ONLY 189 MATCHES TO GO
Big Cup is back, and it’s bigger than ever. The new “league phase” format features four more teams than the old group stage, with each club playing an extra two fixtures – all of which means the total number of games required before handing the trophy to Real Madrid has increased from 125 to 189. What once seemed a distant flight of fancy became very real in August’s head-swivelling tombola, with fixtures spat out of Uefa’s super-computer by the dozen before you could say: “Is this a €uropean $uper £eague?”
Aside from Uefa head honcho Aleksander Ceferin, who peacock-strutted through the ceremony and a self-indulgent promo clip, few will have been happier with the new draw than Aston Villa fans. They return to Europe’s elite competition for the first time since their title defence was ended by Juventus in 1983. This year, visitors to Villa Park include Juve, Celtic and Bayern Munich – an occasion which will be especially poignant after the death of 1982 European Cup final hero Gary Shaw. Travelling Villans will get trips to Monaco, Bruges and Bern (and Leipzig, but this is Big Cup – everyone has to play Leipzig).
For this week only, Bigger Cup is spread across three days – handily scheduling Arsenal on Thursday night for b@nter purposes – and Villa get the honour of kicking things off in one of Tuesday’s two early games. Villa start the “Swiss model” against Swiss champions Young Boys, who are currently riding hi … [Football Daily checks table] … rock bottom of their league. Three points are surely a must and would allow Unai Emery’s men to kick back and enjoy themselves – our own sputtering Commodore 64 simulator suggests five or six more points would probably get them a playoff place.
Later on, Milan v Liverpool offers the first taste of Uefa’s Bigger Cup, Bigger Games guarantee, pitting two Big Cup collectors up against each other on opening night. Arne Slot’s smooth and speedy start behind the wheel at Anfield was halted by taciturn traffic cop Nuno Espírito Santo, while Milan manager Paulo Fonseca is also fidgeting in his new seat after one win from four Serie A games. There will be a little tension in the air at San Siro, even though the group stage now stretches beyond Christmas and both teams will surely go through regardless of this result.
Tuesday’s other games – Juventus v PSV, Bayern v Dinamo Zagreb, Real Madrid v Stuttgart and Sporting v Lille – give off a Gazprom-heavy whiff of Big Cup group stages past, a format so tired and predictable that many fans are prepared to give this weird new setup a chance. Don’t forget Uefa’s other promise: in Bigger Cup, every match matters because of the seeded knockout rounds. Will Bayern shut up shop at 3-0, or go for five or six goals to boost their goal difference? Will Madrid turn in an unconvincing 2-0 victory, and win the trophy in May regardless? And will the glaring flaws in Bigger Cup be remedied by stealthily tweaking it into a de facto €$£? The answers are coming, as if we didn’t know them already.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Scott Murray at 5.45pm (all times BST) for updates on Young Boys 2-2 Aston Villa, then Rob Smyth will be at the helm at 8pm for Milan 1-2 Liverpool and Taha Hashim will be all over the rest of the night’s Bigger Cup and Milk Cup action with his clockwatch at the same time.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Erling [Haaland] scoring again … it is starting to make us laugh … we love the Premier League so we watch all the games. We watch [Manchester City] as well, which is normal. It doesn’t get to our head. We need to focus on us” – Jorginho on how the Norwegian goal-bot’s relentless scoring spree has had Arsenal’s squad chuckling heartily. Will they chortle if he hammers three past them next weekend?
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTER
The mailbox was deleted this afternoon. They thought the group was defunct. They also said most of the mail going to the inbox was junk, based on the sender information … sorry about this” – a letter from The Man confirming that our letters address was killed off because he thought we retired a long time ago. Yep. We told him we’re still here. Maybe he should sign up. Anyway, this means that if you won a prize last week you’ll need to write in with your address so we can get it posted to you. We lost all the old emails. Sorry about that!
Send letters to, yes, the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … The Man Rollover. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.
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