Surely not

Is it perhaps possible that those fine upstanding custodians of European football, UEFA, could be, whisper it, lying to us?

After all, this is a worthy institution led by the strike force of Juventus and France legend Michel Platini and…eh, David Taylor. Mr Taylor, as I’m sure you will recall, was the former SFA chief who masterminded the years ahead of it’s time deployment of Berti Vogts as Scotland manager. Who would dare question the vision of this assistant?

Let us not make this a parochial assassination of Taylor alone. Platini simply must have been kidnapped and replaced by an imposter. This cannot be the same man who, in his pomp at Juventus and the French national team, brought awe and wonder to the game. All we see now is an unkempt and erratic controversy merchant, whose vacant and humourless rhetoric makes Sepp Blatter of FIFA look like a stand-up comedian. Oh, hang on…

We should make nice instead. This blog can’t be certain, but when it gazes upon Platini and Taylor together (David magnificently taking winners and/or losers medals out of a big bag and then handing them to Michel, who then hands them over to a player or manager, oh the synchronicity), it is unable to be reminded of another tragic comedy double. Who said “unctuous lickspittle”? Actually, perhaps this is a diatribe against Mr Taylor. Only God can judge us. Or perhaps a High Court Judge.

We are digressing somewhat. No change there. Our theory is that UEFA are fabricating teams in a desperate attempt to get the usual also-rans from “the greatest league in the world” (Everton, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur) further than the usual embarrassing first round exit. Here is a sample, with the fake names in bold, of the ‘made-up teams’ involved from yesterday’s draw (incidentally, some of these names are an absolute nightmare when running a spell check):

Politehnica Timisoara v Partizan Belgrade
Banik Ostrava v Spartak Moscow
Man City v Omonia Nicosia
AC Bellinzona v Galatasaray
Racing Santander v FC Honka
APOEL Nicosia v Schalke 04
Litex Lovech v Aston Villa
FK Austria Magna v Lech Poznan
Slavia Prague v Vaslui
Slaven Koprivnica v CSKA Moscow
Cherno More v VfB Stuttgart
Feyenoord v Kalmar FF
Hamburg v Unirea Urziceni
NEC v Dinamo Bucuresti
Young Boys v Club Brugge
AS Nancy v Motherwell

(The reason that Young Boys and AS Nancy are included in this list is not because they are considered fictitious, but to highlight the inevitable Bay City Rollers and latent homophobic puns that are bound to pepper the sport pages of the Daily Record and The Sun any day now. Oops, tool late. Today's Record has the headline "Why Well Fancy Changes v Nancy Boys", whereas their website is rather more coy.)

Aston Villa’s home tie against mid-80s action movie star Litex Lovech sounds like a home win but it’s almost certain that Dinamo Bucuresti won’t be relishing that tough away tie to a large conference and concert centre in Birmingham.

Hamburg boss Martin Jol, however, must be confident of second round progress with a reasonably straightforward opener against venereal disease/fabulous Scrabble scoring, Unirea Urziceni.

“Fhor shure, we should win againsth deesh guysh as the pressh are shaying, but any team that can get you thirty-shix points in Schrabble musht be treated with reshpect, you know what I’m shayin’?” opined the large Dutchman.

For all their damn lies, maybe this is all for the best. After all, the glamour tie of the first round has to be in the shape of FK Austria Magna v Lech Poznan, in the only made-up team vs. made-up team of the UEFA Cup so far. The prospect of a Central European Republic-based acrylic paint doing battle against a downtrodden Polish pawnbroker must put to bed the notion that this competition is but a poor man’s version of the Champions League, once and for all.