MANCHESTER United resume the quest for their fifth League title in six years tomorrow buoyed by the praise of the Juventus coach, Marcello Lippi, who believes England's finest are set fair to enjoy the same sort of prosperity in Europe.
Lippi is too cute to use the dubious evidence of a 1-0 win in the Champions' League, in a match which meant everything to Juventus and next to nothing to United.
'With all the good young players they have now,' Lippi said, 'they could be the best club team in the world for the next 10 years.' Music to the ears of his friend and frequent house guest, Brian Kidd, whom Lippi embraced before and after the match in Turin.
Kidd is everything to the tyros in question ? nursemaid, tutor, confessor and unswerving champion - nurturing them for 10 years and taking justifiable pride in their success.
There is never the slightest doubt who is the boss at Old Trafford, but the management is much more of a partnership than is commonly appreciated, and Alex Ferguson is quick to acknowledge Kidd's value.
Kidd devises and runs training; if the team's pattern of play changes, it tends to be at Kidd's suggestion; if the players have a problem it is he who sorts it out. He enjoys more of an influence than the typical No. 2, yet shuns the limelight to a Garboesque extent, so the breadth of his responsibility is largely unknown.
'I don't normally do interviews,' he told me. Why the reticence? 'You get managers and coaches rubbing their gums [boasting] about how they do this and that, but that's not me.' What IS Brian Kidd? Manchester United. Cut him and he would bleed red and white. A native Mancunian, he is as United-daft as the most rabid Stretford Ender. He joined the club as a 14-year-old, in the days when George was Best, and is still there at 48, and would be happy to stay to retirement age.