CAN’T TOUCH THIS?
♫ ♪ 🎵 🎶 The champions ♫ ♪ 🎵 🎶! Bigger Cup is back, baby! Red-hot action from the world’s premier club competition across Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Bigger Vase and Tin Pot clubs must wait for their slice of European action until after an international break almost as long as the Geopolitics World Cup itself. Rather like Gianni Infantino’s North American investment roadshow, Bigger Cup, with its revolving Swiss system, 36 teams reduced to 24 following 114 matches, has become baggier than MC Hammer’s trousers [now there’s a reference for the young readers – Football Daily Ed]. Back in Clive Tyldesley’s ITV pomp, ties such as Liverpool v Atlético, Napoli v Arsenal, and Real Madrid v Inter moved the dial, filling boozers and column inches.
Now, paywalled away and despite the whir of Darren Fletcher and Ally McCoist’s unrelenting hype machine, these nights can feel more routine, a golden goose not so much terminated as gathering dust on the mantelpiece. A trinket retaining monetary value but not as cherished as it once was. That holders PSG are so minted they can afford to play separate teams across Ligue 1 and Bigger Cup says much about modern football, where clubs and competitions have become content providers feeding an attention economy. In this case, that attention will run a deficit until, just like the GWC, the juice is in the knockout stages. There are, though, different dimensions to take solace in.
Uefa suits would argue, for all the ennui surrounding Manchester City facing Real Madrid 14 times since 2012 – they don’t meet in this year’s group – Bigger Cup offers pluralism in the presence of minnows and newcomers. Think of them like plucky non-league clubs in the FA Cup third round. There’s Serie A arrivistes Como, a cracking away trip for fans, with Cesc Fàbregas as well-regarded young coach, and Nico Paz as a potential successor to Lionel Messi. No pressure. Austria’s Lask, from Linz, will make their group stage debut, having sunk Celtic in the playoffs and featuring the talents of former Mangotsfield, Wealdstone, Yeovil, Chesterfield, Swindon and St Mirren defender Miguel Freckleton.
Azerbaijani football has previously been represented by Qarabag but Sabah are the new Azeri force, from a small municipality on the banks of the Masazir, an actual salt lake. Their coach, Valdas Dambrauskas, will be reunited with Manchester United. Using the funds from a small, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire win on Lithuanian TV in 2002, having phoned a friend, gone 50-50 and asked the audience, he emigrated to England, eventually becoming a coach at United’s soccer schools in 2004, beginning his long personal journey back to Old Trafford. Then there’s Slovan Bratislava, coached by a 2009 Big Cup winner in Yaya Touré, who succeeded Vladimir Weiss in the summer. Touré becomes the first African coach to lead a team in the competition’s group stage, ending a wait that has lasted far too long. Throw in the return of Bodø/Glimt and questions of whether the club from the Arctic Circle can keep on doing interesting things and not everybody has to be a billionaire’s plaything, though come the spring, it will certainly help.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Rob Smyth fromn 5.45pm BST for hot Bigger Cup coverage of Club Brugge 1-2 Aston Villa, followed by Niall McVeigh keeping an eye on Porto 1-1 Manchester City, plus Daniel Harris on the rest of Tuesday’s action.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I can’t change it. The truth is that I really don’t care. I know how to analyse football, I know why [they have won Bigger Cup twice]. I don’t know everything about football but I know more than most” – Kylian Mbappé, there, not wanting to get bogged down in the details as to why PSG have been Europe’s best team in the two years since he left.
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Should Mauricio Pochettino play Russell Crowe in his biopic or should it be the other way around?” – Krishna Moorthy.
Following up on the very entertaining game between Arsenal and Chelsea, there was one piece of tactical brilliance by Xabi Alonso that didn’t get the credit it deserved. Everyone knows how dangerous Arsenal have been at corners causing chaos by saturating numbers in the opposition penalty area but Chelsea’s plan of keeping their four front men in Arsenal’s half removed a lot of the threat. Why hasn’t someone done this before and why didn’t Chelsea continue with this excellent plan?” – Nigel Sanders.
Three weeks ago Hearts Women won 5-0 away against Motherwell. Two weeks ago they won 6-0 at home against Aberdeen. At the weekend they won 7-0 away at Montrose. NOW That’s What I Call Goal Difference! I’m just trying to work out when, if this sequence continues, they might set a new record football match score in the UK, beating the Arbroath 36–0 Bon Accord, which took place on 12 September 1885. A goal every two and-a-half minutes! The Mike Dean of that match probably didn’t have had to leave the centre circle for the entire game” – Ken Muir.
Let me be the first of 1,057 USA USA USA-based readers to congratulate Jamie Carragher on his honesty. It is patently clear he doesn’t give a monkeys. The b@nter-filled, social media-chasing CBS Bigger Cup coverage is an absolute trainwreck. They should leave the comedy to actual comedians. As a Spurs fan I’d rather watch Arsenal win another league title than suffer through another CBS half-time production. And if you don’t believe me just ask anyone in the States … it makes you wish for the wit and wisdom of Alexi Lalas!” – Chris Brown.
José Mourinho’s blathering about ‘we won what we won and lost what we lost’ (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition) is just meaningless jibber-jabber. It’s right up there with the mindless ‘it is what it is’. I challenge the Football Daily pedant community: what isn’t what it is? What has a club not won what it won? When does a team not lose what it’s lost? Is there a plausible weeklong riff here? Or is that not what it is?” – Mike Wilner.
If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Ken Muir, who gets a copy of The Mbappé Project by Philippe Auclair. Copies are available in the Guardian Bookshop if you are not the lucky scribe. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here.
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