Lovely show for this in print today.

Monaco for the Champions League draw. Excessive number of English sides is a shame but elsewhere should be some of the best stories in some time - Kairat, Bodø/Glimt, Pafos, Union Saint-Gilloise to name a few.

Serbian anthem, just in case you couldn’t make it out … it’s *very* hostile in here even without most of Albania’s ultras.

These are plastered all over, and around, the U-bahn entrance at Alte Heide.

Lovely show in print too, with beautiful pics by Marthe Mølstre & the usual painstaking - and highly patient! - support from editors/subs/layout. Always a truly collaborative effort.

Today’s piece on the Russian imitation of Zorya Luhansk, and a wider trend Uefa/Fifa are ignoring, is my final one to be published in the Observer. For nearly 11 years it’s been home for some of the pieces & projects that mean most to me. We will all miss it, and its simply exceptional staff, dearly

Peak Champions League vibes here, it must be said.

“Kings of the cup”, say Bayern.

Can Leverkusen do it? And can the fan to my right finish the biggest cigar I’ve ever seen before kick-off?

Very excited to be at De Kuip for the first time, tho this does remind me of when my U15 coach played “Tubthumping” in the dressing room to gee us up for a cup game against the best team in Suffolk and we duly lost 15-0.

Not bad.

Pre-match snacks … biscotto on the menu?

Jurgen Klopp in the driving seat at Red Bull …

Karlsruher SC v HSV Hamburg. Most in here would contend that 2. Bundesliga is the real Bundesliga.