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The Premier League has generally been oblivious to the pleasures of the junior European tournament, but it should be a competition of mounting relevance

Many clubs should envy Liverpool their gruelling journey to Spain. Rafael Benítez’s team are still going places in every sense as they seek to beat Atlético Madrid in the Europa League semi-final. They and Fulham, who face Hamburg in Germany, are prominent on an unexpected landscape in which Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal are nowhere to be seen. Those three were, of course, eliminated in the Champions League.

So, too, were Liverpool, yet it is to their advantage that they were knocked out so much earlier, even if the annual accounts may beg to differ. Whatever the financial ramifications, Benítez’s side have a genuine prospect of taking a trophy. The Spaniard agrees that this was never the main priority of the campaign, yet most managers would crave the possibility at their clubs of a third piece of silverware in half a dozen seasons.

Where English football is concerned, the Europa League ought to be a competition of mounting relevance. No Premier League side, after all, got past the quarter-finals of the Champions League and, without major outlay, United and Chelsea will most likely deteriorate a little more. The outlook for Arsenal is a matter of guesswork and Liverpool cannot be certain of the ramifications should an expected takeover eventually go ahead.

England, in short, is a country now primed for the Europa League. The snobbery about the tournament has been absurd, but there are few nations left who can afford to be contemptuous of it. By this stage, there ought to have been a keen appreciation of the challenge it poses. No English club has prevailed in this event, under its previous name as the Uefa Cup, since Liverpool’s 5-4 victory over Alaves in the splendidly dotty final of 2001.

Sides from this country sometimes appear not even to try. Martin O’Neill, for instance, wanted to put the emphasis on domestic priorities and used fringe players in what turned out to be a 2-0 loss for Aston Villa at CSKA Moscow in February of last year. Angry fans who had made the trip to Russia were not to be mollified in the Premier League, for which energies were supposedly being conserved. The side did not win any of their next eight matches.

Premier League managers have often looked baffled by the Europa League and its predecessor tournament. David Moyes is understandably seen as a potential successor to Sir Alex Ferguson, but he had better work hard on his answers for a job interview in which he will be grilled on the topic of leading United against continental opposition. Everton’s 5-1 trouncing by Dinamo Bucharest in Romania happened as long ago as September 2005, but the club have since got into a habit of inconsequence. In the present campaign, the side went out to Sporting Lisbon in February.

Some fans complain that Moyes “over-thinks” in Europe as the side ceases playing in its normal manner. Whatever the reason, the common bragging about the strength in depth of the Premier League was being undermined long before the misadventures of Chelsea, United and Arsenal, although the latter merit compassion after being pitted against Barcelona.

The Premier League, in its haughtiness, has generally been oblivious to the pleasures of the junior European tournament, which retains a heartening diversity. Since 2000, the prize has gone to sides from Turkey, England, Holland, Portugal, Spain, Russia and Ukraine. This is no parade of also-rans and José Mourinho’s Porto, who beat Celtic in 2003, were European Cup winners a year later.

The allure can be intense and some estimates put the number of Scottish fans in Seville seven years ago as high as 80,000. There were even more Rangers supporters in town when their team lost the 2008 final to Zenit St Petersburg at Eastlands, although Mancunians and their police force did not always see it as a fiesta.

Nonetheless, this competition has lived up to the vision of a grand and eclectic tournament to a degree that the Champions League, which is so influenced by brute economics, cannot match. People ought to rejoice in this week’s fixtures. Fulham have never won a major honour, but Roy Hodgson’s team routed Juventus at Craven Cottage, eliminated the Bundesliga champions, Wolfsburg, and can hope to return to tonight’s venue on 12 May, when the final itself is held in Hamburg.

In the Europa League, football is once more the common property of a continent. The ideals behind the creation of the European Cup, with its joy in the reach and variety of the game, are best preserved in the competition that continues night.

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• It can actually help team spirit, manager says of 24-hour trip
• Fernando Torres unfit even for a place in the stands

Rafael Benítez believes he will send a more united Liverpool into tonight’s Europa League semi-final against Atlético Madrid as a result of the club’s arduous 24-hour journey to the Spanish capital.

On the basis that every volcanic ash cloud has a silver lining, the Liverpool manager last night claimed team spirit had been enhanced by taking three trains, several coaches and one flight to Spain following the closure of UK airspace and Uefa’s refusal to delay the first leg at the Vicente Calderón.

Liverpool arrived in Madrid at 1.30pm yesterday, rested at the team hotel and took part in a light training session at the stadium in the evening. And Benítez is confident the one positive of the trip can outweigh any fatigue against Atlético, who have reached the semi-final despite winning only one of their last 12 European games.

“I don’t think the players have enjoyed the journey,” said the Liverpool manager. “But it has been good to see how everyone has stuck together. It has given them an opportunity to stay together, talk and share some things, and we have to use that as a positive. It has given everyone a better team experience.

“I am sure they will be tired, but it can actually help the team spirit when everyone has something like this in common. If we were on a plane for one or two hours, as we would normally be for a game like this, then everyone would be just watching a film or on their PlayStations. Now they are talking more and doing more things together. At the train stations you could see that instead of simply sticking to their normal groups, they have been talking to each other in different groups and moving around. This can help us.”

Benítez watched Barcelona’s Champions League semi-final, first-leg defeat at Internazionale during an overnight stay in Paris and dismissed the suggestion that travel fatigue played a part in the Catalans’ surprise 3‑1 loss. “I don’t think it was a factor,” he said. “Barcelona had plenty of possession, but they made two or three mistakes and Inter were dangerous on the counterattack.”

He also believes Liverpool have taken precautions to limit the impact of the trip on the players. “Hopefully the journey will not have an effect on our physical performance and will be a positive in terms of the spirit of the team,” Benítez added. “It was important we decided to rest in Paris because that gave the players a night to sleep, and it will help to regenerate them by doing some training in Madrid.”

Liverpool have yet to discover their route back from Madrid, although travel representatives hope to secure a flight to northern Britain after tonight’s game. Fernando Torres, who will again miss an emotional reunion with his former club having undergone knee surgery on Sunday, is not expected to return to Vicente Calderón, even as a spectator. The Liverpool striker has been advised to continue his rehabilitation from the operation in Barcelona.

England’s other Europa League semi-finalists, Fulham, had a 600-mile journey from south London to the German Baltic port of Hamburg, which ended at 4pm. “It was 17 hours [on the road] from leaving Motspur Park [the training ground] to arriving at the Hyatt in Hamburg,” said Roy Hodgson, the manager. “But three hours of that was standing in a queue thanks to a traffic accident on the autobahn.”

The Fulham goalkeeper, Mark Schwarzer, said team spirit had remained intact despite the testing circumstances. “I’d say the atmosphere has been very good,” the Australian added. “We have a very good relationship anyway in the team. A really long trip can either pull the team apart or to the contrary and I’d say it’s pulled us all together.”

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• Liverpool must make most of 1,300 mile journey by land
• ‘I don’t think it’s something that will be noticed on the pitch’

The Atlético Madrid midfielder José Manuel Jurado does not believe Liverpool will show any ill-effects from their gruelling road and rail trip to Spain when the teams meet in the first leg of their Europa League semi-final tomorrow night.

With much of Europe’s airspace closed in recent days due to Iceland’s volcanic ash cloud, Liverpool have been forced to make most of their 1,300-mile journey by land, meaning the trip will take close to 24 hours. Rafael Benítez’s side set out yesterday – the day after they faced West Ham United in the Barclays Premier League at Anfield – with a train to London, followed by the Eurostar to Paris, where they spent the night.

Today they are scheduled to take another train to Bordeaux before making a short flight to the Spanish capital, where they are due to arrive at lunchtime. Jurado, however, doubts Liverpool’s trip will have any discernible impact on their performance tomorrow night.

“I’m sorry that they have to travel so many kilometres to get to Madrid, although I don’t think it’s something that will be noticed on the pitch,” Jurado said. “I think, more than the journey, they could be more tired because they played on Monday, but in a semi-final like this you don’t notice fatigue.”

Atlético go into the match having lost four of their last five La Liga matches – a run that has left them 10th in the standings, nine points off the European places and only eight above the relegation zone. However, despite their largely miserable league campaign, Atlético still have two chances to pick up their first major silverware since 1996, when they won the league and cup double.

They have already reached the final of the Copa del Rey, where they will face Sevilla next month, and now have the opportunity to make their first major European final since 1986 if they can get past Liverpool.

“We are two great teams. The tie is 50-50,” says Jurado. “We are going to make things difficult for Liverpool, the same as they will try to do for us. We have a lot of respect for our opponents, who are one of the greats of Europe and they are dangerous, but we are in the semi-finals and we have to take them on face to face.

“It will be a match of high tension and maximum concentration. We shouldn’t be nervous. We have to play and try to enjoy ourselves. We have to face a great opponent, but we are also great and that’s why we’ve got to this stage.”

Quique Sánchez Flores’s men will have to do without the suspended striker Sergio Agüero tomorrow night, but Jurado is hopeful that they can cope without the Argentinian. “The loss of Kun is important because he is a great player and very important for the group, but we will try to ensure his absence on the pitch is noticed as little as possible,” he said.

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