The league game after an international break is the worst time for them: they count the players out, then try to count them back in again. Javier Mascherano was one of the last to return. He had travelled through a dozen time zones, and back again, to play a friendly for Argentina in Melbourne, Australia, and Benitez could not consider playing him at Fratton Park after that.

	Near: Fernando Torres comes close to scoring for Liverpool

"My players travel more than Willy Fogg," Benitez said to quizzical looks. "Willy Fogg? Around the World in 80 Days?" "Phileas Fogg, you mean." "Oh, yes, Phileas Fogg, sorry." The point was well made, though.

Redknapp, who also presides over a league of nations, was similarly confused. "You can't plan, you don't know who's coming back, or whether they're going to be fit," the Portsmouth manager said. "I asked two of mine [who play for Senegal], 'Who did you play?' And they said, 'Something Faso'. I know it's somewhere in Africa, but where is Burkina Faso? I bet it's a long way from here."

There are weeks like this when Benitez's rotation policy is governed by the spinning of the globe. "You analyse your team and the quality of the players, then which players are tired and which players have fresh legs," he said. "And you put everything in the scales and decide. It's not fair to have all your players all around the world and after they come back Thursday they have to play early on Saturday."

One of the few beneficiaries on Saturday was Peter Crouch, so often a victim of the squad rotation, starting his first league game of the season. "At times, it has been frustrating," Crouch said, "but the manager has told me it's not possible to play every game in the amount of competitions we're involved in. That's good enough for me.