Freiburg in the Europa League final. This is it.
If you’re going to this one then by the time you read this you’ll very likely be on your way. You might be in a different country, or even a different continent. Don’t worry – we aren’t playing Palace. This is the Big One, the Europa League final at the Tupras Stadium in Istanbul. The food’s better than Selhurst and the locals are friendlier.
This is what we’ve been waiting for since Naz & Wes took over and particularly since Unai arrived. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t planned it all to happen on this exact day from the start. And now, here he stands on the threshold of greatness. He, and the rest of us, have had to put up with ridicule, ignorance, sneering, idiotic stuff about xG (still – thank you very much Nick Mashiter), financial rules designed especially for us and casualty lists approaching Gallipoli levels.
But we came through it all and now the only thing standing between Unai and immortality is a team nobody knew much about until a few weeks ago. They’ve bounced around the top two divisions for most of their history but they seem to have settled in the Bundesliga and got into Europe a few times. That sounds worryingly like Palace but never mind…
Their manager has been there since he was a player and looks much like you’d expect a German manager to look; ie a Jurgen Klopp tribute act. His players are a bunch of nondescript journeymen, but between them they’ve done well so far. Their supporters seem a friendly enough bunch; expect highly-choreographed displays before the match and lots of drumming. Do they still wear those denim cut-offs or has the world of German football moved on from Iron Maiden?
Then there’s us. No more injuries and the team more or less picks itself. Amadou Onana or Victor Lindelof is the only query but whoever starts and comes on should be good enough. Just please, no singing about Small Heath – we’re bigger than that. This is our destiny. This is our time.
