Bigger Cup’s Bigger Draw serves up a buffet of fantasy football thrills | Champions League

UP THE BRACKET

A Bigger Cup needs a Bigger Draw. Last year Uefa set out the tournament brackets from the quarter-final onwards, showing Real Madrid which particular jails they might need to escape to win the competition for the 15th time. This year Uefa have gone one better by doing the draw for the rest of the tournament at the last-16 stage. It’s a punch up the bracket for Manchester City, who can now empathise with every failed Bullseye contestant. Look what they could have won: Atlético Madrid in the last 16, then Arsenal or PSV Eindhoven in the quarter-finals, then maybe Liverpool in the semis.

Despite the frankly weird absence of City, who if you’re into the whole coefficient thing have been Europe’s second-best team over the last five years, the draw appears custom-designed to cause an increased flow of saliva in the mouths of football fans. Let’s start with the matches that will definitely happen. Plum last-16 ties include a Madrid derby, PSG v Liverpool, Bayern Munich v Bayer Leverkusen – who may be trailing in the title race but have never lost to Bayern under Xabi Alonso – and Club Brugge v Aston Villa. Yep, one of those clubs will play in the quarter-finals of Bigger Cup for the first time since either 1978 (Brugge) or 1983 (Villa). No matter how despicably unequal football becomes, an underdog story always finds a way to emerge. It’s the romance of Bigger Cup (yes, yes, we know Brugge reached the last eight in 1992-93 but they didn’t play in the quarter-finals. You’re ruining the moment with this pedantry)!

Then there are the fantasy match-ups, the ones that could happen – or, in the case of Feyenoord v Internazionale, might have happened had Milan not been such a shower the other night. Like those World Cup wallcharts that were among Football Daily’s best friends in childhood, the Bigger Cup bracket is an all-you-can-eat buffet for the imagination. Potential ties include Arsenal v Real Madrid in the quarter-finals; the winner of that tie facing Liverpool in the semis; Bayern or Leverkusen v Dortmund in the other semi-final. And, best of all, in the final, Club Brugge v Lille Real Madrid v Barcelona. They’ve never met in the final of a European competition. Chances are they won’t this season, but right now – all thanks to Bigger Draw – it’s a live possibility.

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE

Join John Brewin for live Women’s Nations League coverage of Portugal 2-3 England (7.45pm GMT) and Dominic Booth for Premier League action from Leicester 0-0 Brentford (8pm GMT).

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Loco, loco. It was a mad derby, a crazy match. We were ahead, we were behind and then we managed to get a draw at the end of a pulsating game. To say that was my first derby wearing this shirt is fantastic. I really enjoyed it.” – Carlos Alcaraz (not that one) gets his chat on with Andy Hunter about the Merseyside derby and why he hopes to settle down at Everton.

Going loco: Carlos Alcaraz. Photograph: Andrew Kearns/CameraSport/Getty Images

“Beverley James [Thursday’s letters] seems to have confused Football Daily with someone able to get something satisfactory and worthwhile out of a keyboard” – Simon Mazier.

skip past newsletter promotion

Sign up to Football Daily

Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

after newsletter promotion

“May I be the first of 1,057 pedants to point out the Union Jack defaced in yesterday’s Memory Lane [full email edition] was being displayed upside down. Never mind, the Bollocks was spelt correctly” – John Lydon Lawton.

“Chapeau Football Daily for coming up with the most brilliant new description for a team suffering a beating [News, bits and bobs in full email edition]. I’m now looking back on my schoolboy, amateur and five-a-side days, reminiscing about some of the worst splatterings my various pitiful outfits endured” – Martin Fisher.

Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Rollover. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.

_{Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.}