Chelsea will shortly be feeling on top of the world, or as close to it geographically as they are ever likely to get. In the second round of the European Cup Winners' Cup Ruud Gullit's team will meet Tromso, the most northerly club in Norway.
Tromso is situated 250 miles inside the Arctic Circle. It is nearer the North Pole than Murmansk. Never will Dennis Wise have a better opportunity to discover if there really is a Father Christmas.
Not that Chelsea need shiver with apprehension. Having beaten Slovan Bratislava comfortably 4-0 on aggregate they should be capable of overcoming a Tromso team who, while they disposed of NK Zagreb in the opening round, should not pose too many problems for Gullit's varied collection of multi-national talents.
With the first leg in Lapland, everything favours Chelsea reaching the quarter-finals of a tournament they are already expected to win. In the UEFA Cup, however, Liverpool and Aston Villa face rather more demanding tasks.
Liverpool's reward for winning the `Battle of Britain' against Celtic is a tie against Strasbourg, the conquerors of Rangers and the club now owned by Mark McCormack's IMG sports marketing group. Again Liverpool are away in the opening leg, but Rangers' experience will have warned Anfield against the consequences of poor defending.
Aston Villa have already found scoring a problem in Europe and Athletic Bilbao usually prove obdurate, if beatable, opponents when facing English teams. A clean sheet in the Basque country would give Villa half a chance, as it did in Bordeaux in the previous round.
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