For your first trick, please show us Tottenham can trade blows with the best team Europe has produced this decade. If Thomas Frank wanted to make a statement two months after crossing London then defeating Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday night would set this season’s bar for performance somewhere beyond the stratosphere. His new role, or at least the relentless public scrutiny of it, begins in earnest beneath the Friulian foothills and it is an opportunity to form the kind of first impression that leaves a lasting signature.
Hearts have never been won or lost through showings in the Uefa Super Cup, which has traditionally been as much a late-summer beauty parade as a high-octane heave between the previous campaign’s big winners. There is certainly no guarantee that a hot night in the beguiling surroundings of Udine, whose modest solar-powered stadium has been feted for its environmental credentials, provides hard evidence of sustainable progress on the pitch.
