It’s not often I cheer a Manu goal! | OneFootball

Following our last gasp victory over Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup last week, it was all systems go to switch colours to my European Kings the following night.

Having decided to go pot hunting in the Europa Conference League, I first latched on to the Giants of Gibraltar – Bruno’s Magpies – but they came a cropper against the first “big” team they met, in FC Copenhagen.

Time to swiftly switch loyalties.

Enter my Portuguese stand-ins, Vitoria Guimaraes – aka the Brunos.

They fit the bill perfectly. Not only do they maintain the ‘Bruno’ connection but they are also a very decent team who have a slight chance of rewarding my short-standing but unwavering support with a pot of silver at the end of the rainbow. Not that they enhanced their chances by flogging one of their better players last week’s Wednesday night rivals, Notts Forest, during the transfer window.

Step forward the Forest goal scorer in our cup tie and a candidate for man of the match – Jota Silva. His previous claim to fame was his nickname “the Portuguese Grealish.” A name he earned not because he has mesmeric ball skills displayed down the left touch line, while his socks are working their way towards his ankles, or that he gets leathered and gratuitously insults his fellow pros.

No, it’s a case of having a “slicked back undercut” and Alice band. Snr Silva has obviously followed Jack online and has taken his grooming advice to heart, slavishly applying “hair bond wax, Moroccan oil, and the Got2B hairspray” in liberal amounts. He had a very good game against us and “Os Conquistadores” have lost a good player by the looks of it.

However, my adopted boys have managed very well so far without the poor man’s Jack. Having disposed of the Gnomes of Zurich with a 5 – 0 aggregate drubbing in the third qualifying round, it was the turn in the fourth round of the Bosnian team Zrinjski Mostar who I thought may provide a sterner challenge than the Swiss.

Oh ye of little faith! The first leg was at home on Wednesday 21st August and resulted in a comfortable 3 – 0 win for the Brunos with goals from Mangas, Borevković and Mendes. Perhaps the away leg on the 29th August would be more problematic, the Bosnians will have a cunning plan, surely?

After a fruitless half hour trawling through all the streaming sites on my Firestick, I was reduced to following events on a reporting site that reminded me slightly of the Chronicle’s laughably titled “Live Feed”. I’m convinced their journalists don’t go to the match – they just have random mates who text them now and again when something happens.

Anyhow, Sporting Life’s coverage was sparse but to the point and Zrinjski’s cunning plan quickly became evident when they earned three yellow cards for “bad fouls” on 6, 13 and 31 minutes. It was working though because the Brunos had failed to score so far.

Hold on though! Enter the unfortunately named Manu Silva with a penalty conversion one minute after the Zrinjski cloggers’ third yellow card. It’s not often I cheer a Manu goal! This opened the floodgates and there then followed goals by Nuno Santos on 42 minutes and Nelson Oliveira on the stroke of half time at 48 minutes. With a 6 – 0 aggregate scoreline in favour of Vitoria Guimaraes, the game was effectively done.

The main second half action seemed to be a raft of substitutions but Gustavo da Silva added another for the Brunos on 71 minutes to seal a very comfortable 7 – 0 aggregate victory. The Brunos march on to the next round!

Now comes the complicated part.

The Conference League has moved into the “big boy” phase where teams like Chelsea join in. The draw has been made and – as far as I’ve been able to interpret things – 36 teams have now qualified for the League Phase of the competition. Each club plays six opponents in single-leg ties – playing three home and three away matches. Got it so far?

The six clubs that the Brunos will play are: Fiorentina (Italy), Djurgárden (Sweden), Astana (Kazakhstan), Mladá Boleslav (Czech Republic), St Gallen (Switzerland)and Celje (Slovenia).

The schedule of games is:

Matchday 1: 3 October 2024 Matchday 2: 24 October 2024 Matchday 3: 7 November 2024 Matchday 4: 28 November 2024 Matchday 5: 12 December 2024 Matchday 6: 19 December 2024

I have so far been unable to pin down who our boys will be playing on those dates but I’m on it (like a bonnet!).

The top eight teams overall (don’t ask me how that’s calculated!) go forward to the round of 16 and will be joined by eight teams from a play-off between those who finished between 9th and 24th. The Round of 16 is then a straight knockout competition.

Congratulations to the Brunos on navigating their way through this ridiculously complicated competition so far. I really hope the monetary rewards are worth it because the financial demands of travelling around the extremities of the European continent must be very draining for these relatively small clubs.