Forget the Rooney sideshow - Tottenham's is the most interesting game in Europe tonight
The Wayne Rooney sideshow ensures Manchester United's game with Rangers will take the majority of the attention tonight.
But in reality the game that will tell us more about the real strength of England's Champions League challenge this season will be taking place in northern Germany.
Tottenham's first taste of the biggest competition in club football will ensure every Spurs fan is a mixture of pride and terror throughout the day, wondering if, as so often happens with the north London club, they will falter when it matters.
Alan Hansen's much-repeated gibe that "you can always trust Tottenham to let you down" is not without evidence to back it up.
Yet last season, to the surprise of many including hardened White Hart Lane regulars, Harry Redknapp's side didn't blow it.
The week in which they bounced back from the FA Cup semi-final defeat by Portsmouth to beat both Arsenal and Chelsea was proof of a new Spurs being created by Redknapp and this evening they start reaping the rewards of that endeavour.
Redknapp would have preferred to go into the game which will make him the only living Englishman to have managed in the Champions League - sadly Ray Harford and Sir Bobby Robson are both dead - with Heurelho Gomes, Michael Dawson, Jermain Defoe and Luka Modric, who is nowhere near fit despite making the flight to Bremen.
But Spurs do now have a squad that can cope, that enables Redknapp to put out a team that is more than competitive against all but the very best.
Werder Bremen are not the very best at full-strength - how can they be if Claudio Pizarro is their main goal threat?
And with the Germans without the Peruvian and also light at the back in the absence of Per Mertesacker and Naldo, with Mikael Silvestre at left-back, this is not a game Spurs should be scared of.
If Redknapp's team can conquer their justifiable early nerves - and there must be no repeat of the kamikaze approach in Berne that could so easily have cost them their long-awaited place in Europe's elite - they can get at least a point, giving themselves real belief of getting through the group stage into the knock-out phase.
Should they do that in a group which also includes holders Inter Milan and fellow rookies FC Twente Enschede, exceeding Liverpool's efforts last term, it will be a signal of the genuine strength in depth of the Premier League challenge after the disappointing performances by Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United in 2009-10.
What was clear yesterday from a chat with a very proud Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is that the club will not bankrupt itself in a doomed effort to become a permanent member of the "Big Four".
Levy said: "I think we all want to stay there year-in, year-out but we all have to be realistic.
"There are only four places in England and there are seven or eight clubs competing. There are probably two clubs you could say are guaranteed to be in that top four. You then have two places for six clubs.
"One has to be realistic. The odds are stacked against you. But what we won't do is jeopardise the club to challenge to be one of those two."
Levy might be slightly wrong. In addition to Chelsea and United, Arsenal might be pretty much stitched on for a place in the elite as well, certainly while Arsene Wenger stays at the club, which effectively means Spurs are competing with Liverpool and Manchester City - and possibly Everton and Aston Villa - for one place.
It was, though, the sort of sensible thinking which has been a feature of Levy's reign.
Yes, he has spent big to help put together the squad, although the income from sales has offset much of that expenditure.
But wages have been kept at a reasonable level - nobody at Spurs is on more than £80,000 per week - and there will be no gambling with the future of the club, even on the back of this Champions League run.
As Levy explained: "You can't run the club on the basis of being in the Champions League. Often people say you just need an extra player. It doesn't work. It's about the team.
"I like to think it's important to run the club in the right way. It's not just about today, it's about the future generation of fans. You have to protect the club."
The current generation of supporters gets the chance this evening and over the next couple of months to witness what many of them never believed they would see.
Forget, for a minute, Rooney and the latest madness. Werder Bremen v Tottenham is the most interesting game of the night. By far.
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