PSG v Real Madrid: Big Cup returns with an unromantic match-up

The knockout stage of Big Cup begins this evening, and thoughts naturally turn to Barcelona. They’re not in it, of course, but that’s exactly why everyone’s thinking about them. Barça shipped three goals on three occasions in the groups, and so now they’ve got a battle on to make the last 16 of Big Vase instead. Looking on the bright side, at least the likes of Bayern Munich, Roma and Liverpool can’t get at them from where they are now – though let’s hang fire on confidently declaring this new environment a humiliation-free safe space until we see what Napoli do to them in that Vase play-off game.

There is one player still in Big Cup who, if you cut him, would bleed blaugrana. Yes, it’s Lionel Messi, now plying his trade with all the other good-time charlies at PSG. Only the fiercely partisan, or those without a grasp of the fundamentals of broad-brush slapstick, would fail to find great humour in the GOAT suffering yet another 8-2 hiding on the biggest stage in club football. Nothing personal, you understand, but with the petroclubs having long gained the upper hand, we have to take our fun where we can get it, and if that means Messi once again watching in impotent despair from afar as ball after ball whistles into the net up the other end, each goal taking an oil-fuelled superclub further away from that elusive holy grail, then so be it. Take a hit for Team Humanity, Leo.

But, truth be told, such delicious waves of bittersweet schadenfreude are unlikely to wash over us and cleanse the soul. For a start, PSG face Real Madrid in their Round of Arsenal tie, so any satisfaction derived by the pricking of petrohubris would be almost completely offset by the identity of their conquerors. It’s not exactly a romantic