THE REAL QUIZ
The countdown is on. Not to World War III, or to a former writer of this tea-timely email’s appearance on the Christmas Strictly, or even to Rúben Amorim’s first game as Manchester United manager. Nope, the ticking clock has been wheeled out to inform us that, at the time of writing, planet earth is precisely 23 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds and 0 sanity from Amorim’s first pre-match press conference as Manchester United manager.
There has been plenty of hype around new managers before, particularly when José Mourinho breezed into west London in 2004, told everyone he was special and gave the assembled hacks a generous heads-up by informing them that Chelsea would win the Premier League title at Bolton on 30 April 2005. Amorim is surely the most hyped newbie since Pep Guardiola arrived in 2016 to wage war on stereotypes about water, wind, night-time and Stoke-on-Trent. But there is one difference. In 2016, typing ‘When is Pep Guardiola’s first Manchester City press conference?’ into Google would have produced nada. Zilch. Eff all. Try the equivalent for Amorim and your computer will turn into a 180°C oven within seconds.
On a pure football level Amorim’s arrival is really, really exciting, especially as it is coupled with Guardiola’s decision to extend his Manchester City contract, an announcement that had a pretty clear subject: “Do you feel special, punk?” But the amount of content around his arrival is making us pine for the days of blissful ignorance and Elton Welsby introducing The Match on ITV approximately 30 seconds before kick-off. Back then, the game was the thing. Now it’s fighting for primacy with the endless news cycle. Don’t believe us? See if you can guess how many of these recent headlines we have made up:
‘Rúben Amorim’s ‘grandpa’ coach at Man Utd ‘can’t say two sentences in English’’
‘Man Utd’s fans ‘jaded’ as Rúben Amorim predicted to ruin his career’.
‘Five things we learned from Rúben Amorim’s first training session’.
‘Rúben Amorim has ‘very own whistle’ as he calls time on Antony’.
‘Marcus Rashford gives three-word verdict on Rúben Amorim’s first Man Utd training session’.
‘Casemiro gives two-word verdict on Rúben Amorim’s first Man Utd training session’.
‘Rúben Amorim ‘will make exciting Man Utd request’ ahead of Ipswich debut – EXCLUSIVE’.
‘Supercomputer reveals how difficult Rúben Amorim’s first five games are at Man United – and how it compares to their Premier League rivals’.
‘Supercomputer predicts Rúben Amorim’s Spotify 2024 Wrapped playlist’.
‘Five things we learned from Rúben Amorim’s choice of trainers for this first training session’.
‘What Rúben Amorim’s 3-4-2-1 formation reveals about his preferred lovemaking technique’.
None. They’re all real headlines. OK, the last three aren’t real, but that’s the direction of travel and we give it three more permanent United managers tops before they appear on Google. This desperate search for insight, clicks, exclusives, clicks, hot takes, clicks, clicks and clickityclickclickclicks is a symbol of a culture in which the actual football sometimes feels like an inconvenient interruption. This has significance far beyond the weary irritation of an email that just wants to go back to 2004 and hear the Franz Ferdinand album for the first time. Amorim is going to face a level of scrutiny – and, at times, a level of infantile questioning – that would break 99% of managers. How he handles it will permeate through the thing that still matters most, just about: the association football. It all starts at 2pm on Friday 4.30pm on Sunday.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Sarah Rendell from 8pm GMT for minute-by-minute coverage of Arsenal 2-0 Juventus in Women’s Big Cup.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Some managers say they can’t do without football but I’ve never been that way. I think there’s more to life” – George Burley talks to Nick Ames about his cancer diagnosis, taking Ipswich to great heights and their resurgence 20 years on.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Let’s not give Wales too much credit (yesterday’s Football Daily); after all, it was only Iceland they beat. Surely any half-decent side could make easy work of them to advance in an international tournam … oh” – Chad Thomas.
BC.Game, Leicester City’s shirt sponsor, reportedly being declared bankrupt could prompt a few questions for the board about what kind of diligence they did and how this might affect their already wafer-thin PSR in the entirely unlikely event of them not having got paid up front. After all, this was a Curaçaoan crypto-casino whose social media abomination TwiXer post announcing their sponsorship attracted 2.2billion views, making it one of the most viewed of all time. Given they’ll presumably now be looking for a new sponsor, perhaps the team will soon turn out decked out in John Terry’s monkey pics” – James Blanchard.
Send letters to [email protected]. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … James Blanchard, who lands their very own piece of Football Weekly merch. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
The Football Weekly Extra podcast is here, here, here.
RECOMMENDED SHOPPING
You can now get your very own copy of the latest David Squires cartoon. And Big Website’s football bookshop has the latest release from David himself, along with those from Miguel Delaney, Nick Miller and Jeff Stelling.
A LITTLE BIT OF POLITICS
That the late former deputy PM John Prescott was a sporting man was evident in the left hook he infamously landed on a protestor in 2001; Prescott had won boxing awards while a merchant seaman, his prizes awarded by former Tory PM Anthony Eden. A proud rugby league fan and director of Hull KR, part of the Prescott persona was that of northern man at a sportsmen’s dinner. He turned out for the House of Commons football team and had loyalties to Hull City, who suffered great turbulence before enjoying later success during his 40 years as a local MP, including near-extinction, then moving to the KC Stadium and top-division football for the first time. Warm tributes have been paid by the club, even though Prescott had been a public backer of the previous ownership’s attempts to rename the club Hull Tigers. Politicians and football are a heady mix, Prescott providing full proof. At Brighton, he is recalled fondly for his interventions allowing the club’s new stadium to be built in Falmer. Elsewhere, while campaigning against the Scottish independence vote in 2014, he proposed a joint England-Scotland team to a Glaswegian audience, receiving predictable pelters as a result.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Lebanon youth international Céline Haidar is still in an induced coma, four days after being struck by shrapnel in an Israeli airstrike.
Real Madrid forward Vinícius Júnior has spoken about his fight against racism, describing it as an ongoing battle that is happy to take on, but warning that he alone “can’t fight all that Black people have been suffering”.
Kosovo are preparing an appeal to CAS after Uefa handed them a 3-0 defeat for walking off during the Nations League tie against Romania in Bucharest, which was abandoned when they elected not to return. The visitors left the pitch in stoppage time upon hearing chants of “Serbia” from home fans.
Chelsea are through to the last eight of Women’s Big Cup with two games to spare after easing past Celtic 3-0 for an 11th win on the spin.
The unlucky Reece James is back on the Chelsea sidelines, though, after twanging his hamstring again.
It’s been too quiet at West Ham recently, so with Julen Lopetegui facing two make-or-break games to save his job, the club have been exploring potential replacements in the international break. Edin Terzic, Kasper Hjulmand, Roger Schmidt and Sebastian Hoeness are four names on their list.
England’s new backroom staff under Thomas Tuchel has taken a funny turn with the addition of Chelsea goalkeeping coach Henrique Hilário.
Ipswich Town are leveraging the fame of their minority owner and sponsor to help with transfer business, according to chief suit Mark Ashton. “In the summer we were trying to persuade one particular player to join the club and realised very quickly that he was an Ed Sheeran fan,” he cooed. “Ed jumped on a Zoom call with him at the training ground just before he stepped on stage with Taylor Swift, hopefully that was a key part of getting the player across the line.”
Juan Mata is the first active player to become a partner in a USA USA USA soccerball franchise. “Joining San Diego FC as a partner is an exciting opportunity to help build something truly special in a city and league that are experiencing incredible growth,” he whooped.
And the Sherpa Van Bristol Street Motors Trophy is being rebranded – mid-competition, no less – to the Freight Rover Vertu Trophy. You’ll doubtless be reassured the EFL has provided a pronunciation guide: “VUR-CHOO.”
STILL WANT MORE?
Who should be next host of Match of the Day? Max Rushden offers some thoughts from the 2015 sixth favourite.
New tests await Pep Guardiola after his new deal, writes Jamie Jackson.
Before his first Manchester United game, the people who know Rúben Amorim well explain to Will Unwin how he got this far.
David Squires on … uniting the world, one flamin’ A-League round at a time.
And remembering when Arsenal’s title hopes wobbled as in-form Forest came to town; Steven Pye dusts off some memories from 1989.
MEMORY LANE
Not quite the dusting visited upon London over the past few days, this is the snowbound football scene in downtown Nuuk, Greenland, 22 years ago, as some tougher and hardier souls than us get their game on.
