In the private battle between La Liga and the Premiership which marked this round of the Champions' League, Manchester United demonstrated that on the European stage they still set the standard for English football.
Their sixth straight victory was utterly emphatic, made memorable by the brilliance of Ruud van Nistelrooy, who last night equalled Andy Cole's record of 18 European goals for Manchester United in less than half the time Cole required. United consider he has already overtaken Cole, as Uefa does not count goals scored in Champions' League qualifiers.
His manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, is not one for lavish praise. All he would say in the afterglow of a victory that put Manchester United in sight of a seventh successive European Cup quarter-final was that, statistically, Van Nistelrooy was the best striker he had ever had. No grand adjectives, just a reference to the Dutchman's goals-to-game ratio which for United and PSV Eindhoven stands at 29 in 30 Champions' League matches.