The curious case of Arne Slot’s Paris romance and Liverpool’s slump
In today’s Football Daily: Total romance, Aaron Ramsey says diolch to football and Stefan Effenberg v Zizou
RED ALERT
Arne Slot tries his best not to choke up when he talks of last year’s meeting between Liverpool and PSG. “I hope every fan around the world was hoping this game wouldn’t stop because it was incredible,” he blubbed in March 2025. His team had just lost on penalties to the soon-to-be Bigger Cup winners. “It was the best game of football that I was ever involved in.” If the Slot regime comes to its end this summer, with a significant groundswell of opinion among Kopites nodding in that direction, then it is curious he keeps returning to an infamous European night at Anfield which may well prove the beginning of the end. A few days later, Liverpool deservedly lost a Fizzy Cup final to a much more inspired Newcastle. Things have never quite been the same since, despite a 20th league title being claimed in April.
Slot will always have Paris. “My football is Paris Saint-Germain v Liverpool, Liverpool v Paris Saint-Germain,” Slot cooed after Fulham’s Harrison Reed had scored a last-minute equaliser against his team in January. “That is how I would love to have every single game, but you need to have two teams to have an open game of football and not all these things that don’t make a game of football nice.” On Wednesday, Slot will doubtless be wearing his best Harrington jacket and splashing on the Lynx Africa when Liverpool return to Paris for a Bigger Cup rekindling of his ecstatic romance. He could barely contain himself after beating Galatasaray in the last 16 set up the reunion, mooning: “I’ve said many times that it was the best game I’ve managed in my career, even though we lost, in terms of how it was played with both teams playing football the way it should be played and wanting to entertain the fans.”
Problematically for Slot and Liverpool, a fortnight widely previewed as two weeks to relaunch the Reds began with that FA Cup performance at Manchester City. Liverpool were playing quite well, Curtis Jones so full of confidence he was showing off his best back-heels and lollipops. Then Virgil van Dijk chopped down Nico O’Reilly. From that moment, disaster followed and once Erling Haaland had made it 4-0 in the 57th minute, much of the away contingent were heading for the Etihad stairways.
The sight of Dominik Szoboszlai, the one player whose performance levels have sustained, giving it the big one back to unhappy fans, was unhelpful to say the least. Then again, so were the performances of Szoboszlai’s teammates, with Van Dijk’s trademark cool reduced to Coldplay levels and Mohamed Salah looking less the sixth-best player in Liverpool history than the 6,000th. Not all is blamed on Slot, with club suits similarly low in the popularity ratings, but submission at City was a prime example of his team being a soft touch. “You shouldn’t give up,” wailed Van Dijk. To Wednesday: Slot getting fluttery again? Down and out in Paris and Liverpool?
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Yara El-Shaboury at 8pm BST for Bigger Cup updates on Sporting 1-1 Arsenal in the first leg of their quarter-final, while Rob Smyth will be on hand at the same time for Real Madrid 1-2 Bayern Munich.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“You can’t shake this new habit of always looking around. I’m more careful and hide more when I’m changing before games and after games. More widely I’m more careful too – when I go to a public pool it’s not like it was before, I try to not expose myself too much even when I’m in a private cubicle” – FC Slovacko’s Kristyna Janku reflects on the aftershocks from learning her former coach Petr Vlachovsky had been caught secretly filming in the women’s team’s dressing room for four years.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
With Aaron Ramsey having been without a club since the end of last year and now retiring, it looks like we’ve moved from players announcing their retirement who we weren’t even aware were still playing to players announcing their retirement who were already retired but weren’t aware of it themselves” – Noble Francis.
Dear Arsenal, how do you sustain this insane consistency in blowing your chances? Every. Single. Time. Players come and go. Managers stay and leave. The only constant is the fans’ anguish. What wizardry will you wield now to hand over the title to Manchester City?” – Krishna Moorthy.
Re Thursday’s letters. John Groom is correct that not many Aussies use flamin’, but you don’t have to be Stefan Kuntz, Danny Sh1ttu or Christian Fuchs to know our modern alternatives aren’t always printable” – Rowan Sweeney.
No-one says flamin’ anymore John, but most of us still have a flamin’ sense of humour” – Greg Wyatt.
If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Rowan Sweeney. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here.
RECOMMENDED LOOKING
Our resident cartoonist, David Squires, on the shocks and flops from the FA Cup quarter-finals.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Listen up! It’s Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning and the rest of the Football Weekly pod squad with a look back at the weekend’s news and action. And you can watch the pod here if you like that kind of thing.
The latest Women’s Football Weekly has also dropped, with Faye Carruthers, Suzy Wrack, Tom Garry and Anne-Marie Batson assessing the FA Cup quarter-finals and a dramatic run-in at both ends of the WSL 2 table.
MOVING THE GOALPOSTS
Alex Ibaceta sat down for an exclusive chat with Barcelona’s Vicky López, who has gone from a shy 16-year-old signing to a record-breaking ‘golden girl’ in Catalonia.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Unfortunate petrol pump-based reference from Mikel Arteta in attempting to gee up his cup-stung Arsenal team to face Sporting tonight, as the UK reels from soaring prices in the forecourts. “We have to use that fuel, that pain that we had after the [Southampton] game,” the Spaniard mindlessly bleated.
Harry Maguire’s renaissance under Michael Carrick continues apace with a one-year contract extension at Old Trafford. The 33-year-old, back in the World Cup reckoning after sulky times under Ruben Amorim, has taken a wage cut but beamed of playing for United being “the ultimate honour” after putting his inky paws on the new deal.
Ha’way the Bay: Sunderland’s women’s team are set to be taken over by the multi-club ownership group Bay Collective, who also own NWSL side Bay FC.
USA USA USA’s Patrick Agyemang will miss this summer’s Geopolitics World Cup after suffering a “serious” achilles twang during Derby’s 2-0 win over Stoke City.
Aaron Ramsey has called time on his playing career aged 35, having remained clubless since leaving Mexico’s Pumas late last year. The former Arsenal midfielder bid a teary “Diolch” to Wales supporters, having captained the side and racked up 86 caps. “It’s been an honour,” he sniffed.
Results elsewhere meant Coventry ended the Easter weekend still 12 points clear at the top of the Championship despite a goalless draw at Hull. Lincoln will definitely be in England’s second tier next season, however, after they sealed promotion from League One with five games to spare.
Napoli suit Aurelio De Laurentiis would not stand in Antonio Conte’s way if his coach was asked to take the vacant Italy job. “If Conte asked me to allow him to become the national team coach again, I would say yes,” De Laurentiis roared. “But as he’s very intelligent, I don’t think he sees himself in charge of something so disorganised.”
Last-day decider in Scotland? Could be: third-placed Celtic will host current leaders Hearts on 16 May after the Scottish Premiership laid out the post-split fixtures. Rangers, currently second and a point off the top, will end their season at Falkirk.
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RECOMMENDED ORDERING
We’ll be giving away copies of the Classic Football Shirts book soon. To get you in the mood, here’s a clip of Big Website’s visit to the shop in Manchester and some chat about Jorge Campos. You’ve got to love that retro polyester. And if you want to pre-order a copy from the Guardian Bookshop, you can do so here.
STILL WANT MORE?
Miguel Dontas on Sporting’s new Gyökeres, the Colombian striker Luis Suárez, and the threat he might pose Arsenal in Bigger Cup.
Tonight’s other Bigger Cup set-to pits Real Madrid against Bayern Munich, and they’ve laid on a fair few classics when they’ve met in the past. Here’s a look at some of them.
And here comes Harry Paterson with his last-eight previews and predictions.
The FA Cup: still important, says Jonathan Wilson, after an action-packed quarter-final weekend.
Germany legend Philipp Lahm’s latest column explains why the Spanish system is currently leading the way.
Talking of Spain, here’s Sid Lowe’s latest, on Mallorca’s weekend toppling of Real Madrid.
Marseille were ablaze when Roberto De Zerbi left but at least they had some spark, writes Luke Entwistle.
Andy Brassell, meanwhile, basks in a wild ‘Plastico’ between Leverkusen and Wolfsburg.
And Nicky Bandini reports on how Alessandro Bastoni bounced back from World Cup woe in Inter’s romp against Roma.
MEMORY LANE
10 April 2002: Real Madrid v Bayern Munich is the most played fixture in European competition – 28 matches and counting, including 13 knockout ties. Just as they are meeting on Tuesday, Madrid and Bayern met in the Bigger Cup quarter-finals in 2002. Stefan Effenberg (left) had scored in the first leg in Germany as Bayern took a 2-1 lead to the Santiago Bernabéu but lost 2-0 – thanks to goals from Iván Helguera and Guti – to lose 3-2 on aggregate. Madrid edged rivals Barcelona in the semi-final before a 2-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen in the final at Hampden Park, with Zinedine Zidane (right) scoring the winner and arguably the greatest Bigger Cup goal ever, a mesmeric volley with his weaker left foot that soared into the top corner past Jörg Butt at his near post.