Diamond Geezers, Episode 54: The Glitz and Glamour of Europe
We’re back on our favourite motorway, the M6, Chuggering our way towards Turf Moor where we’ll be greeted by Stan Ternent’s Burnley. There was a time when a cup fixture against the Clarets was the biggest game we’d ever had; that sure feels like a long time ago, doesn’t it? The truth is, though, that they’ll still be stiff opposition, especially at their place. Ian Moore and Alex Notman are talented forwards that could give anyone a run for their money, and their five-man defence will be tough to break down. Graham Stuart plays in the heart of midfield and has a run instruction that takes him all the way into the forward positions when Burnley attack. I show the diagram to Marcel Mahouvé on my tactical magnetic whiteboard as we pull into the car park, and he chuckles menacingly.
We’ve been forced to leave reigning POTY Meysam Javan at home for this one after he seriously disappointed me by turning up late and unfit for training during the week, so as a result, the air and grace of Sir Les will accompany Benjani up front, while otherwise, we remain the same. Baggio continues as the spearhead of my new diamond midfield, which I’m only just realising is a formation we’re pretty much named after and probably should have been using this whole time for that reason alone. It’s a good thing I don’t work in marketing.
It’s a cagey start from both sides and it takes ten minutes for any action to take place, Bubb shooting wide after being played in by Baggio. We are generally on the ball more than them, and a few minutes later Burnley keeper Kevin Miller is forced into a smart double-save, first from Bubb and then Mahouvé on the follow up. We’re on top as Duff finds Sir Les on the corner of the box, who looks up and pops a cross directly onto the head of Benjani, and he heads past Miller to give us the lead! It’s a great start that I really needed to calm my nerves, but thereafter, Burnley find their feet in the game and we’re grateful to Pinheiro for making ‘brilliant’ saves from Micah Hyde and Alex Notman as the half ticks on. I’m sweating on our advantage as Burnley make us work to keep it, and just as I think we’re going to hold out until half time, disaster strikes — centre-half Anwar Uddin is allowed to maraud forward unchallenged and lifts a ball over Couto’s head, Notman races onto it, and beats Pinheiro to tie the scores at the break.
It hasn’t been a great half for Couto, who’s looked rather out of sorts. He finishes on a six after only completing three passes, winning neither of his headers, and not even attempting a single tackle. It could be because Burnley aren’t doing much up front, but they have scored, so I think I’m entitled to expect a little more from my new signing. I swap him with Lucic to give them different markers and start the second half, my narrowed eyes following the Portuguese everywhere he goes.
Five minutes into the second period, Roberto Baggio is standing over a free kick. I sigh lovingly as the Divine Ponytail waves his wand of a right foot and puts the dead ball directly onto the forehead of Sir Les, who thumps home to restore our lead. My two legendary forwards combining gives me a wonderful tingling feeling that Burnley just won’t let me enjoy, thereafter hitting the target several times before Andy Impey crosses from the left and Ian Moore rises above Teddy Lucic to head the hosts back into the game. It’s 2–2, and it hasn’t been a vintage performance from either of my centre-halves, though Couto is definitely the main culprit — and with Victory also sitting on a 6, I hook them both and throw on Costacurta and Kalvenes in their place, just as Alex Notman forces Pinheiro into another superb stop. We’re wobbling a bit here, and we are in desperate need of some inspiration — and just as we seem to be pushing through the Burnley boundary, Martin Andersson goes down injured and I’m forced to introduce Alex Farnerud into my midfield.
Things are looking bleak as we tick into the 80th minute. Both teams are trading blows, we look the more likely, but this is the kind of game you lose with a last minute slap around the face, and I’m pretty much praying that we can hold out for a draw. Notman feeds substitute Gez Murphy 25 yards out, and he hits a swerving banana shot that Pinheiro saves in spectacular style! My blood pressure reaches 180/120 as Hyde launches in the corner, but our mighty mammoth gathers easily — thank goodness. He rolls out to Lucic, who finds Duff. My right back plays a tidy triangle with Teddy and Baggio before skating down the right touchline. He looks up. He sees Sir Les in the box. Duff lifts the ball into the area, Sir Les flicks on to Benjani, he no-look passes through to the onrushing Roberto Baggio to stretch, control, steady and drive! GOAL! ROBERTO BAGGIO! An unbelievable move and finish from the Divine Ponytail, and it’s 3–2!
My players are fired up to the point where an Alex Notman run is thwarted by a slide tackle from Benjani, if you can even believe that, and as Burnley probe and press for their third equaliser of the day, Kalvenes robs McGregor in the last minute, finds Sir Les, he lays the ball off for his strike partner — and Benjani continues to surprise me by not shooting, but instead cutting the ball back for Alexander Farnerud to arrive late in the box and volley past Miller to complete the scoring. What a tense, exciting, brilliant game. I wish I was a neutral watching that. Instead, they’re going to have to vacuum me up from my technical area, for I am dust.
Martin Andersson is out for a month with an ankle ligament injury, which is a blow, but Alex Farnerud’s two goals from the bench in his first two games means he’ll probably step into the breach. At the same time, Fabio Gatti and Byron Bubb are called up to Italy and England U21s respectively, and Rhys Weston is included in the full Wales squad for their match against Northern Ireland. Of course, this is great news for them, but it looks like my midfield is going to be quite light for the Coventry game on 6th September.
What also won’t help is the fact that we now, for some reason, have two games in three days — first at home against Portsmouth, and then away at Molineux for our clash with Wolves. Why we’re playing Saturday–Monday so close to the start of the season, when there’s no pressure on our schedule, I’ll never know. I assume it’s something to do with our presence in the UEFA Cup, and the fact that we don’t seem to have been entered into the League Cup this season (they’re into the second round already and I’ve heard nothing about it), but regardless of the actual reasons, I’m just going to blame the cretinous jobsworths at the FA.
I’m going to need two completely different teams for these games, and a glance at the fledgling table tells me that Pompey have started the season far more strongly than Wolves, so they’ll get to line up against my stronger team. It’s basically the same side that played Burnley, apart from the reintroduction of Javan for Benjani. It’s a bit harsh on the Zimbabwean after his fantastic start to the season, but then again, he’s going to play the full 90 against Wolves, so it’s not a punishment. We’ve just got to keep the tinker train on the rails.
The first half is fairly one-sided — we hit ten shots on target in total, with Portsmouth’s former hairdresser turned goalkeeper Toni keeping most of them at bay, while Matt Murray goes straight up the other end and scores the opening goal for Pompey with their only shot on target in the opening 45. It’s frustrating, but we’ve been here plenty of times before, and my players keep pressing — and eventually Toni can’t prevent Bubb and then Duff from following in parries and tapping home before the half time whistle goes. We go into the break 2–1 up, but my porous defence continues to leak goals and I feel vulnerable every time Portsmouth come forward.
We’ve become noticeably flaky at the back since I switched to the midfield diamond, and the second half is a similar story. Although Mike Duff seems determined to win the game single-handedly, scoring his second of the day by converting a Javan cross, Murray is causing havoc in the middle — with Marcel unusually unable to stop him from winning headers and breaking into the box — and it’s he who picks up his and Portsmouth’s second goal to haul them back into the game at 3–2. He also has the ball in the net again shortly after, and I’m about to flip a nearby table I’ve had delivered to my technical area when I notice that the goal has been disallowed for offside; we take the free-kick quickly, and go straight up the other end to score our fourth of the day! This time, it’s Byron Bubb who gets on the end of substitute Peter Møller’s cross from the right, and finally, mercifully, that’s the end of the scoring. It’s been another rollercoaster of an afternoon: three braces, six goals, pulse-quickening action, and a pint of wine in the dugout for me.
Since we changed formation, we’ve played and won four games by the following scorelines: 4–1, 4–1, 4–2 and 4–2. The Board are delighted, but I’m not — conceding at least one goal every game is not a trend I enjoy. Obviously, scoring four goals per game is great, but you all know as well as I do that if you concede in every match, eventually you’ll fail to score and lose, and after that, the wheels can come off very quickly if you’re not careful. The Diamond is a very attacking formation and other teams are simply waltzing through my two-man midfield even despite the murderous presence of Marcel Mahouvé, so I might have to consider dropping back into my trusty 4–1–3–2 for games against stronger opponents.
However, Wolves won’t be that team. Taking Baggio off in our last game means he’s at 100% fitness as we clamber aboard Chugger for the trip to Molineux, so he can continue in the 10 role. However, Pinheiro is the only other player who survives the cut, as I make nine changes to allow my much fitter fringe players the chance to impress me, including full debuts for Hélder Rosário and Ben Dixon in my back four. Rosário has a huge chance to establish himself as part of my first-choice centre-back pairing, while Dixon has very big shoes to fill — especially after Duff’s performance against Portsmouth.
Wolves have played two, drawn two, scored none and conceded none so far in Division One, and I hear their fans have been bringing paint to the stadium and slathering the seats in front of them so they can watch that dry instead. DMC Sean Davis is their standout player, while Joleon Lescott can’t get near the first team and is unhappy about his contract, so I bid £525k for him on the eve of our encounter to see if I can sneak him onto Chugger with us for the ride home. In truth, it’s an incredibly uninspiring Wolves side that will greet us; both their playing staff and their results so far don’t intimidate me or my backup soldiers one iota. I expect big things here.
My steady old hands, Mad Dog and Møller, are straight into the action for us, with McKinlay robbing Davis and feeding the Great Dane, who hits a thunderous shot that Michael Oakes is forced to tip over the bar — Baggio whips the corner in, but the familiar goatee of Sean Dyche heads the ball to safety.
It’s a good start. We win another free kick deep inside our own half, and Rosário steps up to clear. Instead, however, he shanks the dead ball straight to Wolves forward Cédric Roussel who can’t believe his luck, rounds Pinheiro, and squares for strike partner Justin Jackson to tap into an empty net and give Wolves the lead. I call Roar over to assist me with a quadruple facepalm, and it’s not long before I’m asking my substitutes to get involved too, as Costacurta gets booked for taking Jackson out, the free kick ends up with Michael Branch, he hits a shot from the edge of the area that Pinheiro parries straight to Sean Davis, and the young Englishman stabs home the rebound to make it 2–0 to Wolves after just 15 minutes. For the first time in a while, we are absolutely all over the place, and being slapped around by a team that are usually so dull that their fans bring bedsheets with them on match day.
I’m then forced to watch almost half an hour of virtually no action as my much-changed side are unable to change the game, save for Benjani and Møller hitting speculative efforts — but eventually, finally, thank the sweet lord baby Jesus, Jamie Davies finds Dixon on the right, and my sparkly new full-back swings a cross at the far post where Benjani is waiting, and he nods past Oakes to reduce our deficit.
The players come in at half time 2–1 down and struggling to make an impression on the game. Brandon, Baggio and Davies are all on 6s, and I’m concerned that the diamond is the main thing letting us down — for yet another game, we’re being overrun in the middle. I make a bold move, replacing Baggio with Gatti and dropping back to my trusty 4–1–3–2 for the second half. I really hope I don’t live to regret that.
Two minutes into the half, Hélder Rosário is booked for pulling the shirt of Michael Branch. Two minutes later, we get a corner, which Ben Dixon swings in — and Rosário “jumps unfairly” with Michael Oakes trying to win the ball. The referee, rather than simply give a free kick, instead sees fit to show Rosário his second yellow card, and he’s sent off — so with 49 minutes gone, we are 2–1 down, and now a man down. It’s calamitous by the referee, moronic from Rosário, and after removing Baggio, I’m now stuck with very few options but to remove the invisible Chris Brandon and replace him with Teddy Lucic so that we can at least retain a back four. Thereafter, my players fight valiantly, but there’s nothing they can do — Wolves are strong, physical, tactically astute, and manage the game brilliantly; we can’t touch them. Gatti and Lucic both get booked trying to take the game to Wolves, and just to add ketchup to this shit sandwich, Michael Branch escapes Mad Dog in the 87th minute and clatters a shot past Pinheiro from the edge of the box; my Portuguese stopper, up until that point, had put in a hero’s performance to keep Wolves at bay. However, this game was lost in the 49th minute, and we are forced to accept a 3–1 defeat on a torrid afternoon.
They say you shouldn’t play the blame game, but let’s give it a crack. Firstly, I’m at fault for picking a completely changed side, although I was convinced pre-game that we’d have enough in there to beat Wolves. We really should have done. Secondly, the Football Association, for forcing us to play two games in three days for no reason other than their obvious ongoing vendetta against me. And thirdly, Hélder Rosário, who has just made Simon Colosimo look like the signing of the century. He gifted Wolves their first goal under no pressure at all, then contrived to get himself sent off for two yellow cards in three minutes. Just a staggeringly appalling day for my new centre-back. Roll on November.
There’s a nice puff-piece in the papers following our mauling by Wolves — Hugo Pinheiro is now our longest-serving player, with 80 appearances. Well done, big man. We’re going to need you this season, it would appear.
After Wednesday training, the players are excitedly huddling around a wall-mounted LCD TV in our Michelin-starred canteen. Curious, I join them to see what all the fuss is about — I assume they’re about to watch some drossy reality TV. However, I couldn’t be more wrong: it’s the draw for the first round of the UEFA Cup! Popcorn and drumrolls at the ready…
Yes, that’s right. Our first ever adventure in European continental footballing competition is a glamorous trip to… Dundalk. Poor Jamie Davies looks forlornly at his Spanish guidebook, and quietly slips it into a bin.
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