VA VA VOOM

While a match-up between Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain would almost certainly be most neutrals’ Bigger Cup final of choice, the major benefit of these two European heavyweights meeting in the semi-finals is that we get to watch them do it all again next week. While Football Daily has occasionally felt first-world resentment at being forced to sit through no end of turgid footballing dross masquerading as top-tier, top-flight entertainment this season, last night we felt genuinely sorry for any football fans who couldn’t enjoy the otherworldly treat served up in Paris. For many in the UK, the cost of watching Europe’s elite is an unaffordable luxury when they’re already struggling to put light in the bulb and food on the table. And while Pep Guardiola’s budget almost certainly stretches to an Amazon Prime subscription, last night the Manchester City boss took an ill-advised punt on Stockport County and Port Vale providing more bang for his buck at Edgeley Park.

The 5-4 thriller at Parc des Princes has been hailed as a breathless and quite brilliant generational classic and was perhaps unique among matches in that the six different players comprising the front three of both teams delivered virtuoso performances straight out of the top drawer. Michael Olise, Harry Kane and Luis Díaz all scored for Bayern to bring up a combined total of 100 goals for the season for the trio, while Désiré Doué, Ousmane Dembélé and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia piled the pain on a visiting defence that conceded five goals despite not actually doing a great deal wrong. “I’m putting it out there – is that the best game of football we’ve ever seen? Ever seen?” asked punditry’s Ally McCoist in a social media disgrace post not long after the game. “What about the quality of the goals? What about the quality of the pass from Harry Kane, the touch from Luis Díaz. I was lucky enough to be at the World Cup final: Argentina v France. I think that beats it. I think what we’ve seen tonight beats it.”

Both head coaches seemed to echo McCoist’s sentiments in their post-match pontifications, with PSG boss Luis Enrique providing the heartwarmingly honest assessment that his team “deserved to win the match, but we also deserved to draw and we even deserved to lose”. As the superlatives dried up it was left to the Waldorf and Statler of the Amazon Prime punditry panel to rain on the Parisian parade after they’d heard Kane comment on his side’s “amazing defending” in an interview. “It was a crazy and chaotic game,” parped Wayne Rooney. “We saw some immature defending, which is crazy.” Alongside him, the effortlessly cool Clarence Seedorf seemed almost melancholic: “Ask the goalkeepers if they’re happy,” he honked. “They are not happy, a clean sheet was always sacred for goalkeepers.”

While it is difficult to know which of the gaffers will be happier with last night’s outcome, Vincent Kompany seemed a little more bullish given his side reduced a three-goal deficit, including one scored from a scandalously awarded spot-kick. With the tie poised on a knife-edge before next week’s return leg in Munich, the only certainty is that whoever eventually prevails will somehow go on to lose 1-0 to the Arsenal in the final in Budapest next month, with Gabriel inevitably scrambling home the skanky winning goal.

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE

Join Rob Smyth at 8pm BST for red-hot Bigger Cup semi-final first-leg updates on Atlético Madrid 0-0 Arsenal.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“They never came to us. We did, Ossie [Ardiles] and myself, after the Forest game, we felt there was a real problem there. Ossie and I made it clear that we would go in there if they wanted us to go in there with probably a younger legend [as coach] as well. It felt at that time, at the end of the game, Tudor was in as the manager, but to lose 3-0 against a team down at the bottom – with you at home – was a bad sign. It looked to me as if it needed some love, like it needed some people to go in there and unite the fans, with the owners, with the team and that is why we said we would do it. They said they were looking elsewhere” – Glen Hoddle, there, revealing that Spurs turned down his and Ardilles’s offer for them to take the reins as join interim managers. Now that would have rivalled PSG-Bayern for entertainment.

FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS

Looking at that photo of Messi from 2005 (yesterday’s Quote of the Day), I had no idea before seeing his T-shirt that he was so left wing. We all know he did his best work off the right” – Andy McGregor.

A mention in Football Daily of Nike ‘Phantom Elite’ boots made me realise I may have missed some stages in the overdramatisation of product names in football. In my day we used to just call them Pumas, or Umbros or (quietly) Golas. Now it seems we’re just a few seasons away from kids clamouring for the new Nike Mega Eagle Missile Ghost Boss boots (as worn by Emil Krafth)” – Andrew Boulton.

What an absurd, breathless, brilliant game that was between PSG and Bayern last night. It was so end to end that, every time the camera panned to either end of the ground, I was surprised to see the keeper stood in a proper football goal, rather than between two piles of jumpers. I was also fully expecting the match to be brought to an end by a teacher marching onto the pitch ringing a brass handbell” – Phil Taverner.

Q: Would you like some goals?
A: Nine. Danke!
Q: Bayern’s second goal was scored in what part of Paris?
A: Champs-Olise’s.
Q: Do you think four goals are enough to get a result at PSG?
A: Cinq again!
Q: What time is it?
A: Five past Neuer.
Q: What now for PSG?
A: Oui go again next week!” – Peter Oh.

Wasn’t that a magnificent display of everything that’s good about football these days? No, not that trivial nine-goal kickabout in Paris. I’m referring to the wholly integrated approach to The Great Game yesterday evening in which the Hearts youth team won the Scottish Youth Cup final 4-0, and the Hearts Women’s team, already league leaders, won 3-0 to stretch their lead to five points with three games to go. What a season this could be for all things maroon” – Ken Muir.

Despite being native Baltimorean – yes, a Baltimoron if you must – I had to search for the meaning of recent allusions to Jimmy McNulty (Football Daily passim). Call me chauvinistic, but you see I’ve made it a point of never watching ‘The Wire’. When I need dramatic representation of harrowing, Sisyphean struggle on the one hand and ghastly, inexorable decline on the other, I simply turn to north London’s two (at least for now) Premier League flag-bearers” – Clinton Macsherry.

If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Clinton Macsherry, who gets a copy of Classic Football Shirts, courtesy of Penguin. It’s out on Thursday and you can order a copy here if you’re not successful. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here. 

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

Get your eyeballs on Michael Butler as he bathes himself in the vaults of the Manchester-based Classic Football Shirts retailer.

RECOMMENDED LISTENING

Join Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning and the rest of the pod squad as they reflect on that match. And watch it here, if you prefer moving pictures.

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