Spurs & Man Utd’s El Sackico sequel makes up for interminable international break | OneFootball

Three weeks, then. Long international break, that.

A lot of England, which obviously means a game against Croatia at some point, an ITV segment in which Gabriel Clarke mercilessly Ludovico Techniques poor Thomas Tuchel into reliving the World Cup semi-final before declaring that The Time For Talking Is Over, and a meeting with Spain which offers two avenues with precisely zero middle ground.

Either England are root-and-branch reviewed into utter oblivion by the world and European champions at Wembley; or someone absolutely Eric Diers a poor Spanish soul.

It is a fair old wait for more of that sweet Premier League narrative nectar. But there are more than enough Barclays strands to pull at to satisfy that craving for just long enough in the meantime.

Has Pep Guardiola just Guy Incognito’d his way to another trophy-laden decade at Manchester City? Might Hull not win the title now?  Could backs-against-the-wall, siege mentality David Moyes be the greatest manager in the sport’s history?

Will Mr. Marinakis sack Oliver Glasner for losing to Frank Lampard? Is Brian Brobbey in the B(r)allon d’Or running?

All perfectly sane, legitimate, necessary questions. But the perennially raging dumpster fires at Spurs and Manchester United are difficult to look past in terms of engrossing plots.

‘That whole experience was more painful than my hip replacement,’ was how Sir Alex Ferguson once described the process of the latter signing Dimitar Berbatov from the former.

But in truth he was foretelling the sheer agony both teams would experience when trying to operate as serious institutions a decade down the line.

How fitting that two inherently damned clubs would produce such a fundamentally cursed fixture, and with all due respect to Liverpool vs. Manchester City and Arsenal vs. Leeds, Manchester United hosting Spurs is the undisputed highlight of the Premier League’s return schedule when England finish up with disappointing an entire nation all over again.

That both clubs have somehow engineered an unthinkable sequel to the absurdly popular and successful original El Sackico is remarkable. There is more than an element of recycling the story from the first blockbuster – under-pressure Spurs coach in second Premier League post faces overpromoted, Knows The Club merchant Manchester United manager in a loser leaves town match – but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Spurs and Manchester United, of course, are intrinsically broken, and at the most rudimentary level incapable of being fixed.

And the recasts of Roberto De Zerbi and Michael Carrick as Nuno Espirito Santo and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer are genius.

Nuno was dispensed with two days after losing that encounter in October 2021; Solskjaer himself suffered the axe a month later anyway, in much the same way there was nothing Ange Postecoglou or Ruben Amorim could do to avoid the sack when they were set on the same course in the 2025 Europa League final.

Quite what compels these clubs to converge in crisis with such preposterous frequency is unknown, but it makes for compelling viewing.

And it means that once this considerable Nations League-shaped obstacle is surmounted, our collective reward will be waiting.