Mbappe and Vinicius being shamed by brilliant PSG would be best for football

Park the sportswashing concerns and on the pitch a Paris Saint-Germain win in the Champions League may be best to teach those Real Madrid ‘superstar egos’.

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PSG for the big one
If I park the whole sports-washing thing, I find myself in the strange position of wanting PSG to win the champions league this season.

Firstly, they’re the best side I’ve seen this season and by quite a distance. They absolutely battered both City and Liverpool in Paris, which is always lovely to see.

Secondly, it’d be really funny for them to win it the moment all the superstar egos have left. Mbappe will have a right sulk on.

Thirdly, whilst there’s obviously issues around their ownership winning off the pitch, I think it could be very good for football on the pitch. In the same way people complain about the wider negative impact of Pep’s genius on football, I think the same can be said of the negative impact of Ronaldo and Messi’s genius on individual footballers. Players like Mbappe and Vinicius Jr seem to think they don’t have to put in a shift because Messi and Ronaldo didn’t after they were 30. Good players, sure, but they’re not banging in 50 a season, every season, for a decade.

This PSG side is a proper team where every player runs their socks off and puts in a shift. It grates with me seeing players strolling back and thinking they’re above hard work. Hopefully a PSG victory would hammer home the point that they’re not.
Lewis, Busby Way

I don’t know how this will end up but regardless PSG are so good.
Paul

READ MORE: Former Leeds man now clear Ballon d’Or favourite ahead of Mbappe

Favourite final
I didn’t get to see Internazionale’s impressive away win in Bavaria as I was lost in a sea of white, and dull grey, madrid tops. Despite being 400 miles south of the capital , it seems everyone and their grandfather is a madridista.

Remembering the 3-0 at the Nou Camp and Messi furious that Dembele couldn’t make it 4, I was turning to the pretty girls behind and saying ‘they need another’. To be honest it could’ve been 5 given all those good chances. Still, I left, singing (anti madrid songs), high on good Guinness.

When the last 16 draw fractured away the names out of a hat fun, everyone was saying that Arsenal were on the tougher side of the draw and although the least interesting final for me would be PSG v Inter, I cannot see much of a difference, in possibilities of getting to the final, between Arsenal, PSG or even Villa under the stewardship of prime dick Emery. Neither Barcelona and Inter on the other side.

So my favourite final would be a replay of the Eto’o versus Henry final (Eto’o scored) but without the keeper getting red carded by a blau-grana loving FIFA ref this time please.

There is a whole lot of champions league furore football to be played beforehand though.
Peter (‘oh you are awful but I like you’) Andalucia

Set Piece FC strikes again
Don’t get why everyones celebrating, classic arsenal scoring two set pieces. Which, as any self-respecting football purist will tell you, should really only count as 0.5 each.

By my maths (and vibes), those two rockets equal one actual goal. Anyways, can’t wait for Stewie to find a point to nitpick and rant about for what was probably the greatest night at the Emirates.
Rohan (Defender of open play purity and campaigner of set pieces to be worth 0.5 since 2024)

FAO: Matt
My dude, it was clearly a joke about Arteta not letting Rice take free kicks. Come on now.

I’m a Liverpool fan – was more commenting on the fact the Stewie dominates the mailbox whenever Arsenal lose.

Maybe lighten up a touch?
Tom, Andover.

Stewie breaks his silence
One thing I’ve always slated Arsenal’s tinfoil crackpot PGMOL Deep State fans for, is intellectual dishonesty: making out that failure is success, inventing Fake accolades, etc. Curious that the same set of fans who’ve done everything to devalue and denigrate Liverpool’s deserved title win on the basis of “the opposition was poor, worst champs ever”, will be the exact same fans who will be requesting unqualified praise, Céline Dion ballads and a national holiday, after eviscerating first a washed Pep Citeh, and then an abysmal Madrid (who’d just lost at home, to relegation candidates Valencia).

The facts on Arteta: his Five years of trophyless failure, his abysmal recruitment record, his laughable excuses, his huge transfer spend and this absolute abomination of a PL season; aren’t going to disappear because of 90 minutes, in a competition Arsenal have never won, and won’t win this season. There’s 21 years of hard evidence but as ever, we are told to ignore the plethora of longstanding evidence, in exchange for 90 minutes of one match, that is only half-done. Ok. 🤔

Now for the praise and validation Arsenal fans so cravenly seek (when you don’t have major trophies, insecurity and validation become essential). In the spirit of being honest, you have to credit Arteta for that result last night. Even I do! 😂 It isn’t a disinterested Citeh after all, it’s still the reigning European champions and serial winners. Arsenal kept a clean sheet, scored an actual goal from open play (Spanish Kevin Nolan to boot!), and Rice – who’s always been a quality player – was outstanding. Superb result for Arsenal. A more inquisitive mind than mine would naturally ask why Arteta hasn’t put Rice on free kick duty previously, as he clearly has superior technique to that footballer in his 30s, Thomas Partey. Too pithy though.

Eminem-style now, Snap back to reality: Arsenal fans surely, surely have learned their lesson about braggadocio after 21 consecutive Netflix seasons of the same slapstick? Because as if Madrid needed any more motivation to liquidate Arsenal next week, loudmouth fans of a club with zero European pedigree, will do it! This tie is absolutely not finished. If Real score in the opening 15 minutes of the return leg, Arsenal are toast. Arsenal will do well to keep 11 players on the pitch, given the standard haranguing Perez subject UEFA to (only time ever the AFC Deep State PGMOL Massive might have a point, the UEFA home reffing of Madrid has been scandalous for years). A Madrid team with that attacking front 4, in the Bernabeu, where every single marginal decision will go Madrid’s way…remember that Barca “Remontada” against Emery’s PSG a few seasons back? Madrid have come back from similar scenarios, against better teams than Arsenal.

It is a great result, congratulations. Certainly a greater achievement than “that night in Eindhoven”! There is no such thing as a Deep State “Celebration Police”, no more than there is “Christmas Cancelled Celebration Police” 🙄. If you are secure in your achievement, celebrate away! Literally nobody is preventing you. Not DEI, not the Deep State.
Stewie Griffin (So you CAN win matches with “injuries” is what you’re saying? 🤔)

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Maybe it wasn’t Pep
After reading replies to my “robots” mail I started thinking , did it really begin with pep?

I think I’m actually probably wrong. Cast ye minds back to the medieval age of 1993 it’s the run up to the 94 world cup and Italian manager arrigo sachi has been steadfastly refusing to play probably the best player in the world at the time – Roberto Baggio.

Why?

Baggio is a maverick and isn’t quite as disciplined as sachi would like. This bled over into the world cup as well with sachi repeatedly using him as a late sub until baggio started smashing them in and saving what would have been a disastrous group phase for Italy. Baggio was then undroppable – well, at least until THAT penalty then he was unlockable.

Sachi did not like players improvising and expected players to stick to his game plan, which to be fair was usually pretty successful. Perhaps this is where the slow death of the maverick began.

Round about the same time Johan Cruyff was wowing Europe with his approach of – everyone is a maverick and nobody really has fixed positions. Pep always lists Cruyff as a major influence, so it’s odd that he would favour a more mechanical system than the cruyff one which enabled anyone to move anywhere as long as they were also moving the ball.

Personally speaking the greatest football I’ve seen played is probably early 00s Brasil. It was fun, usually goal filled and players looked like they were free.

There’s a quote from the Detroit pistons coach in basketball in regard to the wild Dennis Rodman in the 90s when people were trying to get him to play a bit more methodically. The coach said ” you don’t put a saddle on a Mustang”

I feel like that’s what most coaches are doing now, putting saddles on everyone. Saddles, blinkers and being constantly whipped by the micromanaging.
Lee