Hello! There’s a cup draw to arrange, in your neighbourhood. Who you gonna call? Probably a would-be president of the United States.
Coming up:
🤯 When Trump met the League Cup
💰 Ten Hag nets £15m pay-off
⚽ MLS Cup takeaways
🎧 Gavi’s surgery playlist
Trump’s League Cup cameo 🏆
Draws for the League Cup have been known to make headlines. The events of 2017 were particularly special: a live broadcast from Thailand (home of current sponsor Carabao) mangling several first-round fixtures and somehow including Charlton Athletic twice. How we laughed.
That debacle, though, is second in the peculiarity ratings to 1991, when the guest star for the cup’s fifth-round draw was none other than current United States presidential hopeful Donald Trump. The UK broadcaster that televised the picks for each stage, ITV, decamped to New York. Trump (altogether less in-your-face than he is these days) agreed to help pull the balls from the bag.
This sounds like a wind-up — but honestly, it isn’t.
Moreover, the episode came to us from Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and the whole thing occurred by chance. The show Trump appeared on, Saint & Greavsie, was mega, with viewing figures of close to six million. Trump’s secretary happened to be English and recognised the hosts — retired players Ian St John and Jimmy Greaves — in Trump Tower’s lobby.
One thing led to another, so to speak, and Trump was randomly persuaded to sort out the fifth round’s fixtures. The footage is so mind-blowing that The Athletic’s Danny Taylor went back to watch it before the Carabao Cup’s last-eight draw later today. Suffice to say, it won’t be rivalled for weirdness.
(Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)
It’s apparent from Danny’s article that Trump had little to no idea about what was going on. In fairness, 1991 — three years out from the first World Cup staged in the U.S. — was not a time when football in America was truly booming.
David Dent, the secretary of the EFL (or the Football League as it was back then), was more nonplussed about the setting. “The first thing that struck you was the opulence,” he told Danny. “There was gold everywhere. Even the lifts were sparkly and glitzy.”
One of the first ties that emerged in the draw was Swindon Town or Crystal Palace versus Nottingham Forest or Southampton. Again, it is easy to see why that would baffle the uninitiated. Trump then dished up an actual cracker: Leeds United against Manchester United, two clubs in the north of England who despise each other.
“That’s a biggie,” Trump said, after some helpful prompting. “That sounds like the game I want to go to.” To the best of our knowledge, he never did.
A cup convert?
With hindsight, and most likely at the time, too, Dent appreciated a certain level of farce. Trump got a Saint & Greavsie mug as a thank-you for his efforts. “We had no clue we were talking to the future president of the United States,” Dent said.
As the U.S. election looms and Trump battles with Kamala Harris for the presidency, he has plenty occupying him. But if he finds a spare half-hour later, and if he’s reading, the Carabao Cup’s fifth-round draw takes place after 10pm UK time (6pm ET), once Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City have slogged it out. We’re not promising any similar randomness. But you never know.
If all that has whet your appetite for 2024’s competition, here are the matches you can watch today:
Carabao Cup fourth round: Brighton vs Liverpool, 3.30pm ET/7.30pm UK — Paramount+/Sky Sports; Aston Villa vs Crystal Palace, 3.45pm/7.45pm — Paramount+/Sky Sports; Man United vs Leicester City, 3.45pm/7.45pm — CBS, Paramount+, Fubo/Sky Sports; Newcastle vs Chelsea, 3.45pm/7.45pm — Paramount+/Sky Sports; Preston vs Arsenal, 3.45pm/7.45pm — CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime/Sky Sports; Tottenham vs Man City, 4.15pm/8.15pm — Paramount+/Sky Sports.
Inside Ten Hag’s Man Utd exit 👋
(Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
Manchester United are too juicy a story to leave alone right now. We’re waiting for white smoke with Ruben Amorim, but Sporting Lisbon have confirmed United’s interest in their manager. Amorim to Old Trafford feels like a matter of time.
Sporting played in the Portuguese League Cup last night, but Amorim dealt with questions about his future with a straight bat. “No decision has been made,” he said. Watch this space.
As for the man he’s in line to replace, Erik ten Hag, we’ve got a superb long read on his painfully long demise. These are the lines that jumped out:
United’s board were advised to axe Ten Hag during the Premier League’s last international break. It took another 20 days for them to act.
- The Athletic has been told Ten Hag’s pay-off will cost a buttock-clenching £15m ($19.5m).
- Background checks on Amorim were made before Ten Hag’s dismissal, which makes sense considering the speed of United’s move for the Portuguese. CEO Omar Berrada is a big fan.
- Other names who came up in discussions were Xavi (ex-Barcelona), Edin Terzic (ex-Borussia Dortmund) and Massimiliano Allegri (ex-Juventus) — all strong candidates.
- I laughed at a senior United official describing the club’s defeat by Arne Slot’s Liverpool as “grim with a capital G”. That was two months ago now. Better late than never, I guess.
The Athletic’s Manchester United WhatsApp channel is the place to be for all the latest info from around the club, including videos and voice notes from our team of reporters. You can join free of charge here.
MLS Cup round-up 🇺🇸
The first batch of games in the MLS Cup play-offs is complete, without a wild raft of upsets. Reigning champions Columbus Crew had a shocker against New York Red Bulls yesterday and Real Salt Lake lost to Minnesota United on penalties, but most matches went to form.
All eight round-one, best-of-three series continue this weekend. These were my takeaways from the opening skirmishes:
- After messing up their chance to finish top of the Western Conference, LA Galaxy’s 5-0 thrashing of Colorado Rapids was a flex. They still look like the big threat to Inter Miami.
- LAFC legend Carlos Vela, a former MLS Cup winner there, got his first minutes since rejoining the franchise in September. He’s a handy ace up their sleeve.
- Atlanta United pushed Miami in a 2-1 defeat. I’m not suggesting Lionel Messi and co won’t progress as expected, but it might not be a walk in the park.
- Previous meetings between Minnesota and Real Salt Lake this season have been ultra-tight and it needed a Braian Ojeda penalty miss (below) to separate them. That’s tough to call from here.
What a way to win your first Audi #MLSCupPlayoffs PK shootout in franchise history! 🤯@MNUFC pic.twitter.com/i02p1efMBJ
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 30, 2024
Man City, Mourinho and… Money? 💷
(Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
Nobody stirs up a hornet’s nest with the same skill as Jose Mourinho.
There he was last week, before a Europa League tie between Fenerbahce (his current employers) and Manchester United (his old employers), chewing the fat about whether he might retrospectively win a Premier League title with United.
Why? Because United under Mourinho finished second to Manchester City in the 2017-18 season. The 61-year-old joked that if City lost their financial war with the Premier League, the championship could be reallocated to Old Trafford.
It got The Athletic’s Phil Buckingham thinking: is that likely? And what would the knock-on effect be if the Premier League decided City’s trophies should be awarded to others? Would United, for example, then be compelled to pay historical bonuses to Mourinho and the 2017-18 squad?
Various lawyers spoken to by Phil don’t think it’s a likely sanction if City lose, but stripping titles and passing them on is an option available to the Premier League. At least one person will be hoping it happens. And don’t expect him to stay quiet if it does.
Around The Athletic 📖
🧢Goalkeepers wearing caps to shield their eyes from the sun has gone out of fashion like an old Sega Mega Drive. Caoimhe O’Neill wants to know why.
😢 Everton striker Beto was moved to tears by his stoppage-time equaliser against Fulham on Saturday. He’s been struggling for minutes on the pitch. Perhaps that goal is the start of something.
🇪🇸 Justin Bieber, Chumbawamba, Nirvana and their part in helping Barcelona’s Gavi recover from anterior cruciate ligament surgery: such good detail from Laia Cervello Herrero on the back of Gavi’s return.
🏆 Did rival votes for other Real Madrid players deny Vinicius Junior the Ballon d’Or?
🤕 Mikel Arteta isn’t very forthcoming with injury news at Arsenal, but the noises about defender Gabriel, who was hurt in Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Liverpool, sounds promising: “It doesn’t look bad at all.”
🤔 Less edifying for Arteta is the sound of certain people comparing him and his style of football with Mourinho. James McNicholas got into that thorny subject.
🇵🇹 Most clicked in yesterday’s TAFC: United’s swoop for Amorim. You don’t say.
Catch a match (ET/UK time)
(Selected games)
DFB-Pokal second round: Mainz vs Bayern Munich, 3.45pm/7.45pm — ESPN+, Fubo/DFB Play.
Serie A: Empoli vs Inter Milan, 1.30pm/5.30pm — CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime/One Football.
Dutch Eredivisie: Feyenoord vs Ajax, 1pm/5pm — ESPN+/TrillerTV+.
(Top photos: ITV/Getty Images)
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