ONE CHAMPIONS League is redolent of conspicuous excess, played out to operatic theme tunes, and populated by those who earned their first million before they needed their second shave.

Eddie Wolecki Black stands on the doorstep of another Champions League that does not yet drip with the juice of bountiful television money but that carries a challenge, a marque that is of authentic European royalty. His Glasgow City side face Paris St Germain in the quarter-finals of Europe's premier trophy.

This, of course, is women's football. The Champions League is thus an equal opportunity competition though the balance between PSG and Glasgow City resembles all the levelness of a see-saw with a Sumo wrestler on one end.

Consider the difference: PSG players will convene at 8.30 in the morning for the breakfast of champions before training and being assessed by sports scientists, nutritionists and full-time medical staff. "Their team basically piggy backs on the facilities enjoyed by the men's team," says Wolecki Black.

The City manager and his players, in contrast, will be waiting outside a school on the South Side of Glasgow of a frozen evening for the jannie to unlock the gates so they can train on a pitch with a goal with no nets.

"We were down at Manchester City the other week and I was most impressed," says Wolecki Black, whose ninth season with Glasgow City makes him the longest serving professional manager in Scotland.

"I was told they had a squad of 20 players at an average salary of £30,000 plus £1000 a month accommodation allowance. It is a tremendous set up with a 7000-capacity stadium for the women."

Wolecki Black's side is made up with part-timers with the few professionals earning no more than £300-plus a week.

He takes this crew into battle against a team comprising some of the best players in Europe. He is, though, undaunted. Wolecki Black is one of those characters who wants to learn, even when an education carries the possibility of football's equivalent of corporal punishment.

He is a quietly determined character. He played for such as Cowdenbeath, Brechin City and Montrose before graduating to management. He took control of junior side Lochee United, was briefly in charge at Montrose, before moving on to coach the University of Abertay, Forfar West End and, of course, Glasgow City, the premier brand of Scottish women's football.

The Champions League awaits, with City playing the first tie against PSG on Sunday [March 22} at the Excelsior Stadium in Airdrie, but Wolecki Black wants more. "I feel ready now," he says of the possibility of moving back to the men's game. "I am a far more rounded person. Things do not destroy me now."

Destroy him? This is just a glimpse of how seriously Wolecki Black regards football, how it could once impact severely on his emotional well-being. It is tempting to say the rough edges have been softened by his immersion in women's football. It would also be wrong.

Instead, he has grown in the company of women but he has also learned. He has gained a UEFA Pro Licence, the highest of qualifications, and has not only proved to be a serial winner. His sustained run of success with Glasgow City follows a national title with the University of Abertay and a couple of championships with Lochee United.

Wolecki Black has a fascination with John F Kennedy so it may be apposite, in an echo of the American president's inaugural address, to ask him not what he has done for women's football but what women's football has done for him.

So what will Wolecki Black take from the women's game into the men's game when he ultimately returns to that arena?

"That is a difficult question," he says. "I know the differences, though. The women are far more open when discussing or adopting tactics. The tradition of the men's game that has been going for more than 100 years is not there. There is not that felling that things have always been done this way so why change?

"Women want new ideas. My team plays for the love of the game. They are not doing it to get rich. They want to learn and they want to improve."

Wolecki Black, too, is clear-eyed on the standard of the sport. "It is never going to be as fast as the men, it is never going to have the strength of the men's game but technically they are easily as good as the men."

He speaks of playing such as Hamilton Academical's under-17 team. The boys would beat the women but much of this is down to exploiting advantages in strength by playing long balls in behind defences, making it a test of pace and endurance.

"Women's football is where women's tennis was about 40 years ago," he says. He accepts the sport needs a moment of change, such as when Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in a much-publicised battle of the sexes in 1973.

This may just come in the women's World Cup in Canada in June, though Scotland have not qualified. There are role models, though, in the Scottish game.

Wolecki Black coached Rachel Corsie, now of Seattle Reign, when he splayed for Glasgow City. Her club team mate is Kim Little, the 24-year-old Aberdonian who is regarded as one of the outstanding players in the world. Wolecki Black believes, too, that there are other examples coming though at Glasgow City, a club that takes in players from under-nine upwards.

He is attuned to the subtle differences between men and women footballers. "My players are competitors, they want to win, they are prepared to sacrifice, to work to achieve their goals. But there is an innocence, even a naivety in the women's game at times.

"They are not good at gamesmanship. You can have a situation with time running out in a game and you are winning 1-0 and the full-back is running off the park to get the ball so the game restarts quickly.

"There is a certain morality about women in that situation. And what professional football calls gamesmanship sits uncomfortably with many of them. There is a purity about them, a lack of cynicism. But, frankly, you need that sort of streetwise gamesmanship if you are going to compete with the top European sides."

He is cautious, too, about agreeing with those who say it is inevitable that a woman will become a manager with a top male club. Shelley Kerr coaches Stirling University in the Lowland League but there is no women one above her in the men's game.

"Shelley is a very good coach. She has shown she can compete and the players are obviously listening to her but I am not convinced it will happen at a bigger club. That is my gut feeling. Football is a male-dominated sport with all the stereotypes that entails. It will be a hard, hard barrier to break down."

He is aware of his responsibilities as a male in a dressing-room full of women. "You have to be very careful with your language, you have to make sure that the atmosphere is right. I make sure we employ coaches I can trust because they will be working in an environment where there are vulnerable young women. I have a duty to make sure they are protected and looked after," he says.

Wolecki Black has a daughter, Rachel, 13, who is in the SFA's performance school and a son, Evan, 10, who plays for St Johnstone under 11s. Their future may be in sport.

Their dad is determined that his outlook is broadened and his opportunities increased by exposure to the last eight of the Champions League.

"I am grateful to the women's game for so many reasons but one of the biggest is that I have been allowed to experiment without the pressures of the men's game where every result is crucial. I have being learning in an environment that was forgiving of the odd mistake so I have been able to find out what works on the park, to see how tactics can be developed, basically to earn every day."

The marriage between Wolecki Black and women's football has been beneficial for both sides. It will inevitably end in divorce as the coach moves on but a respect and an affection will remain on both sides.