PREMIER LEAGUE:NOTHING FUELS hatred more efficiently than envy. Al Gore, or someone else who cares about these things, really should investigate whether it can be used to power planes, trains or automobiles: of all the world's resources, nothing is less likely to run out than petty, small-minded jealousy. Harnessing it could solve our energy crisis at a stroke.
Yesterday, the vast, yawning bowl of Old Trafford was over-brimming with the stuff. Supporters of Manchester United and Liverpool might like to pretend their mutual antipathy stems from historical angst over cotton or which city has produced more obnoxious musicians, but the reality is that their rivalry - in the modern era at least - is based on nothing more complex than having what the other craves more than anything else.
United have the domestic supremacy, which Liverpool have been pining for since 1990, while Alex Ferguson doubtless spends most nights tossing and turning under his Red Devils duvet, pondering how Rafael Benitez exerts such a remarkable hold on the Champions League. The result is occasions like yesterday's latest East Lancs Road spat, where the visiting Merseyside contingent started the afternoon bragging about Istanbul and five times, while United's delivered ditties about 18 years of failure. After all, if there's one area in which football fans specialise, it is identifying their enemy's sorest spot and jabbing it repeatedly until they weep.
At the moment, most of the tears are being shed by Liverpool. Yesterday's crushing defeat hurt, of course, but not as much as the suspicion - mushrooming by the week - that they are running out of ammunition to hurl at their rivals. Benitez is no nearer fathoming how to crack the Premier League, and will never be while his players insist on sabotaging his attempt to unseat United by refusing to keep their mouths shut when faced by an over-sensitive referee.
Ferguson, in contrast, is perfectly positioned to not just retain his league crown - his 10th, incredibly - but also end a European drought dating back to that improbable evening in Barcelona in 1999 when even Glasgow's grouchiest pensioner found it impossible to wipe the smile from his face.
And about time, too. For a club of United's ambition, a haul of two European titles is simply not good enough. It is all very well for the men in suits to puff out their chests and trumpet their status as one of the world's strongest sporting brands, but as it stands, United are no more successful than Nottingham Forest, currently scrabbling around the League One play-off positions, or either Porto and Benfica, who both play in a weak domestic league by European standards.
Ferguson's irritation at failing to add to that tally is all the more acute for the memory of those chances that have slipped away - the 2002 semi-final defeat to little Bayer Leverkusen, which prompted Roy Keane, in that inimitable style of his, to scoff at the desire of his team-mates, or even last season's exit to Milan. As Arsenal proved last month, an ageing and leg-weary squad was there for the taking, but United wilted in the white heat of San Siro and were crushed 3-0.
This year, there are no excuses. Ferguson has assembled the best and brightest squad of his Old Trafford career, bursting with the kind of energy and effervescence which are United's traditional hallmarks. They may miss an enforcer in the Keane mould, a snarler capable of grabbing a game by its neck and throttling the life from it, but who needs attack dogs when you have the pedigree talents of Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez and Nani? A Premier and Champions League double would be Ferguson's single greatest achievement, more illustrious even than the 1998-99 treble, which was secured in the pre-Roman Abramovich era when it was easier to win league titles, and glory is already within their grasp.
United are playing with the swaggering certainty of a champion side and they have also hit a rich seam of good fortune. A quarter-final draw against Roma poses more threat to the skulls of their travelling fans in Italy than the team's chances of progressing and if their faltering displays in La Liga are the norm, there is nothing to fear from Barcelona, their likely opponents in the semi-finals. Moscow's onion domes are already looming on the horizon.
Yet even that might not be enough. There is just one more element which would make Ferguson feel complete: a convincing rout of Benitez in the final on May 21st. For a man who freely admitted that his mission statement on taking charge at Old Trafford was to "knock Liverpool off their f***ing perch", no victory would taste sweeter. And then, even the most demanding Red would have no cause to feel green.
"Ferguson is perfectly positioned to not just retain his league crown but also end a European drought
