A SHINY ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Considering he’s spent the best part of a decade carrying Tottenham Hotspur and, more recently, Bayern Munich, it’s small wonder Harry Kane’s back finally gave out in the closing stages of the German side’s Big Cup semi-final defeat at the hands of Real Madrid. With just minutes of the 90 remaining and the Spanish champions a goal behind on aggregate, even Carlo Ancelotti’s Wembley arch of an eyebrow must have scaled unprecedented heights as the England captain’s number went up and Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting lumbered on in his place, becoming one of two under-achieving former Stoke City strikers on the pitch in a thrilling semi-final between two of the continent’s elite. The substitute would also become one of two Erics to finish on the losing side, as it was his fellow Britannia Stadium alumnus, Joselu, who became the unlikely headline thief as Madrid came from behind to stage a late smash-and-grab because … well, of course they bloody well did.
They have been there before in Big Cup, against Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea, even if on this occasion things were different because Madrid were demonstrably the better side here and didn’t pull their usual stunt of playing like The Dog & Duck XI before remembering to flick a switch in the game’s final knockings. But having removed Kane from the action when all available evidence suggested a Madrid equaliser was on the cards and the game could go to extra time, Thomas Tuchel was forced to defend his change in personnel at the post-match presser. “He couldn’t keep going,” blootered the Bayern boss. “He played with back pain and he couldn’t keep going, his back froze up. We started with a front four and all four had to go out with [knack] or cramp. The front four all said they had to go.”
While the veracity of Tuchel’s word that his star striker had back-knack has been been greeted with scepticism in some quarters, Football Daily’s prepared to take the German’s word for it, if only because the notion of hooking a prolific goalscorer, excellent hold-up merchant and winner of cheap fouls in the face of an inevitable late onslaught for any other reason would be little short of stone-hatchet mad. And besides, apart from Real Madrid’s T-1000-esque inability to give up anything resembling a lost cause, it may well have been the earlier replacement of Leroy Sané with Kim Min-jae that prompted Bayern to lose their shape and subsequently the tie.
So what now for Kane, who famously joined Bayern to shake off his reputation as a Jonah when it comes to teams winning silverware, only to do so as the club embarked on what would be their first trophy-less season in a dozen years. While the emptiness of his Big Box o’Medals could – until this point – be attributed to his insistence on playing both finals Spurs reached during his stay there on one leg, you’d have got long odds at the start of this season on him scoring north of 40 goals with Bayern and somehow contriving to win sod all. As luck would have it, his next realistic opportunity to take the bare look off his trophy cabinet will also come in the country where he has spent the past nine months, unless Gareth Southgate decides the England captain really is the victim of some sort of hoodoo and decides to leave him out of his squad.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Simon Burnton from 8pm BST for hot Big Vase minute-by-minute coverage of Bayer Leverkusen 1-1 Roma (agg: 3-1) in the semi-finals, while Will Unwin will be on deck at the same time for updates from Olympiakos 1-2 Aston Villa (agg: 5-4) in their Tin Pot semi.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“They were just dropping like flies in the second half and the referee was allowing it to happen and didn’t add any extra time on. He was awful. It was really, really poor officiating from him, and not for the first time. You have to congratulate the opponents though, they’re at Wembley. Very luckily, but they’re there” – Darren Ferguson tries – and fails – to be magnanimous after Peterborough’s narrow defeat to Oxford in the League One playoff semis.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Re: Jim Ratcliffe cracking down on home working (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition). I assume it will be the Manchester United players and manager who are first brought back in to the office, rather than calling it in” – Antony Train.
It’s always a pain when you’re based somewhere other than where someone thinks you should be” – Claire Kittrish.
When we were coming to the end of the Messi v Ronaldo rivalry and wondering what a post-Messi and Ronaldo future would look like, I was assuming it would rather depressingly be Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappé racking up ridiculous numbers while nation states owned top-level football. Did anyone have money on it being that bloke who couldn’t score for Stoke scoring twice for Real Madrid to ensure that Eric Dier didn’t get to a second Big Cup final?” – Noble Francis.
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Claire Kittrish.
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