ENGLAND'S echelon of football has been dominated this past decade by two managers - Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal.

They have been locked in a claw-sharp, red-raw rivalry that has sacrificed acres of newsprint and enough hard-drive images to have sated the shareholders of Microsoft. And there will be yet more of the Fergie-Wenger enmity show in the next fortnight in the build-up to their FA Cup final clash in which the last item of silverware for either is up for grabs in an otherwise barren season.

But tonight the managerial stakes will be dominated by two newcomers to the Premiership - the Iberian duo of Jose Mourinho, galvaniser of Chelsea's nouveau mega-riche, and Rafael Benitez, charged with restoring a semblance of former glory to the trophy-amassing empire that once was Liverpool.

When both sides stride out amid a baying Anfield tonight at stake will be a place in the Champions League final in Istanbul on May 25. For Chelsea to succeed it would be the climax to a master-plan that has already stashed away the Carling Cup - at the expense of Liverpool, too - and the Premiership, a title which was confirmed at Bolton just three days ago.

If Liverpool were to defy the pundits then reaching the summit of European club football, which they bestrode in the 1970s-1980s with four European Cup triumphs in eight years, it will be nothing short of a Reds miracle.

Let's face it, Mourinho was always going to succeed. Not only is he the self-proclaimed 'special one', but he is backed by cash reserves that the Bank of England, Fort Knox and the entire Third World are envious of.

It's not simply been about Roman Abramovich's squillions. Mourinho, I suspect, would succeed even if he were appointed to take command at York City, though it would probably take him more than one season to get free of the jaws of the Conference. Not only is he an assured manager, he is accomplished, astute, admirably able.

Also, he is not anodyne. His histrionics in the unedifying feud with Barcelona and since-retired referee Anders Frisk were to say the least shabby and certainly not becoming of someone who had already earned respect after his tutelage of Porto took them to European supremacy this time last season. He has not so much been a breath of fresh air in a Premiership corralled by clichs and infested by stale platitudes as a positive hurricane.

By contrast, Benitez is a zephyr. His public profile borders on the anonymous. Somehow you cannot see him being an attractive proposition for a major televising advertising campaign like his Chelsea counterpart. Yet stealthily he has displayed a tactical nous in Europe even if the pell-mell of the Premiership, especially away from home, remains a mystery to his enigmatic and infuriating charges.

Together Mourinho and Benitez comprise an Iberian version of Ferguson-Wenger, though, as yet a tapas twosome that does not have the bitter aftertaste of the respective leaders of Manchester United and Arsenal.

Even as this column has previously bemoaned the dwindling number of openings for home-grown managers - Allardyce, McClaren and Curbishley all continue to thrive in the top-flight in spite of the push for foreign recruits - the arrival of Mourinho and Benitez, and their disparate personalities, has improved the Premiership no end.

Long may they reign, though for me it's Beni and the Reds whom I would dearly love to stuff the Blues tonight to bag that cherished place in Istanbul.

Updated: 10:30 Tuesday, May 03, 2005