Arsenal's Eduardo got on to the field in the 79th minute of Saturday's game against Manchester United. His entry was greeted by shouts of "Cheat!" from the Man U fans, and Eduardo was duly booed each time he played the ball.

LONDON -- Ivan Gazidis stands on the wide terrace outside his Arsenal office and points vaguely to the northeast -- "I used to live just over there."

It seems to me most likely -- indeed, inevitable -- that a European league will be part of soccer's future. We do already have the UEFA Champions League, which could be seen as such a league.

LONDON -- This time I'm talking about football. No, not soccer -- but the other football that they play here, rugby football. A sport that has always maintained a rather superior attitude to soccer, a sport that has always presented itself as the sport for the middle and upper classes. A cut or two above the demonstrably working-class sport of soccer.

LONDON -- The first games of the new EPL season have been played. The scorelines are in, implacable and unarguable; along with them come dozens of coaches' statements, which are anything but unarguable.

SHREWSBURY, England -- The journey -- it is a soccer journey -- starts with a bunch of lovely names: Marylebone, Wrexham and Shropshire. Marylebone is the London railroad station where you board the train run by the Wrexham and Shropshire railway -- a train with the atmosphere of the good old days when rail travel was the way to go. Three hours or so of rail comfort through some of England's most enchanting greenery and you're in the beautiful old town of Shrewsbury.

So I'm following all the pre-season scores that are coming in from these various little tournaments and exhibition games that the European clubs are playing. Well, you have to, don't you?