Why it’s magic to play in these big Champions League weeks...

The balls with the special stars on are coming out at Manchester City and Liverpool’s training grounds this morning. Footballs are inanimate objects, are they? Not these. They feel alive and stir emotion.

The sight of the stars means one thing — a huge week awaits. It is the Champions League, the pinnacle. They make you giddy. everything about these occasions do.

City will be wandering across Sporting Lisbon’s estadio Jose Alvalade pitch later on and Liverpool the San Siro tomorrow ahead of Inter Milan.

You get an hour to take it in, global camera crews capturing your walk. What a buzz that offers. So, this is the place where we will have to deal with a vociferous crowd. This is where I will be hearing that spine-tingling anthem.

I speak for all of the lads about the Champions League anthem, it genuinely gets to you. You’ve watched all this on television growing up, or as a professional dreaming of these occasions. You stand there to the deafening music, thinking about those who have gone before you. It serves as a reminder that you’ve reached the peak. This is it.

That two-month break between group stages and the knockouts is something I quite like. The last 16 creeps up on you and feels like a nice bonus. Suddenly we have Liverpool against Inter without anybody really noticing!

As players, giving that bit extra is subconscious because you obviously give your all in every game, but something definitely comes over you.

It was certainly the case for me at Anfield and Tottenham during the first year we qualified. If you ask any fan if the atmosphere goes up then they will say yes, even at City, who have historically had an uneasy relationship with the competition.

That passion has a knock-on effect. If we were playing a night game at Anfield in the league, it just wasn’t the same. I don’t know why but just look at the performances. The results and the comebacks bear it out.

We are living through an exciting time for english football and are currently in a spell of Premier League dominance.

Two all-english finals in three years says it all and you would not bet against that turning into three out of four when Saint Petersburg comes around on May 28.

I cannot see much past the Premier League clubs. Liverpool and City are my favourites and I’m struggling to split them in europe.

Chelsea, crowned world champions over the weekend, have a real opportunity to defend the trophy too. Joe Cole still keeps in touch with the guys at Lille and they fancy their chances in their last-16 match but Chelsea should be too strong.

Manchester United are the only ones I’m wavering on. They can have their moments, although their tie with Atletico Madrid is 50-50. It depends on which United turns up.

Bayern Munich are the real threat. Robert Lewandowski is lethal, supplemented with pace and ability in midfield. The rest? Real Madrid remain a top side but lag behind.

Paris Saint-Germain have top players but are they ever going to truly gel as a unit?

It all comes down to the respective domestic leagues. When I was coming through, you would sit and watch Football Italia on Channel 4 and I remember quizzing Graeme Souness and Paul Ince about that era, with Gazza, David Platt and those guys.

Serie A was the best league then but now it is miles off and it is hard to see how that changes.

There were a couple of potential opportunities for me to move abroad during my career but it was never as appealing as the Premier League.

Pepe Reina asked me about going to Villarreal when I was at Liverpool. Later on, while at Stoke, Genoa and Sampdoria showed some interest. Sampdoria were actually my Italian team, I had one of their shirts, mainly down to Gianluca Vialli.

I played golf with Souness, who was at Sampdoria in the 1980s, and he told me the experience could not be beaten. It just didn’t work out for me but I was happy where I was.

That love affair with Italy was always present though and the Champions League gave me the chance to live out those dreams.

Think of the history in the walls of somewhere like the San Siro. It had that Colosseum-like feel to it, with spiralled staircases in the corners.

To score the winner in that ground for Spurs in 2011 is something I’ll never forget. And I admit to having a bit of envy that those Liverpool players are going there twice in the same season, after beating AC Milan in December as well.

I was really happy with the career I had but watching the Champions League, those incredible nights, is the only time I get a bit jealous.

I hope the players know how lucky they are.