Strange as it may seem, Inter Milan's Champions League semi-final second leg at Barcelona on Wednesday may ultimately be viewed as a defining moment in Jose Mourinho's career.
If Inter progress after their 3-1 win in the first leg, the Italians will start as the favourites when the final takes place on 22 May and Mourinho will have a fantastic chance to deliver what he couldn't do at Chelsea.
However, if Inter lose in the Camp Nou - and a 2-0 win for Barcelona is certainly not an unthinkable scenario - he might then be regarded as a failure, possibly by many Inter fans and perhaps also by himself.
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Lyon, in many people's eyes, have been the best French team of the last decade with their seven back-to-back Ligue 1 titles between 2002 and 2008 but have, until now, also been the great underachievers as well.
With annual opportunities to put French club football on the European map, Olympique Lyonnais - to give them their proper title - have crashed out of the Champions League on the last three occasions at the first knockout stage.
Before that, they did reach the quarter-finals for three consecutive seasons but that has been the height of their achievement until now.
However, current coach Claude Puel has done what predecessors such as Paul Le Guen and Gerard Houllier, both of whom will be familiar to British football fans, had failed to do and has taken Lyon that one step further.
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Deportivo, Espanyol, Xerez, Villarreal, Tenerife, Sevilla, Valladolid - those are the names of the teams that Barcelona have to play in La Liga during the next five weeks.
However, to quote the succinct front page of the Spanish sports newspaper As on Sunday: "21 points remain but the title seems already decided."
Barcelona's 2-0 victory at Real Madrid on Saturday returned them to the top of the table and gives them a three-point advantage in their bid to be crowned champions for the second successive season and the 20th time in their history.
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To listen to the debate and comment over the last week, both here in Spain and elsewhere around the world, you might think that only two players will be on the pitch at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium on Saturday for the latest edition of El Clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona.
The headlines have been dominated by Barca's amazing Argentine and his Portuguese predecessor as the World Player of the Year, who pulls on the predominantly white apparel of arch rivals Real.
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Hi, I'm Phil Minshull. I've lived in Spain since 1997 and covered Spanish football since the first day I got here. My blog aims to provide some insight into what's happening in La Liga, and there is much more to it than only Real and Barcelona, as well as elsewhere around Europe. 
