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The Round of Arsenal and The Stadium of 16
 BIG CUP, REPETITIVE? NO! NO NO NO. NO NO NO NO NO.
The old European Cup, as was, would have gotten stale had the clever folk at Uefa not been the sort of creative, innovative, admirable go-getters who keep things moving forward all the time. All those clubs, big and small, building teams to win a national championship before embarking on a parlous campaign that hangs on a gossamer thread, in grave peril of ending at any given moment as a result of just one tiny mistake, players always working on the assumption that they only have one shot at glory (given the high barriers to entry and percentage chance of winning another league to qualify again) yet delivering under extreme pressure nonetheless? Well, all that had to go! Now, thanks to new improved Big Cup, the same clubs reach the same knockout stages year after year after year after year after year, achieving pretty much exactly the same thing, which in the majority of cases is sweet fanny all, though it doesn’t matter as they’ll be back again next time for another half-arsed pop and their cheque. Well done, Uefa! A radical and much-needed overhaul.
But Uefa isn’t so smug and self-satisfied that it’ll not continue to make tweaks and improvements whenever it can. Always thinking, you see. And so next year another big change might be in order. This is because they’ve never quite got round to thinking of a snappy title for the first knockout round. First it was called Second Round, then it was First Knockout Round, and for the past four years it’s been known as The Round of Arsenal. But that monicker could suddenly be made to look very out of date very soon, with the Gunners hot favourites to advance to the quarter finals for once. This is because they’ve drawn Monaco, who they face tonight at the Stadium of 16. Monaco will be tough to break down, having conceded only one goal in their six Big Cup matches so far, and a mere three in their past 17 games. But Arsenal should have plenty of time and opportunity to work out how to pick the lock, with the serenity of a pensioner mulling over an extreme sudoku puzzle, because the French side have only scored four times in Big Cup this season, and 25 in their last 26. They’ve got Dimitar Berbatov doing the pressing, see.
Monaco - the actual grubby tax bolthole - is of course a principality. But Monaco - the football club - can make no similar claim to royalty. Arsenal will be pleased about this, having drawn Barcelona (four Big Cup wins), Milan (seven), Bayern Munich (five) and Bayern Munich (five, but we can’t in fairness count those again) at this stage in the past four years. Monaco by comparison have only reached one final, and failed to win that. Which admittedly is also Arsenal’s record, but they’ve made it this far 15 years in a row now, while Monaco haven’t been here for a decade, and that’s surely got to count for something. So even though Jack Wilshere is not available tonight, presumably because he’s got a fag on, the Gunners should find themselves after this leg within touching distance of the quarters. Which will in turn necessitate Uefa renaming the Round of 16, presumably after a certain club in powder-blue shirts from the north-west.
LIVE BIG CUP ON BIG WEBSITE TONIGHT!QUOTE OF THE DAY I
“I was just playing with him. He began to curse me and I ended up mocking him. What he told me? I can not repeat it, no. My mother gave me an education. What his mother did not tell him, my mother taught me” - Neymar suggests he had a better upbringing than the Wildean Manchester City fan who taunted him in the wake of Leo Messi’s penalty miss at the Etihad.
FIVER LETTERS
“Re: Swansea dealing with director John van Zweden ‘internally and appropriately’ for calling Louis van Gaal an ‘arrogant b@stard’ on Dutch TV (yesterday’s Bits and Bobs). I assume this means they will congratulate him for his observation skills and his ability to state the blindingly obvious while asking him to refrain from demonstrating them on TV in future. That would seem to be an appropriate response to me.” - Brendan Mackinney.
“After being alerted to the existence of Burnley’s Ben Mee throughout this season and again this weekend due to his prevalence on Match of the Day, I did a little digging and discovered that he was brought up in a rather diverse and international household alongside his foreign, adopted brother and sister, Shape Mee and Annie-Weiyu-Wan Mee. Reports of a sibling named Aslongasyouneed Mee are currently unconfirmed. If there is an award for most convoluted pun ever forwarded to the Fiver, then this stands a good chance” - Adam Jackson.
“As a long-time appreciator of the Fiver’s keen sense of patriotism I couldn’t help but wonder why, in yesterday’s article ‘No Ho Ho’, it wasn’t pointed out that the biggest beneficiary of Sepp Blatter’s Winter World Cup™ will be Team England. By putting the tournament halfway through the season, Sepp has inadvertently given a huge boost to those players who have historically underperformed at the World Cup (read: England players) because they have spent an entire season giving 110% on wet and windy Tuesday nights in Stoke without so much as a Christmas Day off. Now that the tournament begins in November, we’re finally on an even keel with the winter-breakers! I’ll contact David and Frank so they can get updating the Three Lions lyrics in preparation” - Matt Smith.
Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is: Continued rollover.
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BITS AND BOBS
Bolton Wanderers winger Barry Bannan was so bored up north on loan this afternoon that he went to see Fifty Shades of Grey. On his own. Oh, Bazza.
World Cup-winning Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro has been handed a 10-month jail sentence for swimming in his own pool, albeit one of those cushy Italian jail sentences that never seems to involve anyone spending any actual time in prison.
Sampdoria president Massimo Ferrero hasn’t been sentenced to any months in prison, but he has claimed that his Palermo counterpart, Maurizio Zamparini, threatened to kill him in a row over the Paraguay midfielder Édgar Barreto.
Sheilaroos midfielder Mark Bresciano, 58, has announced he is hanging up his flamin’ boots as far as international football is concerned after making 84 appearances for his country over 15 years.
League One side Barnsley are ready to appoint Lee Johnson, 33, as their new manager, in a move that could but probably won’t pave the way for Paul Scholes to take over at Oldham.
Brighton have been fined £90,000 by the Football Association for Mr 15%-knack during the 2014 transfer of Dale Stephens from Charlton Athletic.
The Queen’s Celtic have been fined €10,000 by Uefa, following crowd-knack at their Euro Vase tie against Dinamo Zagreb last December.
Elsewhere in Scottish fitba, James Easdale has resigned from the board of The Pope’s O’Rangers
And the Old Bill have appealed for help to identify seven Chelsea fans following alleged racist chanting at St Pancras station in that there Big London last week.
STILL WANT MORE?
Just when you thought that the stench surrounding Qatar 2022 could not get any worse, Fifa confirms its complete disregard for everyone else’s opinion ... again,” harrumphs Marina Hyde, whose reserves of Christmas cheer for 2022 are already fast evaporating.
This David Squires cartoon tribute to the League Cup contains the greatest picture of Gunnersaurus being sworn at and threatened by Fred the Red you will ever see.
Dimitar Berbatov is back in Blighty, with his powers on the wane and demeanour of “a mysterious loner in a white dinner jacket leaving a casino, his bow-tie long since undone”, writes Jonathan Wilson.
Proper Journalism’s David Conn explains why David Haigh, a former managing director of Nasty Leeds who is currently languishing without charge in a Dubai Big House cell, is applying for a private prosecution over his “deceitful” arrest.
Oh, and if it’s your thing ... you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
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2015년 2월 25일 수요일
The Fiver
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