The sun goes down, the stars come out
And all that counts, is here and now
My universe will never be the same
I’m glad you lost, I’m glad you lost.
The above lyrics to a song, coincidentally from the recently famous English group: The Wanted, was what my mind was teasing me with as I watched both the Manchester clubs crash out of the Europa league.
All of a sudden, it is all anyone in football politics can talk about. How did the top two teams currently in English football’s highest flight, one with strong historical presence and the other with their recently acquired cha ching, crash out?
How did they? Because they managed to secure a horrible first leg against stronger opponents such as Atletico Bilbao (Manchester United) and Sporting Lisbon (Manchester City).
That magic number required in the second leg — a 2-goal lead over their opponents. All though it was United’s “noisy neighbors” that were close to scraping through to the sweet sixteen. They managed to win the leg with a brace from the Kun and a calmly taken penalty from the Italian, Mario Balotelli. However, it was not enough, as they lost out on the away game rule.
The reds on the other hand were never close to winning the second leg either, with two goals before Rooney’s consolation in the 80th minute.
As the Managers tend to openly discuss their performance— an experimental, in-the-weeds topic is usually left to the assistant. Football pundits are going over the figures, gaming out probabilities of which team they would have met in the next round. And of course, members of the sports news media, never known as technical geniuses with their gadgets and game day touch screens, have become engrossed in the math.
In the process, for the clubs was supposed to be dominated by a single topic — the case of being the champions of English football — has instead been taken over by estimation of what could have or your what not.
I, for one, am not undermining the importance of the Europa league, due to the once existing probability of either one of the Manchester clubs being glorified as champions. But preoccupying my thoughts with that idea is an unhealthy distraction from the likes of United and City fighting every weekend from now on to battle it out for the top spot.
The math, as it stands, is simple.
Lesser the distraction of external competitions, at this point, the more they get to focus on their final push towards the title. With United leading over its city rivals by one point, this title charge is what my mind is gearing itself towards at the moment.
So, as much as I dislike boy bands, I have kind of gained an inherent liking towards their song “Glad you came”.
