Even Middlesbrough fans would have had to admit that Madrid's Bernebeu Stadium looked a teeny, weeny bit impressive on Saturday night. Yes, it broke their hearts when their beloved Juninho left Teesside during the summer, turning down the chance of playing with relegated 'Boro in the Nationwide first division, to join Atletico Madrid, but, on Saturday, they probably came to understand why he chose to abandon them.
"Just think, he could have been playing at Edgeley Park against Stockport County on Tuesday night if he wasn't here," said Sky Sports' Rob Palmer, as he commentated on the Brazilian's Spanish league debut at the home of champions Real Madrid. Covering Spanish football, as they do, poses a tricky presentation dilemma for Sky Sports. They keep telling us that English football is the best and most exciting in the world, but then they show us something like Saturday's Madrid derby, featuring teams whose line-ups read like a Who's Who of international football, played in front of 100,000 at the stunning Bernebeu Stadium, where the atmosphere makes the sound on your telly go all fuzzy. Suddenly, Stockport County v Middlesbrough doesn't seem that attractive.
"No contest," Juninho's mother, father, sister and granny would probably declare. On Friday's Sky Sports Centre we learnt that young Juninho has brought most of his immediate family from Brazil, via Middlesbrough, to Madrid and is settling in well. (It seems when he switches clubs and cities so do his mother, father, sister and granny, who follow him wherever he goes. A functional family if ever there was one. Wonder if they get shirt numbers at their new clubs?)
"No offence to Middlesbrough, but Juninho really belongs on this stage, doesn't he," presenter David Bobin offended 'Boro fans by asking studio guest Bobby Robson on Saturday night. Bobby was hardly in a position to disagree, after all, he turned down offers to return to England, to manage Newcastle and Everton, in the past year, opting instead to stay in sunny Barcelona.
What Bobby does at Barcelona anymore one can't be quite sure. Juninho has a definite role in life - he plays behind the front two for Atletico - but the former England boss? Well, until the end of last season he was manager of Barcelona, but then they made him general manager and brought in Louis Van Gaal as coach. Now that might sound like a promotion to you or me but, in football terms, it appears to be the club's nice way of sacking people they haven't the heart to completely dump, or else can't afford to pay off. (Like Ron Atkinson at Coventry City). Why else would Bobby have been sitting in a London studio the evening before Barcelona's first match of the season? (And then he turned up in Milan yesterday for Channel Four's live coverage of Ronaldo's debut for Inter Milan. Mmm.)
But it was nice to have him there, as he shared his excitement about the prospects of seeing the 'Boro old boy make take his Spanish bow . . . even if he couldn't pronounce his name. "It'll be interesting to see where little Joe Eno plays tonight, he did ever so well for Middlesbrough last year," he said, in a Jack Charltonish kind of way.
After a while Joe Eno became Ju Neno . . . then Ju Enio . . . then Ju Niho, much to the amusement of Bobin who could be heard giggling every time Bobby stumbled over the Brazilian's name.
He may have struggled with the name, but he seemed at ease when discussing the wisdom of Atletico's decision to play Juninho through the middle and not on the wing. "Sometimes when you get boxed in on the touchline there's only one way to go and that's on the inside because you can't go outside because that's a throw-in," he informed us, while throwing an imaginary ball on to an imaginary pitch. "How much exact- ly are we paying you for this expert comment," asked Bobin to himself.
Then it was time to join Rob Palmer for the start of the match. The capacity in the stadium, he told us, had been reduced to 100,000 to allow for the segregation of fans who don't like each other very much. "The Atletico supporters have been put on the top shelf of the Bernebeu," he said, which meant the match below them would have that subbeuteo look about it.
"Ninety degrees plus in Madrid today and hot doesn't even begin to describe this atmosphere," he added. The temperatures soared some more when a bunch of Real fans set fire to the mountains of toilet paper behind one of the goals. The match was further delayed - by 12 minutes in all - as officials tried to find both goals which had been buried under mounds of yet more toilet paper.
Finally we got under way. Sixteen minutes later Kiko (or "Keeko", "Keye-ko", "Kicko", as Bobby called him through the night) squared for Juninho to score and from high in the solar system you could hear the Atletico fans going potty.
At half-time Bobby was delighted for Joe Eno and impressed by the display of Atletico goalkeeper Molina. "That's a very good save to be fair," he said, watching a replay of a Molina save from Real's Raul. "He doesn't have to save it, he just has to make sure it doesn't go in the back of the net," he observed. "And you managed Ipswich, England, PSV Eindhoven and Barcelona," said Bobin to himself. Second half. Fifteen minutes to go and Molina chose to dive to his right when Clarence Seedorf's shot from three miles away was visibly swinging to his left. 1-1. "Molina had gone fishing there, hadn't he," Bobby shrewdly pointed out at full time. "Thank you Bobby, it was a pleasure having you with us tonight," Bobin lied. "Now hump off back to Barcelona," he said to himself.
In his time as a Eurosport commentator, Archie McPherson has probably never visited the Bernebeu, or any other football stadium in the world for that matter. Legend has it that Eurosport's people rarely get to leave their Paris headquarters. "It's a balmy night here in Prague," or "'tis fierce chilly here in Stockholm this evening," they often say, but don't be fooled - they're just reading French television's European weather forecasts. "It's lashin' here at Tolka Park," Archie could have said last Thursday night when he welcomed us to the channel's live coverage of the Cup Winners' Cup game between Shelbourne and Kilmarnock. Whether he was actually there we will never know, but he probably wasn't.
But Archie loves Dublin, that much was clear from his commentary. "As befits a nation which does love informality, the Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern will simply stroll out of his house tonight with his pals and come down to the stadium to see Shelbourne and Kilmarnock," he told us, failing to visualise Helmut Kohl similarly strolling with his mates on the way to a Bayern Munich match.
He was particularly taken by the story of Shelbourne's English winger, Mark Rutherford. "He came on loan from Birmingham six years ago and, like many other people who come to Dublin, decided to stay. Such a charming place," he swooned.
