BIGGER THRASHINGS
Travelling to Germany with his team having won nine games on the bounce in all competitions, Brendan Rodgers was understandably bullish ahead of Celtic’s Bigger Cup match against Borussia Dortmund. His team had conceded only four goals all season while scoring 33, with just under half that tally coming in their past three outings, against St Johnstone, Falkirk and Slovan Bratislava. Having seen off such exalted opposition with a minimum of fuss, it was small wonder that Rodgers talked up the new “mindset, belief and experience” that he felt would help his side as Celtic attempted to secure their first competitive victory on German soil in 15 attempts.
“I think we have also added some players that give us something in key areas of the pitch that you need,” beamed Brendan, whose subsequent approach to the Dortmund match might have sufficed for a home cup tie against Bonnyrigg Rose or East Fife, but could scarcely have proved more naive when taking on last season’s Bigger Cup runners up at the Westfalenstadion. What exactly Brendan hoped his players might give in key areas of the pitch remains unclear, but it almost certainly wasn’t repeated possession of the ball to their hosts. The upshot? Dortmund duly spanked seven goals past them on yet another chastening European night on the road for Celtic. While Big Paper’s fitba correspondent described the match as being “akin to a grand master playing an orangutan at chess”, Football Daily would politely suggest such a comparison does a grave disservice to our famously intelligent hominid chums, one of whose number had an opening gambit named after her on the back of advice she somehow imparted to the Polish grand master Savielly Tartakower before a match he played in New York in 1924.
Celtic had surfed into Dortmund on a wave of misplaced confidence they’d taken from the beatdown to which they’d subjected Slovan Bratislava in the previous round of fixtures. Unsurprisingly, the Slovak champions were the victims of another drubbing at the hands of Manchester City. Between qualifiers and group games, Bratislava have already played 10 matches in this season’s Bigger Cup, with their opening win over North Macedonian champions, Struga, in July now a distant memory. Given Bigger Cup’s new format and 36-team table, regular shellackings were always going to be on the cards, not least when you consider that Bratislava’s tormentor-in-chief, Jérémy Doku, retails at more than twice the cost of the entire home squad.
While Barcelona and Inter also piled the hurt on comparative minnows last night, arguably the most intriguing of the Bigger Cup thrashings was the one visited upon RB Salzburg by Brest. As hammerings go, this was easily the most fascinating game of an otherwise fairly unremarkable evening of action, in so far as the team that was battered for long periods somehow managed to score four goals against the run of play and without reply. The team with the lowest Uefa ranking in this season’s Bigger Cup, Brest, currently sit joint-top of the 36-team group table like a diminutive Napoleonic colossus. Speaking of whom, we’ve got a good story about the famous French emperor and his old barge, which currently resides in the Brest Naval Museum. But seeing as we’ve already spoiled you with an unexpected yarn about a great ape’s contribution to the tactical history of chess, that anecdotal gold will have to wait for another day.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Taha Hashim at 8pm BST for Bigger Cup updates on Aston Villa 1-3 Bayern Munich, while Will Unwin will be on hand at the same time with goal updates on Liverpool 3-0 Bologna and more in his rolling clockwatch.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
I don’t want to put too much pressure on us but I do think that this is the year” – Bukayo Saka, there, not in any way turning up the heat on his teammates by predicting Arsenal’s 21-year wait to win the Premier League will end this season.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Sergei Baltacha looks mightily p!ssed off to have to stand next to that (oddly filthy) Lada Samara (yesterday’s Memory Lane – full email version). He no doubt thought he’d left the damn things behind in Ukraine. He was probably ready to jump into his Peugeot 205 GTi in the background when everyone had got off. The Samara was awful, the previous boxy Riva was actually a better vehicle, and the Niva 4x4 was very underrated. They should have got him one of those if they wanted him to crack a smile or even actually drive it. Also, without snark, I found yesterday’s lead piece very amusing, and the mention of Jemeni in that context made me laugh out loud, at work” – Jon Millard.
Noble Francis can complain all he wants (yesterday’s Football Daily letters) that the Football Daily deciders are against him whenever there’s a prize on offer, but I actually managed to win a precious book over a year ago, and yet here I am, checking the post every day, in the adorably naïve hope that I might finally receive it. Is there, perhaps, some rule I missed that Football Daily prizes must take 1,057 days to arrive?” – Mac Millings (we’ll be in touch).
Has targeting Noble Francis been declared a small scale industry already? Is he the most targeted person after Mikel Arteta today in the football world?” – Krishna Moorthy.
Once again Football Daily gets it completely wrong. Those weren’t PSG Ultras mobbing outside Football Daily Towers (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs). They were all disaffected prizeless letter o’ the day posters come to make their feelings known after cruelly and unexpectedly failing to win a prize yet again. Just what sort of clearly heavily AI-assisted/random email generator evil methods are you using down there? And yes, that’s what we all look like in real life. PS: if you look closely you can just about make out me in the photo, trying to look well ‘ard, wearing a super-sodden black hoodie and showcasing my pretty vacant stare, despite the sunglasses – oh” – Steve Malone.
John Stones is ‘100% ready’ to replace Rodri, eh? [yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs]. For what it’s worth, so am I. Ooh, pick me, Pep!” – Mike Wilner.
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Steve Malone (just in case you were out there). Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Get your ears around the latest episode of Football Weekly Extra, here.
• This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
