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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.

TIME RIGHT FOR BRIGHT

Time has been called on one of the great women’s footballing careers, with Chelsea’s Millie Bright announcing that she will retire from the game with immediate effect, having been sidelined with an ankle injury since February. The defender, who won 88 England caps and starred in their Euro 2022 triumph as well as captaining them to the World Cup final a year later, said: “Representing Chelsea over the last 12 years has been everything to me but I’m now ready to say goodbye to playing football. I’ve given all I can and I never wanted to fight for any other badge.” Her era-straddling career began with the once mighty Doncaster Rovers Belles in 2009 before she moved to Chelsea in 2014, hoovering up eight Women’s Super League titles and six FA Cups. A thoroughly good egg off the pitch too, Bright worked with the Chelsea Foundation to support youngsters with special educational needs and on the club’s programme to tackle winter loneliness. “I don’t ever want to live the high life of a footballer – I’ve avoided it at all costs,” she told Big Website’s Suzanne Wrack last year, “but I’m also in a very privileged position: I play for one of the biggest clubs in the world and I’m very grateful for that.”

RECOMMENDED SUBSCRIBING

Want a newsletter that explains how the World Cup became the cultural, social and political behemoth that it is? Then look no further than The World Behind the Cup, a new email from Jonathan Wilson coming soon. You can pre-subscribe … but please stick with your faithful Football Daily too.

NEWS, BITS AND BOBS

All 48 teams at the Geopolitics World Cup are set to secure tax exemptions at this summer’s jamboree after Fifa suits’ extensive late talks with USA USA USA treasury suits. Canada and Mexico have already granted exemptions to teams playing in their countries.

In other GWC news, players who cover their mouths when verbally confronting opponents, and those who stomp off the field in a strop, could receive straight red cards under new rules agreed by IFAB.

Meanwhile, St Pauli and Australia’s Jackson Irvine has said Donald Trump’s Fifa peace prize makes a mockery of football. “As an organisation, you would have to say decisions like the one that we saw awarding this peace prize makes a mockery of what they’re trying to do with the human rights charter and trying to use football as a global driving force for good and positive change in the world,” Irvine thundered.

Martin Ødegaard has told Arsenal to channel all their experience of falling short into Wednesday’s Bigger Cup semi-final first leg at Atlético Madrid. “We need to take all our experiences and the lessons and use them in a good way,” he roared. “It’s part of football and part of the journey … Atlético is another great opportunity for us to do something special.”

PSG v Bayern wasn’t the only high-stakes thriller last night. Southampton 2-2 Ipswich in the Championship was pretty tasty too.

The Spanish FA has banned Real Zaragoza goalkeeper Esteban Andrada for just the 13 matches after he punched a Huesca player in the face.

Afghanistan’s refugee players have been permitted to compete as an official women’s national team after Fifa agreed a rule change. It means Afghan Women United will no longer need the consent of the Taliban government to represent the country.

Manchester City just can’t catch a break from the footballing powers that be: the title contenders are unhappy at having to play three games in seven days from 13-19 May due to complications caused by Crystal Palace’s Tin Pot run. City now face Palace on 13 May but feel that fixture could have been played last week instead of their match at Burnley, who have more space in their calendar.

And got, got … how much? Panini sticker collectors face an outlay of more than £1,000 to complete the album for the 48-team Geopolitics World Cup. Ouch!

STILL WANT MORE?

“The players have to trust what I’m asking them to do”. Ashley Cole gets his chat on with Emanuele Giulianelli about his first manager’s job at playoff-chasing Serie B side, Cesena.

Thirty years on, “they’ve got to go to Middlesbrough and get something” remains instantly understood meme-able shorthand. Louise Taylor looks back at Kevin Keegan’s famous rant, three decades later.

Sid Lowe on how Giuliano Simeone has risen to the challenge of following in his dad Diego’s footsteps at Atlético Madrid.

And it’s up for grabs now: after last weekend’s Rochdale v York rollercoaster, The Knowledge dives into the latest title-winning goals down the years.

MEMORY LANE

4 May 2008: Luca Toni is showered by Bavarian wheat beer after Bayern Munich wrapped up the title against Wolfsburg. What a waste!

DUKLA PRAGUE AWAY KIT?