KO-ACTION

As we all know, the Big Cup is going to be utter crap after the gentlemen at Uefa decided to change things up and play more games for reasons not immediately clear. There will be a random league system where each team plays eight games – four home and four away – against different opponents. Everyone will be bored of that before Real Madrid beat Feyenoord 4-0 in mid-January. That means we’ll have to stick with the glorious idea of ​​knockout football that was on offer in abundance in the third qualifying round.

Rangers, however, are already out, losing 2-0 to Dynamo Kyiv. After a 1-1 draw in the first leg, the return leg at Hampden Park remained goalless until Italian referee Marco Guida ruled that Rangers winger Jefté had jumped too high to win a header from Oleksandr Karavayev, who fell to the ground like a drunken donkey. The Brazilian’s impressive leap, who already had a booking, apparently left Guida baffled, so he opted for a second yellow card. “It’s a very decisive moment and in the end it destroyed the dream of a dressing room,” fumed Rangers manager Philippe Clement. “It has destroyed the dream of more than 50,000 fans (actual attendance 39,180 – Football Daily Ed) and you expect a better level of decision-making because for me this is the worst decision I have seen in more than 30 years.” Dynamo Kyiv scored two goals, meaning Rangers will once again have to contend with the Big Vase.

There was drama everywhere. PAOK thought they were in the play-offs when pesky Malmö boy Nils Zätterström equalised in the 96th minute. Anders Christiansen’s winner in extra time then gave the Swedes a 6-5 aggregate victory. PAOK will have to settle for Europe’s second division, where they will face… José Mourinho’s Fenerbahce. They too made it to extra time thanks to an injury-time goal, this time a chested effort from Lille’s Bafodé Diakité. When Aïssa Mandi was sent off for the visitors, Mourinho must have thought he was back in the cup big time, but Istanbul were silenced by a 118th-minute penalty from Jonathan David following a VAR review.

“It’s better if I don’t talk about the penalty,” Mourinho moaned. “Only the referee knows why it was a penalty and the VAR knows. I’m proud of my team. I’m an honest person. I told my players I’m proud of them, they did everything to win. One team deserved to win but the other team went through.” The drama was not over there, though. Consider Ludogorets, who were hoping to make it to the big trophy after a hard-fought 2-1 win over Qarabag in Azerbaijan. In Tuesday’s return leg, they conceded an early goal at home but had turned the game around by the 23rd minute. Unfortunately, they managed to concede two goals in first-half stoppage time when the game was level, but the important thing was still in the game… until they conceded four goals in extra time and lost 8-4 on aggregate. God bless the qualifying rounds.

LIVE ON THE BIG WEBSITE

Join Scott Murray from 8pm BST for MBM’s hot coverage of Real Madrid 3-1 Atalanta in the Biggest Cup.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Erik shaped the early stages of my career, so he knows how to get the best out of me and I can’t wait to work with him again. I know what it takes to succeed at the highest level and I am determined to continue that record at this special club” – Matthijs de Ligt after joining Noussair Mazraoui at Manchester United, taking the total number of players to have played in the Netherlands or for Erik ten Hag to 4,905.

Continuing the current Memory Lane theme of moustachioed heroes (full email edition), here’s my distant cousin Jimmy Crabtree in the classic look. It’s always nice to remember the players and the past while looking to the future” – Tom Crabtree.

The Milk Cup is back, baby, and it harks back to a glorious era in football. No, not the days of Milk Marketing Board sponsorship from 1981-86, but the days of player interviews in the tunnel after cup finals in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when no self-respecting interviewee could answer a question without first raising a glass bottle of milk to their lips. Yes, folks, there used to be milk in glass bottles, and what could be a more beautiful sight than a professional sportsman toasting his success or failure (and treating both imposters in a way that Kipling would have approved of) than by drinking milk straight from the bottle. I’d love to see our current players handed a glass bottle of milk in a post-match interview, and stumble as they wonder what to do with it. Mind you, these days it would probably be considered a performance enhancing substance and result in suspensions” – Charlie Ashmore.

I wouldn’t be worried if Troy Deeney didn’t provide entertainment in his Premier League team of the week on the BBC (yesterday’s Party Off, Garth; full email edition). Judging by the colourful and uncensored opinions he has had about his Forest Green charges during his short tenure as manager, he may soon show Garth Crooks a thing or two about repositioning the egos of the manbabies he will be judging” – Colin Reed.

Yesterday’s Football Daily mentioned at least twice that “schools are back in session” and that it is likely that a striker will score 45 goals by then. While I understand the reasons for Anglocentrism, I would point out that in many areas of Scotland pupils are back in school. The chances of anyone scoring a goal by then are not great” – Ken McKinlay.

Send letters to [email protected]. Today’s winner of the free daily newsletter is … Colin Reed. The terms and conditions for our competitions can be found here.