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You can follow the fun from around Europe, here, with Scott Murray:
So here’s where I actually planned to start: Rob Smyth’s banging piece about the final night of qualifying for USA ’94.
Welcome to Manchester!
I was about to start elsewhere, but here’s some news from outside the ground, courtesy of Press Association:
An area outside the Etihad Stadium was evacuated after a merchandise stand caught fire ahead of Manchester City’s Champions League game against Club Brugge. Supporters had gathered outside the main reception for a presentation of City’s January signings. The event was suspended as flames took hold of the stand and stewards moved fans away before fire services arrived on the scene. It is unknown at this stage whether the incident will affect the scheduled kick-off time of 8pm.”
Preamble
When Europe’s Big Clubs, desperate to manufacture artificial excitement for the sake of even more folding green, put heads together together and somehow came up with “the Swiss model”, it seems fair to speculate they had in mind neither a Pop Swatch nor an ailing Manchester City needing a win on the final match-day to avoid early elimination. And yet here we are so here we are, reminded once more that, when good people do good things with good intentions, good outcomes are inevitable. Thanks, lads! Football is the winner!
It’s been a miserable half-season or so for City, the ferocity of their collapse barely believable and entirely unprecedented. But they’ve improved a little in recent weeks, a more transitional style along with the acquisition of Omar Marmoush and return to form of Phil Foden helping rejuvenate a tired side.
Marmoush, though, is ineligible tonight, and Club Brugge are no mugs. They sit 20th in the table, three points above City, having beaten Villa and Sporting, drawn with Juve, and competing well against Milan even after going down to 10. That match, in October, was the last time they were beaten, a period in which City have suffered 10 losses – two of them to Tottenham!
And Brugge have their own stuff going on. If they avoid defeat tonight, they move into the last-32 playoff, and if there’s a winner in the Stuttgart v PSG game, they progress regardless. But if that game, Sporting v Bologna and Juventus v Benfica are draws, Brugge are eliminated should they lose, which is to say they’ll be at it this evening and then some.
Of course, the likelihood is that City find a way – indeed, the entire rigmarole of this format is in place partly to guarantee that happens – and yet…
Kick-off: 8pm GMT
