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Taunting rival fans with Demba Ba’s Great Ballad of Cognitive Dissonance

<span>Photograph: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters</span>
Photograph: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters

SIXTY-FIVE YEARS OF HURT

Chelsea’s relationship with Big Cup has often been fraught. They declined to take part in the very first competition, as English champions in 1955, cravenly succumbing to the narrow-minded worldview of Alan Hardaker, the Football League suit whose hardline attitude to foreigners would make current government policy sound comparatively reasonable and coherent. Then there was the final of 2008, when their captain, leader and legend, POJT, slipped on his big glory-hunting badonkadonk, a memory now so deeply suppressed that fans can happily taunt rival supporters with Demba Ba’s Great Ballad of Cognitive Dissonance without any subsequent need for years and years and years of primal-scream therapy.

Related: Frank Lampard warns Chelsea will 'have to suffer' against Bayern Munich

It’s not all been bad, of course. Four years on, they won the thing by beating Bayern Munich on their own patch, Badonkadonk Guy finally getting to celebrate in his little trousers. However since then it’s been thin gruel. They made it as far as the semi-finals in 2014, but their subsequent record in the knockout stage is dismal: three two-legged ties, three draws, three losses, out at the round-of-16 stage each time. Given two of those knockouts were administered by PSG, we should probably reconsider our recent decision to rename this stage, formerly known as the Round of Arsenal, as the Round of PSG. But let’s see how the next couple of weeks pan out, Neymar and pals are midway through their latest dirty protest after all.

Chelsea will set about trying to break their sorry recent run this evening, when they welcome 2012 victims Bayern Munich to Stamford Bridge. Happy memories will of course fuel the hosts, though a record of one win in six Big Cup home matches may give them pause. They’ll also be wary of the hot streak the German champions are currently on: they’ve scored 23 goals in their last seven matches since the Bundesliga’s winter break, and won every game in the group stage, including that seven-goal thrashing of Tottenham. Also: Robert Lewandowski > Michy Batshuayi. All of which means Bayern are favourites to progress, and that Chelsea’s sorry sequence is likely to continue. But hey, few expected the Blues to prevail in 2012, and look what happened. Somewhere in the Midlands, Badonkadonk Guy is laying out his old shirt, shorts, socks and shinpads, just in case the opportunity arises for another vicarious twerk.

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE

Join Simon Burnton for hot Big Cup action with the Derby della Maradona (Napoli 1-1 Barcelona) from 8pm while Scott Murray is in the hot seat for Chelsea 1-2 Bayern Munich at the same time.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Di María hates Manchester United. He has no good memory of the time he spent there. In fact, when something related to Manchester United appears on television, it changes soon” – Marcin Bulka, PSG goaltender, reveals his teammate strangely isn’t missing the visits to Cambridge United.

Angel Di Maria is lumped into the air during an FA Cup match against Cambridge United. Good times!
Good times! Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

FIVER LETTERS

“Johnny Connelly [Monday’s Fiver] is quite correct about the danger Newcastle are in this season. Bernard Cribbins’ previous efforts were entitled “Striker!”, “Sweeper!” and “Defender!” Add “Midfielder!” to his list of tomes and that would also serve as a potential transfer list to plug the holes in the current Newcastle squad” – Mike Rice.

“Peter Thew thinks that VAR officials should have a time limit for their decisions? Hmmm. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from The Fiver, it’s that rushing to meet a deadline rarely leads to quality output” – Matt Dony.

“Thirty years. Thirty sodding years. And even this close to it coming to an end, they insist on putting us through the wringer against West Ham. So once it’s over for another season, I need to know where I can sign up to STOP FOOTBALL. And my cardiologist wants to know too” – Simon Mazier.

The video of the Zanzibarian coach was wildly entertaining [Fiver passim]. The drop of the trackie bottoms, the hip wiggle, the pelvic [snip, Fiver ed] – and then the big reveal: the club wears Arsenal’s kit. Yup, it all made me giggle” – Mike Wilner.

Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Simon Mazier.

RECOMMENDED LISTENING

One more call-out for this week’s Football Weekly. Tickets are also on sale for the next live show in London.

RECOMMENDED LOOKING

David Squires is back from his holiday and he’s turned in this belting cartoon in which You are the VAR! You can buy it here.

NEWS, BITS AND BOBS

Frank Lampard’s Chelsea manager Frank Lampard has told his players they will have to be masochists to get through their two-legged Big Cup tie with Bayern Munich. “[They] are an incredible side,” he howled. “If we have to suffer, we have to suffer. That’s our job over the next two games.”

Newport have apologised to Bradford over their fans’ taunts mocking the 1985 Valley Parade fire tragedy during Saturday’s League Two game. “These actions have no place in society, let alone in our football club,” read a club statement. “The club acted swiftly working with stakeholders and authorities to identify those involved.”

Manchester United’s net debt is almost as eye-popping as Weird Uncle Fiver’s after rising £73.6m to £391.3m in three months. “While we still have much to do, we are progressing with confidence in the right direction,” blathered In-The-Red Ed Woodward.

Barney Ronay pipped The Fiver to the football journalist of the year gong at the SJA awards, with Marina Hyde scooping both the sports writer and sports columnist of the year prize.

Jürgen Klopp is still agog at his Liverpool players’ writing ability after they notched their 18th league win in a row in their 3-2 smackdown of West Ham. “A couple of years ago I said we wanted to write our own stories and create our own history and obviously the boys took what I said really seriously,” yelped Jürgen.

And in a Crystal Palace legends special: Joe Ledley has taken his majestic beard for a late-career wind-down in the flamin’ A-League with Newcastle Jets, while Jordon Mutch, now 28 [no, really!], has joined Norwegian top-flight club Aaelsund on a deal until the end of the year.

STILL WANT MORE?

USA! USA!! USA!!! World Cup winner Rose Lavelle offers irate Fiver readers a life lesson.

Rose Lavelle, goes past England’s Keira Walsh during the Women’s World Cup semi-final last summer.
Rose Lavelle, goes past England’s Keira Walsh during the Women’s World Cup semi-final last summer. Photograph: Laurent Cipriani/AP

All this stomping around about VAR is all well and good, toots Jonathan Liew, but, say, could we get on top of the whole racism thing first please?

Crewe manager David Artell chats to Ben Fisher about his education, footballing and otherwise: “I did a helluva lot on crime-scene analysis: how do you recover a footprint in the snow?”

There’s shades of 2009 and 2016 all over again via the headline act of today’s Rumour Mill.

Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!

BRODDERS HAS LOST IT AGAIN