TO STOCKHOLM
Fifty thousand spectators will converge on Stockholm’s Friends Arena on Wednesday night for the Big Vase final, along with more than 40 players, two sets of coaches and about 37 referees and linesmen. Many of the spectators will don hats and scarves that declare their passion for Manchester United. Many others will be clad in red-and-white garb to show their love of Ajax. And a huge, unsightly, belching mass of them will be wearing gravy-stained Uefa blazers that reveal their insatiable support of Europe’s catering industry.
Every single one of them, like the thousands of people actually working at the event and the millions watching it on TV or listening to it on radio or following it on a sweat-soaked minute-by-minute report or completely ignoring it because they’d rather dance or sing or ride or sleep, is better than a pea-brained wretch with a bomb. So they’re the ones The Fiver is interested in.
In the grand scheme of things, The Fiver can be defiantly petty. Fact is, one big reason for which we’ll be tuning in will be to find out whether the Special One’s big gamble pays off. Well, we call it a big gamble because José Mourinho has been keen to give the impression in recent weeks that he chose to concentrate his resources on Big Vase after identifying it as United’s most likely route into next season’s Big Cup. An alternative reading would be that Antonio Conte, Mauricio Pochettino, Pep Guardiola, Jürgen Klopp and even Arsène Wenger decided it would be best for United to try their luck via that route since Mourinho’s side couldn’t hack it in the Premier League. Still, if United do win, then it will be mission accomplished by Mourinho and he’ll have a nice shiny pot to prove it, which is more than Pochettino, Guardiola or Klopp can say this season.
For Mourinho, then, the line between vindication and failure has seldom been so flimsy. If United demonstrate their obvious superiority over a callow Ajax team that has not won any of their last six European matches outside Amsterdam, then he will be triumphant. But if the manager bottles it as he almost did in the semi-final against Celta Vigo and sends his players out as if they are confused by an alien inferiority complex, then Mourinho will have followed up the worst season of his career with the second-worst. Which isn’t really the sort of progress United were looking for when they hired him.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Jacob Steinberg from 7.45pm BST for hot MBM coverage of Ajax 0-1 Manchester United.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I couldn’t care less, I promise you – all I care about is celebrating with my Chelsea fans. Me and them have a wonderful rapport and have done for 22 years. Nothing that people write or say can ever get in the way of that. I promise you I couldn’t care less” – Plain Old John Terry there, not bothered at all by the snarking following his substitution gala.
RECOMMENDED LOOKING
David Squires on… Manchester, a city united.
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“Re: Jim Smith’s assertion that Watford fans had a ‘stress-free’ finish to the season (yesterday’s Fiver letters). I can ignore the barbs about being mid-low-ranking as it chimes with just about all the bone-idle Watford journalism we’ve endured, but ‘stress-free’? He can’t possibly have been to a Watford game in recent memory. It’s been torture. I can safely say I’ve thoroughly enjoyed two home games all season. The best fun we’ve had is watching the fans next to us throw their toys out of the pram about four times and storm off with half a game left” – Jeff Lloyd.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our letter o’the day is … Nicholas Mancini, who receives a copy of The Agony & The Ecstasy: a Comprehensive History of the Football League Play-offs, courtesy of the kind chap that is Richard Foster.
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NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Chelsea have cancelled Sunday’s planned Premier League victory parade for security reasons following the Manchester terror attack.
The newly de-Allardyced Crystal Palace plan to pip Porto to Marco Silva’s scrawl. Failing that, they’ll go for Roberto Mancini, or Sean Dyche. “I simply want to be able to enjoy all the things you cannot really enjoy with the 24/7 demands of managing any football club, let alone one in the Premier League,” simpered Sam.
Athletic Bibao boss Ernesto Valverde is keeping coy about his chances of beating Allardyce to the Barcelona job. “I have no commitment to any team,” he parped, “though there are teams that want me. It’s possible I take a sabbatical too. Why not?”
Ex-Blue Peter and Police Camera Action! presenter Gethin Jones is set to join Chris Coleman’s Wales squad for their World Cup qualifier against Serbia, though it may be a different Gethin Jones.
Former Helsingborg assistant Stefan Schwarz fancies working at a club that once banned him from going to space. “I think I understand the mentality of the Sunderland fans,” he tooted, “and the culture of the area.”
A winding-up order for Notts County has been dismissed after a “dramatic compromise” was reached over debts outside the high court in London.
Bernard Cribbins’ son Alex Bruce has done one after Hull City confirmed their retained list. Scottish winger Shaun Maloney, 74, has been offered new terms.
And Eintracht Frankfurt’s Guillermo Varela is out of the DFB Pokal final after his pre-match tattoo became “badly inflamed”. Eintracht say they’re sending him back to parent club Manchester United with immediate effect. “We cannot put up with this,” honked suit Fredi Bobic. “This is the end of the road.”
THE RECAP
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STILL WANT MORE?
Limited tickets and soaring travel costs have made the trip to Stockholm difficult for the Manchester United and Ajax fans who ought to be central to any European final, writes Daniel Harris.
Few events have had as big an impact on Scottish culture as the day the Queen’s Celtic won the European Cup. Here’s Kevin McKenna on the Lisbon Lions, 50 years later.
Surely Sam Allardyce hasn’t really retired, reckons Paul Wilson. If he wants more downtime, an international return could be perfect.
How much do you know about Euro and Big Vase finals? The Fiver knows nothing. It’s the quiz.
Arsenal and West Ham don’t fancy paying 36-year-old Iker Casillas a fortune, but Liverpool do, it says here. Meanwhile, in other Liverpool veteran news: $tevie Mbe and Jamie Carragher were wheeled out for a flamin’ coin-rich 3-0 thriller in Sydney.
Was Stuart Pearce’s brother really the linesman for a game that he played in? The Knowledge reveals all.
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