MIDDLESBROUGH take on AZ Alkmaar this evening in a game that should be as important as any they have played this season.

A UEFA Cup clash with a side that reached the last four of the competition in April and currently stand third in the Dutch Eredivisie should be continental competition at its best.

Instead, though, this evening's encounter will provide yet more evidence of European football's dramatic decline.

In a half-full stadium, against half-hearted opponents, a half-strength Boro will play in a game that is of no consequence at all.

Win, lose or draw, Steve McClaren's side will remain on track for the last 32. Forget a crusade against the drinking binge, if the government are really serious about cleaning up something that involves a lot of rounds, they should direct their ire at the UEFA Cup.

In the last two seasons, the competition has ballooned into a behemoth. By the time they take on Litex Lovech in the middle of next month, Boro will have played six games just to extend their interest into the new year.

Tellingly, they could have lost three of them and still retained a realistic chance of progressing.

As Champions League organisers found to their cost, group phases and competitive European football do not mix.

The introduction of a four-game group phase to the UEFA Cup has certainly done nothing to enhance the quality of the competition. If anything, it has diluted it to the point where Premiership games against the likes of Wigan and West Ham have taken precedence over Boro's European dates.

Given the quality of opposition on offer in Group D, it is easy to see why. Grasshoppers would struggle to survive in the English top-flight, let alone challenge for a top-seven finish, Dnipro are languishing in the bottom half of the Ukrainian league and Litex are more than ten points off the pace in Bulgaria.

It is little wonder that Boro officials are dreading the prospect of a four-figure gate next month.

The dream of European football quickly loses its lustre when the reality is nothing more than a meaningless kick-about against a bunch of below-par Bulgarians.

"European football means a lot of games," admitted Boro chairman Steve Gibson. "Financially, it is difficult for our fans. All of the games are on TV and some supporters see an opportunity to save a bit of cash. If we qualify for the knock-out rounds, I am sure we will see a massive upsurge in crowds."

Perhaps but, even in the last 32, the quality of the competition is diluted. Allowing three teams to qualify from a five-team group is a recipe for disaster. Or, at the very least, a recipe for a succession of mundane matches and a glut of quality-less qualifiers.

To return the UEFA Cup to its former glory, European football's governing body needs to scrap the group phase and revert to two-legged knock-out games.

It also needs to abandon the ridiculous situation whereby Champions League failures enter the tournament at a latter stage. It is some competition that allows new teams to enter after most of the original starters have been knocked out.

Can Middlesbrough win this season's competition? Possibly, but until anyone knows whether they will have to face Real Madrid, Juventus or Bayern Munich, nobody really has a clue.

Europe's big guns like the current format because it offers them a safety net should they slip up in the Champions League. Instead of rewarding success, the UEFA Cup compensates for failure.

Until that changes, it will remain a second-rate competition. And, unless UEFA makes some difficult decisions, matches like this evening's will continue to make no impact at all.

It probably passed you by but, earlier this month, Scotsman David Drysdale failed to win his tour card at golf's European Tour Qualifying School by one shot.

That would have been hard enough luck anyway, but it exacerbated one of the most unfortunate incidents in the history of the sport.

By the middle of September, Drysdale looked certain to finish in Europe's top 116, thereby securing an automatic tour place for the whole of next season.

Failure looked impossible when he secured a spot at the lucrative Dunhill Links Challenge, a competition with a combined prize fund of some £2.7m.

Merely turning up would have guaranteed Drysdale his future but, when he picked up a minor rib injury, he sportingly offered his place to the stand-by, Sam Little.

Little went on to win £20,000 in the tournament and finished in 116th place in the Order of Merit, £400 ahead of the 117th-placed finisher, who just happened to be a certain David Drysdale.

By passing up an easy buck in order to give someone else a chance, Drysdale condemned himself to 12 months of part-time employment, endless obscure events in obscure parts of the world and exclusion from Europe's biggest competitions.

"Turning up to get the money is not the done thing," he observed. It is to be hoped his sportsmanship is rewarded eventually.