lots of lovely ball-manipulation without the sting of goals. But even though the statistics said that Barcelona played 766 passes (to United's 294), they demonstrated a more extensive ability to vary the tempo and the trajectory of their approach work than the team from north London.

With the exception of Arsène Wenger's Arsenal and Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, however, the top echelon of English football is notable for the number of managers who have persuaded players from other countries to fit into a template based on the eternal verities of the domestic game, and who have moulded Englishmen who showed signs of greater sophistication into fitting the prevailing pattern.

Watching Tuesday night's match at Anfield, for instance, you had to ask: what has happened to Joe Cole? As a teenager at West Ham, his skills, his imagination and his audacity could make you laugh out loud with pleasure while you relished the promise of what might lie ahead for him. And he is still a significant player - at times the best on the pitch for both Chelsea and England. It would be hard, however, to disagree with the proposition that while he was being shaped into Jose Mourinho's idea of a serviceable Premier League performer, his scope for self-expression was being seriously and perhaps permanently restricted.

Must a willingness to chase and harry, and to set aside the skills patiently acquired during childhood and adolesence, now be a compulsory element of every player's make-up? Not if you think that Kaka, Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero and Alexandre Pato are worthwhile players. They, of course, have not been required to test themselves in the cauldron of the Premier League. Which, even if English clubs continue to dominate the final stages of the European Cup, is more likely to be their good fortune than ours.

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