There was a lot of smoke around the Parc des Princes on Tuesday evening. Photo: Abdullah Firas/Abaca/Shutterstock
DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS, NOT LONDON
As metaphors for PSG's European efforts over the past decade go, there was something poetic about the fact that Kylian Mbappé, in what was almost certainly his very last action as a footballer representing his paid local club in Europe, tripped over his own feet . . His legs blurred as he chased in vain after a poorly weighted through ball from deep, the celebrated striker lost his balance and toppled, hitting the deck just as the final whistle blew his state team's obsession with being champions of the Big Cup to be left unfulfilled. in plumes of yellow smoke for another year. Compared to some of PSG's often slapstick exits over the past seven seasons, this was far from the most disgraceful and a fair case can be made that the French side played quite well and were more than a little unlucky in going six over two legs hitting the woodwork. against Borussia Dortmund. Yet they walk out of the Great Cup again, to which the only appropriate response from completely impartial neutral people everywhere should be a resoundingly cheerful a-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha... a-ha-ha-ha -ha -ha-ha-ha-ha-ha... honk!
Now Football Daily isn't sure if the Germans have an equivalent word for childish and petty wallowing in PSG's misfortune, but even if they did, their players were too busy organizing an impromptu disco and singing along for the small corner of the Park. des Princes who was transformed into a traveling Yellow Wall for one night only to tell us what it could be. Moving along with his teammates on a strategically placed traveling trunk, Jadon Sancho could have been excused for feeling extremely pleased with himself, even if with slightly better timekeeping or a less stubborn attitude he would still be playing for a much bigger club. and could instead have apologetically applauded a very different set of traveling supporters the night before before teeing off from a south London pitch in a state of near-total torpor.
The story continues
"The feeling is one of sadness, it cannot be otherwise if the goal is not achieved," sniffed Luis Enrique. "We have not been inferior and if we add the two draws together, we have hit the post six times. The funny thing about football is that it is sometimes an unfair sport and we did not score tonight despite having 31 shots." After achieving the extremely unique feat of building a PSG team that, so not exactly likable, certainly far less reprehensible than some of the random big-name egomaniacs with money pumped their way by Chief Prosecutor Nasser Al-Khelaifi in the past decade, Luis Enrique will almost certainly remain in his post for another year and he will have to make his plans without his star striker, who is sure that he will go to the door with the text ' Par ici versus Real Madrid ". Of course, we assume the Spanish champions still want Mbappe, who has been a largely desperate and peripheral figure having failed to put a glove on Dortmund or Barcelona in the last two rounds.
Meanwhile, in the Dortmund camp, Edin Terzic and his players have another Wembley final ahead of them despite failing to pull trees out of the Bundesliga this season, and will face the other semi-final between Real Madrid and watching their old muckers Bayern. Munich with interest, but very little fear. "If I had to find and choose one word, it would be pride," the German cheered after his party's victory. "We suffered a lot, but we showed a very good away performance against a team that is so powerful up front; so fast, so mobile. We kept two clean sheets and won both semi-final games. This is incredible and excellent." After defying expectations by bowing out of their group and beating supposedly superior opponents in Atlético Madrid and PSG on their way to the final, Dortmund have no reason to fear anyone in a showpiece event they will contest as underdogs. Even if they keep losing, their Big Cup campaign this season is already well past the point where it could end in a Mbappe-esque face plant.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Scott Murray at 8pm BST for Big Cup updates on Real Madrid 2-2 Bayern Munich (ag: 4-4 aet; 4-5 pens) in the second leg of the semi-final.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"It was one of the most unpleasant 15 minutes of my life, it was crazy" - Bolton manager Ian Evatt would have liked a more comfortable progression to the League One play-off final than their 3-2 home defeat to Barnsley (by 5- 4 won on aggregate) that shredded his nerves. The fans also had to let off steam afterwards, as these images showed.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Now, if Borussia Dortmund go on and win the Grand Cup this season, Jadon Sancho will have the chance to do the funniest thing ever by going up to the interviewer on the pitch straight after receiving the trophy and thanking Erik ten Hag ( or compliment him) (his full name, 'soon to be former Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag') for showing a lack of confidence in him and not giving him the opportunity to train and play with the boys " - Noble Francis.
Frequent and well-deserved kudos to Murray Todd (yesterday's Football Daily letters), for dragging, kicking and yes, shouting at the modern convention of shorter sentences and fewer 'unnecessary' words; Granted, this is now being advised due to a widely acknowledged, pernicious, internet-fueled shortening of all our attention spans, but let's not fight this with unnecessary things, like say, adverbs, and, you know, style, but batter anyway and all reduce our written word to a series of serious but unadorned bare points, then we can all leave the depressing chore of reading behind us as quickly as possible and concentrate our time on our other essential pursuits, like perhaps pedantically editing Wikipedia and being obviously fun at parties , even if I didn't try to read real novels, it all becomes a bit belletristic and lettered in those things" - Jon Millard.
Send letters to [email protected]. Today's winner of our Prizeless Letter of the Day is...Jon Millard.
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