THE REAL QUIZ
The countdown is on. Not to World War III, or to a former writer of this tea-timely email’s appearance on the Christmas Strictly, or even to Rúben Amorim’s first game as Manchester United manager. Nope, the ticking clock has been wheeled out to inform us that, at the time of writing, planet earth is precisely 23 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds and 0 sanity from Amorim’s first pre-match press conference as Manchester United manager.
There has been plenty of hype around new managers before, particularly when José Mourinho breezed into west London in 2004, told everyone he was special and gave the assembled hacks a generous heads-up by informing them that Chelsea would win the Premier League title at Bolton on 30 April 2005. Amorim is surely the most hyped newbie since Pep Guardiola arrived in 2016 to wage war on stereotypes about water, wind, night-time and Stoke-on-Trent. But there is one difference. In 2016, typing ‘When is Pep Guardiola’s first Manchester City press conference?’ into Google would have produced nada. Zilch. Eff all. Try the equivalent for Amorim and your computer will turn into a 180°C oven within seconds.
On a pure football level Amorim’s arrival is really, really exciting, especially as it is coupled with Guardiola’s decision to extend his Manchester City contract, an announcement that had a pretty clear subject: “Do you feel special, punk?” But the amount of content around his arrival is making us pine for the days of blissful ignorance and Elton Welsby introducing The Match on ITV approximately 30 seconds before kick-off. Back then, the game was the thing. Now it’s fighting for primacy with the endless news cycle. Don’t believe us? See if you can guess how many of these recent headlines we have made up:
‘Rúben Amorim’s ‘grandpa’ coach at Man Utd ‘can’t say two sentences in English’’
‘Man Utd’s fans ‘jaded’ as Rúben Amorim predicted to ruin his career’.
‘Five things we learned from Rúben Amorim’s first training session’.
‘Rúben Amorim has ‘very own whistle’ as he calls time on Antony’.
‘Marcus Rashford gives three-word verdict on Rúben Amorim’s first Man Utd training session’.
‘Casemiro gives two-word verdict on Rúben Amorim’s first Man Utd training session’.
‘Rúben Amorim ‘will make exciting Man Utd request’ ahead of Ipswich debut – EXCLUSIVE’.
‘Supercomputer reveals how difficult Rúben Amorim’s first five games are at Man United – and how it compares to their Premier League rivals’.
‘Supercomputer predicts Rúben Amorim’s Spotify 2024 Wrapped playlist’.
‘Five things we learned from Rúben Amorim’s choice of trainers for this first training session’.
‘What Rúben Amorim’s 3-4-2-1 formation reveals about his preferred lovemaking technique’.
None. They’re all real headlines. OK, the last three aren’t real, but that’s the direction of travel and we give it three more permanent United managers tops before they appear on Google. This desperate search for insight, clicks, exclusives, clicks, hot takes, clicks, clicks and clickityclickclickclicks is a symbol of a culture in which the actual football sometimes feels like an inconvenient interruption. This has significance far beyond the weary irritation of an email that just wants to go back to 2004 and hear the Franz Ferdinand album for the first time. Amorim is going to face a level of scrutiny – and, at times, a level of infantile questioning – that would break 99% of managers. How he handles it will permeate through the thing that still matters most, just about: the association football. It all starts at 2pm on Friday 4.30pm on Sunday.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Some managers say they can’t do without football but I’ve never been that way. I think there’s more to life” – George Burley talks to Nick Ames about his cancer diagnosis, taking Ipswich to great heights and their resurgence 20 years on.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Let’s not give Wales too much credit (yesterday’s Football Daily); after all, it was only Iceland they beat. Surely any half-decent side could make easy work of them to advance in an international tournam … oh” – Chad Thomas.
BC.Game, Leicester City’s shirt sponsor, reportedly being declared bankrupt could prompt a few questions for the board about what kind of diligence they did and how this might affect their already wafer-thin PSR in the entirely unlikely event of them not having got paid up front. After all, this was a Curaçaoan crypto-casino whose social media abomination TwiXer post announcing their sponsorship attracted 2.2billion views, making it one of the most viewed of all time. Given they’ll presumably now be looking for a new sponsor, perhaps the team will soon turn out decked out in John Terry’s monkey pics” – James Blanchard.
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … James Blanchard, who lands their very own piece of Football Weekly merch. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.
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