The Fiver | Laughs all round … just like TMS, this!

When things go slightly wrong in football, it’s best to go back to basics. Keep it simple. Get rid. Hit the channels. Play the percentages. So after the Fizzy Caffeine Pop Cup came under fire earlier this season for botching the first-round tombola – drawing Charlton twice – and with Pep Guardiola’s criticism of the quality of the cup’s balls ringing in Fizzy Caffeine Pop Cup’s ears, it seemed a given that the quarter-final draw would pass without note. Get Martin Keown and Steve Claridge in, ask them a couple of questions about yesteryear and be done with it.
Instead former England scrum-half Matt Dawson and safe-pair-of-hands Phil Tufnell were drafted in, worryingly without their Question of Sport anchor Sue Barker, who according to a quick Google search is too busy lobbying Tewkesbury Council to raise the roof of her Cotswold home – because her husband, Lance, repeatedly bangs his head on the low ceilings – to bother with any numbered-ball plucking. Instead, the ‘creatives’ at the Thai-owned Fizzy Caffeine Pop decided that someone with a tenuous connection to association football was required and so ITV commentator Sam Matterface stepped into the breach: to host the draw, mediate the banter and intervene in case Dawson did the ‘Hakarena’ again.
Things started on the front foot. Dawson declared that the rehearsal had gone “extremely well” with Tuffers drawing West Brom. Oh Tuffers! They’re not even in the draw! You silly thing! What a maverick. Laughs all round. Just like TMS, this! But things took a turn for the worse when the scheduled 4pm draw was knocked back like a can of Fizzy Caffeine Pop to 5pm “following a minor technical glitch” at Social Media Disgrace Twitter. 5pm came and went without an update. After an intervention by “Twitter engineers”, 105 minutes after the scheduled time, a pre-recorded video – including the EFL’s heartfelt “condolences to the Thai people” on the day of King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s funeral – was released, received by expectant supporters with all the enthusiasm of Roy Keane in a rugby league scrum.
With Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal all managing to avoid each other – facing Bristol City, Leicester City, Bournemouth and West Ham respectively – conspiracy theories on the pre-recorded draw gathered pace, with Tufnell releasing a statement on Friday “totally refuting ludicrous allegations that I would be involved in anything not above board” and that “Matt and I pulled out in front of various representatives who from my understanding were official adjudicators!”
Tuffers also poured Fizzy Caffeine Pop over claims that “the delay was likely due to my lateness”, insisting that “I actually pride myself on my timekeeping” and signing off with the proverbial hospital pass of “if you have any further issues please take it up with the organisers of this event and not me!” There’s no such thing as bad publicity, said somebody, somewhere, a while ago. And that might be true: despite the latest debacle, even if it’s for the wrong reasons, nobody will be forgetting Fizzy Caffeine Pop in a hurry, a brand that has already taken its place in the pantheon of English football sponsorship alongside Rumbelows, Worthington and milk. They’ve carved out a niche too. Once these pesky quarter-final ties are wrapped up, The Fiver can settle in with a Tin of something fizzy for the main event: the semi-final tombola!
Follow minute-by-minute coverage of Nasty Leeds 2-1 Sheffield United in the Endsleigh League with Niall McVeigh at 7.45pm.
“Thanks President [Akufo-Addo], this is a call to work hard with my team to make the BBJ airline dream a reality soonest and create jobs” – Asamoah Gyan gets the green light to launch a new airline in Ghana called BabyJet – his nickname of course – which is quite some feat considering he’s still plugging away up front for Turkish side Kayserispor.
This way lies Football Weekly Extra.
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“That’s right baby, the comeback is on. At 47 years of age I’ve got my first game of football in quite a while. Rolling subs, five a side tomorrow, I fail to see what could go wrong. I’ve been training all week in as much as I’ve walked to work and back most days and only succumbed to doing an entire ‘to share’ bag of cheese and onion Ringos, secretively at my desk once. The support strappings have yellowed with age, as more disturbingly has the jockstrap, but they all still fit. It’s very exciting. Yes, if Roy can manage Crystal Palace I’m certain I can reclaim my role as midfield dynamo once heralded by the Clitheroe Advertiser as ‘quite good for a fat lad’. Wish me luck” – Marten Allen.
“It wasn’t Jason Holt who scored the dramatic late equaliser against the Pope’s Newc O’Rangers, it was their former “star” Chris Burke who put Panto Pedro out of his misery (Jason Holt was the scorer of the first goal though). Typical London-centric reporting, people don’t care about Scottish football, etc” – Sean Atkins.
“The early Fiver as ‘pastiche’ [Fiver passim]? Is that fancy Big Paper-speak for the TV and Radio listings? Ahhh, misty watercolour memories of the way we were” – Mike Wilner.
“I wait with lukewarm anticipation for the The Fiver’s daily email (usually to see if a letter I sent actually is named Prizeless Letter o’ the Day). I learned, through the Big Paper website, that the Fizzy Caffeine Pop Cup draw on social media disgrace Twitter was delayed “due to technical difficulties.” Would this also be a convenient reason I never received yesterday’s email?” – JJ Zucal.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Marten Allen.
Antonio Conte exploded into a fit of funk in his press conference when asked about reports linking Carlo Ancelotti with his Chelsea job. “Why put another person in this bull$hit? If you want to hit me, hit me,” he bawled.
Fifa has decided to recognise the winners of the Intercontinental Cup between 1960 and 2004 as the official club world champions meaning Manchester United can finally lay claim to the 1999 crown, and another priceless trophy in José’s cabinet.
Harry Kane will miss Tottenham’s date with Manchester United at Old Trafford with minor hamstring-twang, while Philippe Coutinho is unlikely to be available for Liverpool’s match against Huddersfield due to minor abductor-knack.
Sam Allardyce went to Qatar and flapped his gums around on the Keys and Grays show. “We [British managers] are almost deemed second class because it’s your own country today. It’s a real shame on the fact that we are highly educated, highly talented coaches with nowhere to go. We are the Premier League, which is a foreign league in England now.” Meanwhile, in Qatar.
The FA have paid Eni Aluko the £40,000 it withheld after a dispute over a tweet she sent in August about the former England manager Mark Sampson.
And remember this when real football is laughed at by young people who wear 3D glasses and live in hover-housing: Fifa has announced a partnership with video games manufacturer EA Sports that aims to crown the inaugural winner of the eWorld Cup in August 2018.
Is José Mourinho’s negativity a product of his failure to make it as a layer? Jonathan Wilson has a theory …
TEN THINGS!
Gregg Bakowski pays tribute to PSG’s Thiago Motta – 35 years young and still in his prime, kind of – by comparing him to a rug and a beer mat.

The latest of Guardian USA! USA!! USA!!!’s series of articles for fans wishing to improve their knowledge of the sports history and storylines (hopefully in a way that doesn’t patronise you to within an inch of your life) is on Everton, and why they think they deserve better.
Yesterday Pope’s Newc O’Rangers’ Pedro Caixinha became Plain Old Pedro Caixinha. Ewan Murray sticks the boot in.
Read David Hytner’s take on the shambles that was Arsenal’s AGM.
Tottenham are now Manchester City’s biggest threat and can prove it at Manchester United. Paul Wilson has donned his tin hat and welcomes your comments below the line.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!

SOURCE : GUARDIAN SPORTS
posted by CAMPUS94