Oh Boy. United’s defeat showed there’s plenty that’s still Super about competition in Europe
MANY will have relished those scenes of pandemonium in Bern on Tuesday.
Those who doubt whether Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is the man to bring the glory days back to Manchester United when he shows such naive game management.
The ones who were sceptical about United adding another striker to a squad bursting with goals when what was needed was a defensive shield.
And mostly, those left nauseous by the hype accompanying Cristiano Ronaldo’s Second Coming who will have rejoiced in seeing the 36-yearold’s bubble burst by an upstart gang of Young Boys (above, Jesse Lingard and Harry Maguire after the defeat).
But look past United, still likely to progress from their group, and those delirious scenes in the Wankdorf
Stadium spoke of a wider reason to celebrate the unfancied Swiss side’s late victory.
Less than five months ago United’s co-chairman Joel Glazer, speaking as vicechairman of the newly-formed European Super League, wrote these words: “By bringing together the world’s greatest clubs and players to play each other throughout the season, the Super League will open a new chapter for European football ensuring world-class competition.”
How did that new, thrilling chapter pan out? Whatever happened to football fans being told we needed to kill off the boring old Champions League format because annoying minnows like Young Boys no longer have a role in dramatic theatre involving the world’s best performers? Oh, the irony.
It felt written in the stars that the first Champions League game of a season that was supposed to herald the breakaway league should see one of the main architects brought down to earth by alsorans who would have been excluded from mixing it with Europe’s finest had the ESL gone ahead.
What a way to point out to the arrogant money-grubbers who wanted a closed shop, in which those with the biggest global fan bases play each other with no threat of relegation, that doing so kills the magic of football.
It jars to hear that grandiose Champions League anthem booming out at the grounds of the breakaway rebels because it reeks of hypocrisy.
Yet there is no shame among those
10 of the 12 sides who waved goodbye to the rest of
Europe to sail off into a supposedly golden sunset five months ago, now participating in a competition they denounced as a dated vehicle that needed scrapping for the greater good of the game.
There are murmurs that the super league plan hasn’t gone away but will resurface some time soon in a modified form. That’s certainly what Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus hope because they view it as the solution to their dire financial situations.
But, maybe Spurs and Arsenal aside, do our biggest clubs need this closed shop? The Premier League’s net summer spend of £560million was 10 times higher than in La Liga or Serie A. Our Champions League clubs already make this season’s Premier League appear a four-horse race and are back hosting
European full houses which look like carrying on deep into the knockout stage.
Why yearn for greener grass when the landscape is already so lush? As Paul Newman famously answered when asked if he cheats on his wife: “Why go out for burgers when you’ve got steak at home?”
That was precisely how fans of the breakaway clubs felt when the plan came to light in April, hence their loud screams of disgust which embarrassed the greedy outsiders running their clubs into a U-turn. They would be heard again if this shameless anti-competitive scam resurfaced.
The Champions League format is far from perfect but still feels as though it has the potential to thrill, shock and put noses out of joint. And if we were in any doubt, a shower of Young Boys on a plastic pitch in Switzerland just gave us a timely reminder.