CITY’S BILLION-POUND BENNY HILL SHOW
It is quite funny that PSG felt like the good guys at the Etihad Stadium but if we briefly detach ourselves from the notion that the European champions’ own sportswashing and cashsplashing has also done immeasurable damage to the beautiful game, then their 4-2 Bigger Cup shellacking of Manchester City was pure cinema, baby!
Not just because Désiré Doué was unplayable or that Vitinha put on an absolute clinic or that Luis Enrique was more forward-thinking than Magnus Carlsen reading a horoscope in playing his right-back as a striker, but also because the camera kept cutting – deliciously – to the faces of glum City fans as they watched their expensively assembled squad spin into such a dizzy mess that £125m Enzo Fernández and £116m Elliott Anderson appeared in Manchester to be auditioning as a double act for next year’s Strictly.
Although PSG eased off in the second half as City rallied to a brave 4-2 home defeat, it was a miserable outing for all of those dressed in sky blue or trendy flatcaps sitting in the stands. Pep Guardiola was – we think – not one of the City fans that had spent the weekend chanting “we’re Man City, we’ll cheat when we want” at Anfield – but the former manager returned to Manchester for a well-timed visit on Wednesday to support City’s beleaguered owners, backing up last month’s statement that he remains “behind my club”.
While we did not hear from Pep on the night as he sloped off from his heated seat back to his sabbatical – with British TV viewers instead treated to the valuable and impartial TNT Sports pundit and literal on-the-payroll City ambassador Joleon Lescott, who “broke his silence on the guilty verdicts” in predictable fashion – we did also enjoy some relatively stain-free football on Wednesday. Aston Villa romped to a 6-0 thrashing of Fenerbahce, Bradley Barcola notched his first Liverpool goals (a hatty) in the 6-3 win at Lask and Real Madrid secured a last-gasp 4-3 win at Roma. In a fast-changing world, it was heartening to feel the warm embrace of familiarity with Madrid manager José Mourinho using his post-match press conference to speak, not of his side’s remarkable comeback (three corners in the final 10 minutes, naturally) or even of his emotional return to the Italian capital after his Tin Pot triumph with Roma in 2022, but as an opportunity to deliver a monologue against Spain’s football authorities. Football is healing.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Couldn’t they do it tomorrow morning? Do we have to come by bus and almost arrive at the stadium when we find out Vinícius has a four-match suspension? They do things shamelessly now. The cat is out of the bag. A Spanish team that has earned three points for Spanish football, for the rankings, for the prestige of Spanish football. You want to kill a player two hours before the match? It doesn’t seem normal to me.” – José Mourinho laments the timing of the Spanish Football Federation’s announcement that Vinícius Júnior will receive a four-match ban, including El Clásico, after being sent off for pulling Nathan Saliba’s hair against Villarreal last Saturday. The announcement came hours before Mourinho’s Real Madrid side – featuring Vinícius – faced Roma in the Big Cup last night, coming from behind to earn a 4-3 win.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
I was stunned at reading the comments in support of Manchester City keeping their trophies, coming out of the mouth of their Bigger Cup rivals at PSG (yesterday’s Quote of the Day). Given the example of the organisers of the Tour de Lance … sorry, the Tour de France, this kind of ‘keep the awards you won’ stuff might get him sent to the Bastille. Or consider Formula One. They’ve got all kinds of rules about driver behaviour on the racetrack, and additional rules about what the crew can and cannot do to your car. Cars get inspected before each race, and there are also mandatory post-race inspections for every car. You might drive your car first across the line to the cheers of the crowd, but if the post-race inspection discovered that you cheated in how your team designed your vehicle, your memory of crossing the line is all you get to keep. Think about that for a minute. If the Premier League and Fifa cannot clear the bar for morals in sport set by the UCI and FIA, that says a lot. And none of it good” – Peter Rehwaldt.
My friend Bernard grew up in Coventry. And as a boy he thought the team was called ‘Coventry City Nil’. I would get out more, but I’m a Manchester United fan” – Brendan Hughes.
If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day goes to … Peter Rehwaldt. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here.
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