Now that is over and done with, let's get back to the football. Tottenham face Cypriot team Anorthosis Famagusta at White Hart Lane this evening hoping to continue their uncanny reenactment of last season by qualifying for the group stages of the UEFA Cup despite poor league form. Last season a win over Slavia Prague and then impressive performances throughout the early stages of Europe's second best cup competition helped to kick start a season that had verged on collapse by November. Martin Jol, the players, the fans and hopefully everyone on the board will hope that history repeats itself over the two legs of this qualifying round.
Good results and performances in the competition last year had an unarguably positive effect on results on the domestic front, due in no small part to Jol's steadfast, no nonsense approach to every European game, no matter the supposed quality of opposition. For this reason Jol will field a full strength side this evening, knowing that a convincing victory will be the only way to keep the wolves of unemployment from his door (for a few more days at least).
Those who plan to attend tonight's festivities are likely to see a lot more of winger Aaron Lennon than during Saturday's match against Arsenal, as Jol looks to gradually break him back into first team football. Keane and Berbatov will start, as was the case in 99% of the European games last season. In fact, though many assumed Keane made considerably more appearances for Tottenham last season than Jermain Defoe, it was only in the UEFA Cup that the Irishman enjoyed being picked regularly over the diminutive England man.
Jol has warned Famagusta, who represent a somewhat unknown quantity, to be wary of the threat posed by Dimitar Berbatov, a ploy that, whilst aimed at motivating the Bulgarian into rekindling his form of last season, smacks of an odd thing to say to the opposition on the eve of a game. Surely you keep quiet about your main threats in hope that they conveniently forget to mark them at corners or allow them that little bit of space in the box to grab the winner. Regardless, on paper the home leg of this tie is an opportunity for Martin Jol's men to approach a tricky looking away tie with an unassailable lead which may well allow the Dutchman to rest key players for what is proving to be a grueling start to the domestic campaign.
And what of Famagusta? being that Tottenhamhotspur-mad's chief scout went missing during an undercover operation new the Emirates last weekend, we were left with just the internet scouts main two sources of reference - youtube and Wikipedia. Most interestingly they are coached by Temuri Ketsbaia of Newcastle and 'smashing-innocent-advertising-boards-after-scoring' fame. One hopes for the Tottenham groundsman's sake that his team haven't adopted the same wild, 1000 yard stare approach to goal celebrations (although I guess we all hope that the don't score full-stop).
Refraining from generalisations about their ability, a quick glance over Famagusta's recent results in this competition suggests that this will not be the walkover many would have predicted when the teams were drawn against each other a few weeks ago. With a mostly fully fit squad to chose from (other than long term absentee's Ledley king and Benoit Assou Ekotto) Jol will still look to take at least a two goal advantage, while conceding no away goals, to Cyprus on the October 4th.
Prediction - Tottenham 3 A Famagusta 1 - Little is known about our Cypriotic opponents but one thing is for sure, the way we have been conceding goals for masochistic fun recently doesn't fill the heart with confidence that we can get that all important clean sheet. That said, Berbatov loves European competition and one suspects he might go out and prove a few doubters wrong this evening. Such is his ability and importance to Martin Jol's team that if he does, Famagusta will probably wish they hadn't bothered to get on the plane. As an aside, I'd love to see Adel Taarabt or Kevin Prince-Boateng (especially the latter) get a least a small run out if things are going well tonight. With a larger choice of substitutes than normally available in domestic competitions I feel that Jol should allow himself the luxury of giving the pair some more experience of first team football.