THE KNEES HAVE IT
A luxury flat in Spinningfields, Manchester, the very small hours. The black polo neck is slung on the back of an ergonomically designed chair but Pep Guardiola is still pacing the room. Not even the soothing sounds of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds or that CD of whale music Marcelo Bielsa sent over after clearing out his Pudsey pied-à-terre are doing the job. The celebratory cigars remain in the humidor. Pep will sleep eventually, though fitfully, for a few minutes at a time. At the Etihad Academy on Wednesday morning he will need some of the rocket-fuel coffee Johan Cruyff used to swear by to get through the day, the warmdowns, the debriefs, the chalkboards, the ice baths, the stats. Not even Brandon the kitman’s chirpy b@nter and jock-strap party tricks can lift the spirits.
It’s happened again. Well, sort of. Manchester City actually managed to beat Real Madrid 4-3 in Tuesday’s Big Cup classic. And it was only the first leg, too. At times, they ravaged Don Carlo’s collection of golden oldies, bright young Brazilians and Dani Carvajal, but Pep didn’t enjoy it one bit. He knew. He knew when Riyad Mahrez hit the side netting rather than pass to Phil Foden. He knew when Aymeric Laporte’s arm flailed in the penalty area. He knew when Karim Benzema took the resultant spot-kick, fully Joe-Harting Ederson with a brisk Panenka.
He just bloody knew. Throughout Tuesday evening he wore the pained expression of someone asked to sit through Ricky Hatton’s attempt to sing the aria from La bohème. Big Cup semi-finals bring the man Big Jürg (who, with true sincerity) is happy to call the world’s greatest coach to his knees, especially when Fernandinho is sold a dummy by Vinícius Júnior. Like Weird Uncle Fiver and Valentine’s Day, for Pep it’s the least wonderful time of the year. Something about Big Cup and trying to win it again, this time without Lionel Messi in cheat mode, reduces the great man to a wobbling mess, his technical area movements jerkier than David Byrne in Stop Making Sense.
Pep Guardiola’s reaction to Vinicius’s dummy 🤣 pic.twitter.com/LVv64SjFh2
— S. (@utdz0ne) April 26, 2022
There are still another 90 minutes to play, no pesky away goals to sink City. Hold on in Madrid and the winner of Liverpool v Villarreal will await in Paris, likely with a large, Germanic cheesy grin. It can be done, no question. “I want to try to convince my players that we won the game and heads up,” roared Pep in the immediate aftermath. Perhaps he could first convince himself.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Barry Glendenning from 8pm BST for hot MBM coverage of Liverpool 3-1 Villarreal in Big Cup.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“They are going to throw it at me and say: ‘Are you going to relocate?’ But it doesn’t work with us, when we sign a contract we usually get sacked” – Steve Bruce has no plans to move out of his Cheshire pad despite insisting his West Brom players live close to training.
RECOMMENDED LOOKING
In which this time we remember to plug the David Squires cartoon on Erik ten Hag and Manchester United.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Get your ears around the latest Football Weekly. And while we’re at it, Max, Barry and the pod squad are going back out on tour. Tickets to live shows in June and July are available here – there’s even a new date added in Dublin – so get buying.
MOVING THE GOALPOSTS
The Fiver has a new sister email, folks! You don’t need to be told that it’s smarter and wittier than us – so sign up. The latest edition has been sent whistling into inboxes but you can get a taste here.
FIVER LETTERS
“The Fiver seems to have taken a leaf out of Bath Rugby Club’s pre-professional era shirt-numbering scheme and decided that, in the interests of not tempting fate, it will eschew the use of the No 13. What other reason can there be for giving Real Madrid a 14th pot (yesterday’s Fiver) about a month too early? Even Uefa managed to get that one right” – Steve Allen (and others).
“Two days into a proposed regulatory authority and you haven’t given it a name? A Queen’s speech is coming and it’s not as if this wretched government haven’t got other people’s priorities to attend to. So where we going with this? Ofside? KickOf? Ofsod? Ofthefence? OfyoupopthroughthedoorlabledDoOne? Get a grip” – Michael Lloyd.
“Re: yesterday’s Quote of the Day. As a long-suffering Brighton and Hove Albion fan of 50 years standing, I recall we once had an outstanding left-back some 20 years ago who was a master of his craft. He raided up and down the wing so often, and put in so many pinpoint crosses that we actually managed to have shots on target in most games; something sadly lacking in today’s goal-shy Albion forwards. Come back to the south coast Nathan Jones and burn as many ping-pong tables as you want for, as Bananarama so succinctly put it in 1987, ‘you’ve been gone too long’” – Stevie Ewens.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Michael Lloyd.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Female players in Italy’s top flight are to finally be deemed professional, an “epochal change” that ends years of capped salaries due to only being recognised as amateurs.
Impressive young Southampton defender Tino Livramento is expected to be out until 2023 after suffering a torn ACL.
Pope’s Newc O’Rangers boss Giovanni van Bronckhorst has shrugged off the suggestion from Willi Orban that his Leipzig players are knackered. “It’s the same for all of us,” he roared.
Manchester United substitute teacher Ralf Rangnick has given up on Big Cup. “I don’t think it makes sense now to still speak and speculate about [it],” he sobbed. “We need to be realistic.”
Lee Gregory has been reflecting on scoring twice in less than 10 seconds as Sheffield Wednesday came from 2-1 down to win 3-2 at Fleetwood and boost their League One playoff hopes. “We knew that if we got a second, then we’d get a third,” he cooed.
🎵 ꜱᴄᴏʀɪɴɢ ɢᴏᴀʟꜱ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʙʟᴜᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴡʜɪᴛᴇ 🔵⚪️
— Sheffield Wednesday (@swfc) April 27, 2022
An incredible minute of football last night!#swfc | #FLESHW pic.twitter.com/WBkvYKbPN3
And Exeter City will be hosting Derby County next season after securing promotion from League Two.
STILL WANT MORE?
What Real Madrid do shouldn’t work, writes Jonathan Wilson, and yet …
“Nothing was settled here. There is no sensible way to read a game like this. It is simply a case of purring over the details” – Barney Ronay on the drama at the Etihad.
Andy Hunter reveals how a night in a bar at the Novotel Basel City hotel launched Klopp’s new Liverpool.
Did Bayern Munich set a new record for most consecutive league titles? The Knowledge knows.
Football needs more than a new regulator to save it from itself, reckons Adrian Chiles.
And if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
