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THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT!
Torrential rain. A defensive line high enough to have even Ange Postecoglou clutching his pearls. Nine goals, three of them penalties, one of them turned into his own net by a defender and another an unrepeatable freak accident. Three goalkeeping howlers, two of them perpetrated by a man who retired last August. Some breathtaking saves. An amazing comeback. An extremely late winner followed by a VAR check that threatened to not only chalk it off, but award a penalty at the other end. A very public post-match dressing-down harking back to the Phil Brown b@nter era and an opportunity to further riff on the misery of Manchester United, even though they weren’t playing.
Football Daily has probably witnessed more chaotic and rewarding games of football than the absolute thriller won by Barcelona against Benfica at the Estádio do Sport last night but in terms of sheer entertainment we’re struggling to come up with one off the top of our noggin that genuinely ticks more boxes. While the conspicuous absence of a brawl and at least one red card means Tuesday’s Bigger Cup match in Portugal doesn’t meet every single one of Football Daily’s criteria for a stone-wall classic, we’re happy to applaud Barcelona goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny’s commendable effort to ensure we were treated to both. However, having reflected on his rush of blood to the head, we’re prepared to concede that it’s probably even more entertaining that the player he violently poleaxed in the buildup to Benfica’s second goal happened to be one of his own teammates.
While the accidental assault committed on Alejandro Balde by Szczesny, who had hung up his gloves and boots last summer only to perform a u-turn in Barcelona’s hour of need, was almost certainly our favourite moment from last night’s match, it had stiff competition. His foul for the penalty was fun, albeit not as delightful as the sight of his disconsolate opposite number Anatoliy Trubin smashing a kickout into Raphina’s head and watching the ball ricochet past him into the back of his own net. The fact that TNT’s commentary team happened to be singing the Ukrainian goalkeeper’s praises at the time rendered the whole incident even more comically absurd. After some late, late controversy Benfica ran out desperately unlucky losers only to be very publicly berated on the pitch by their manager Bruno Lage.
It wasn’t all bad news for the former Wolves boss, who can at least take comfort from the knowledge that in Alvaro Carreras, he has a real prospect. The 21-year-old caused Barcelona all sorts of problems and is exactly the kind of left wing-back Manchester United are currently crying out for. Coincidentally he is also exactly the same left wing-back the collective geniuses of the Ineos hive mind offloaded to the Portuguese outfit for £5m back in August having deemed him surplus to requirements at Old Trafford.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Barry Glendenning at 8pm (GMT) for red-hot updates of PSG 3-3 Manchester City in Bigger Cup, while Simon Burnton will be on clockwatch duty at the same time for the rest of the night’s action.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
If you want I can be delusional and say different things. I say it as I see it” – Ruben Amorim is not going to stop being critical of his Manchester United team, which is great news for tea-timely emails, but perhaps not such good news for dressing-room TVs.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Join Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning and the Football Weekly pod squad as they look back at an entertaining night of action in Bigger Cup.
Big Website’s bookshop has a host of great new tomes, just waiting to be added to your online basket. There’s Do You Speak Football by Tom Williams and David Squires’ latest brilliant collection of cartoons: Chaos in the Box. Get shopping!
It’s easy to mock David Beckham for his celebrity, his desperation to get a knighthood and his hagiographic documentary (trying to rewrite history and convince us that he was the ‘star’ player in the 1990s Manchester United teams, not Eric Cantona initially, then Roy Keane and David May, and that he was the player that drove the ‘galactico’ Real Madrid to the league after initially being excluded from the first team), but if you had told me back in 1996 when he scored that goal against Wimbledon that the squeeky-voiced young lad dating a Spice girl would end up speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, I wouldn’t have believed you. As L.P. Hartley said, ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’” – Noble Francis.
Are we really that surprised to hear another wine from José (yesterday’s Sour Grapes section – full email edition)?” – Mark McFadden.
Send letters to [email protected]. Today’s winner of our letter o’ the day is … Mark McFadden, who wins some Football Weekly merch. We’ll be in touch. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.
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